Crusader Miniatures Anglo-Saxon Command

The finished Anglo-Saxon command stands, foot and mounted. As mentioned previously, these are sold as King Harold by Crusader Miniatures, and like all Crusader figures they paint up pretty quick and easy (the foot banner bearer is a Foundry figure but equally easy to paint). 

I'm not convinced by the historicity of the surcoat on "Harold", or the fluted helmet worn by his mounted banner bearer, but it is what it is I suppose.

The flags came from a seller on eBay. They come attached to long brass spears, but they're made of very thick and glossy card, almost like the stuff playing cards are made from. I removed them from the brass spears, photocopied them onto regular paper and then tarted them up a bit with paint so that the green field wasn't monotone.

Originally I was going to use these to represent Eadric, the Thegn who governed the lands on which St Gurnard's abbey was situated, and to whom Osbert acted as confessor and general sounding board. On reflection, although I like the figures, he just doesn't quite seem right to me. Eadric's character as described in the chronicle is impishly free thinking, but also merciless and savage on the battlefield, whereas this chap seems a bit poncy. I'll need to find some other figure to represent the great Thegn, so for that reason I've given this chap a fairly generic Anglo-Saxon standard rather than Eadric's dragon (or Harold's fighting man). I'm certainly pleased with how these came out, so he'll definitely see service as some un-named Saxon lord.

Here he is, inspiring his troops on horseback.....

....and on foot. 

Fixing Fenrir

After I cleared my throat he addressed me thus: "Ah, brother, God's blessing it is you who has found me deep in thought and not some miscreant landed from the ships of Fergus mac Urnach." I asked if he waited on a hound which hunted in the forest, but he shook his troubled head. "Brother, do you remember last May eve when Odd Brynjarsson's raiders burned the old church, but one of his men we captured before the rogue put to sea again?"

This was hardly an event that I would soon forget. "And I also remember that the wretch was himself burned to death in imitation of his desecration of God's house," I said, hoping that reminding Eadric of this happy post-script to those events might cheer him. But still his brow remained furrowed. 

"The man was kept secure in my hall before his death," he said, "and I spoke at length with him." Oh, how like Eadric, this! "He felt no guilt or shame for his actions, but rather an impious pride. He told me that he gave no heed to the calamity that awaited his soul on death, as he gave a church as much importance as a milking parlour." Now it was my turn to scowl into the gloom, but Eadric continued. "He told me a great tale, about his gods and their fate, bound for destruction at the hands of a great wolf and a wyrm that encircles the earth." 

"Pagan nonsense, lord," I passed sentence with confidence, but Eadric was of a questing mind and not to be dissuaded by rhetoric when gripped by convoluted thoughts.

"Brother," he said and gestured to the darkness within the forest,"the world is vast and so little of it known. Can anyone say with a certainty what lies within the dark places of the earth? Are we so sure of ourselves that we can say what lurks in the waste places from which such men as Odd Brynjarsson hail?" 

As Eadric's confessor I had no desire to see his mind lead him into falsehoods or apostasy. I gave a silent thanks to God, therefore, for the cast-iron argument I had to dissuade him from his darkening thoughts. "Lord," I said, "such fantastic beasts as you speculate on do not exist, and I say this with absolute certainty. Our own abbot (God send aid for his debilitating pustulence) has calculated with some exactitude the precise and exact measurements of Noah's ark, and having done so we now know that the space afforded in that noble vessel was sufficient only for those creatures with which we are familiar - cattle, swine, deer and such like - and none other. So you see that it is an impossibility for giant wolves or wyrms to exist, as well as those fanciful creatures of the orient the gullible are apt to believe in, such as elephants and hippopotami." 

Eadric gave the matter some thought whilst staring at me. At last he rose and thanked me for my words and said that he was much comforted by them. I must admit I was not convinced by the sincerity of his response and fear still for him - speculations of this sort are not conducive to soundness and quietude of the mind - such peace can only by found in facts and logic."

I bought this giant wolf, sold by Bad Squiddo Games as Fenrir, the great wolf from Norse mythology. Although I spent quite a lot of time trying to get an authentic wolf-like colour scheme on the pelt I made the mistake of shading it afterwards with Army Painter Strong Tone Ink which basically made the whole thing go brown.

I tried to rescue it with drybrushing with only limited success, but at the time I just said, "fuck it," and moved on. However, Australian dark age enthusiast Jack Sarge did a smashing job on his wolves so I was inspired to do a bit of repainting. I painted in a more varied pelt colour and then shaded it with oil washes.

I think he looks a lot better now, but I'm not sure that he's really big enough to swallow Odin whole. 

Thegn Eadric command stand

When trying to recreate the world of St Gurnard's in 28mm tabletop games, there is an implied requirement to provide little metal and plastic (but mainly metal, right?) representations of all the many personages which Osbert's chronicle mentions. Some of these, like the Godwinson brothers and King Edward are well known to us, while others, such as Aeschild and Odd Brynjarsson, are unique in the historical record to Osbert's chronicle.

Someone who features frequently in Osbert's work is his lord, Thegn Eadric, to whom Osbert acted as confessor and in which role he encountered so many of the figures who influenced English history in the C11th. It might seem that having his name and his life so closely detailed might aid with the identification of the physical site of St Gurnard's and corroborate Osbert's narrative. Unfortunately, Eadric is a fairly common Anglo-Saxon name and so this has created more problems rather than less, as over the years different academics have proposed different sites for the Abbey, each fairly plausible but giving rise to many unpleasant scholarly feuds.

This command stand has been my usual tabletop representation of Eadric. He and his banner-bearer were created with leftover bits of Gripping Beast plastic kits. However, it seems to me that his helmet style is slightly out of date for an C11th Thegn who would probably be wearing the latest style of armour.

I've had this Crusader Miniatures version of Harold Godwinson knocking about for a while. I'm not sure about the historicity of the surcoat but I like the figures and it gives me the opportunity to have foot and mounted versions of Eadric. 

So, that's the plan. I will need to rustle up figures to carry his banner, of course. Osbert only mentions in passing that it consisted of a dragon's head so hopefully I can create one which is different enough to the one carried by the old figures that both can be used on the tabletop without confusion.

Victrix Anglo-Saxon Test

The Victrix test figure spent a lot longer on the "to do" pile than I had intended, as is always the way.

I think he came out OK. The details on the figure are nicely done and very refined, although the poses aren't really customisable in any useful sense, and I wouldn't want lots of this pose (or the others on the sprue) in an army. I replaced his plastic spear with wire. I have an idea to use him to represent Leofric, a freeman Osbert frequently mentions in his manuscript, in which case he'll be incorporated onto a command stand as a standard bearer.

The gambeson really marks him out at an C11th sort of chap. To be honest I've no idea how accurate such an item would be for an Englishman at the time of the Conquest, but it certainly makes one think Early Medieval rather than Late Antiquity.

If he is going to represent Leofric then a counterpart figure in "civilian" clothes will have to be sought out....

Axe, and ye shall receive.

Hot off the painting table is this unit of 24 Anglo-Saxons with Dane axes. For infantry I'm leaning towards units of 24 figures in three ranks of eight. This looks like a good sized unit to me, and makes a nice target to aim for when painting. 36 figures might be even better, but I think they'd be a bit unwieldy on the tabletop unless you had a huge 12 x 8 foot table or something.

Although I normally base figures individually on 20mm square bases, I've decided to base command figures together. In Warhammer Ancient Battles, and some of its successor games, the unit champion, musician and standard bearer always die last so there wouldn't be a requirement to remove them individually. Additionally, multi-based figures are just easier to deal with.

Most of these figures are Saxon Miniatures (now absorbed into the Warlord Games mega-corp) and Gripping Beast and therefore sculpted by Colin Patten, the doyen of dark age figures. However, a few Foundry figures have also crept in so that the unit is composed of all unique poses. The Foundry figures are quite tubby in comparison and have clearly been enjoying rather too many pre-battle feasts.

Tubby Foundry on the left, slimjim Saxon Miniatures on the right

From the back you can see a number of the figures have kite shields. Very C11th!

Pulp Figures Anglo-Saxons Painted

Pulp Figures Anglo-Saxons with paint on them. The figures were very cleanly cast with minimal mould lines, and the deep details were easy to paint. The texture of their mail is very nicely done.

The shield arms are held a bit higher than some other makes meaning that the faces are partly obscured by the shields themselves. I did find slightly smaller shields for them in my stash but the difference wasn't really noticeable in the end. Because of the shields obscuring so much I painted them separately, normally I stick them on first before painting

Only half of them got cloaks, they will be part of the veteran unit I have in mind; the others will be dotted around other units so that their monopose nature is disguised a bit.

Here's a close up of a few - despite all basically being the same figure the variety of interesting helmet styles disguises this a bit, along with different shield patterns.

There are some nice details on the figures, like the buckling up the back of their hauberks.

Even the cloaks I added didn't come out too bad.

Shields

"...the guilty parties are Ailred the carpenter and Eoward the blacksmith, both men whose labour is required for the arming of those newly arrived who are destined for the shieldwall. Yet both men were seen in recent days partaking of ale when they should have been labouring with adze and hammer. It is not the first time that men required for battle have had their fitness to do so fall foul of these two miscreants, whom I suspect to be foul sodomites so often are they in each other's confidence and partaking of drink in each other's company.

"Do they not know that the ships of Fergus mac Urnach have been spotted off our shores in recent days? This is no time to indulge in perverted lusts or drunkenness - to work, wretches!"

A slight delay has unfortunately manifested itself with these Pulp Figures Saxons. A delay manifested in the addition of their shields, or more specifically in the tiresome task of painting of their designs....

Michael Perry's knob

Jumping forward in time slightly, to the days of St. Gurnard's gotterdammerung, I fancied painting some cavalry and dug out a pack from Perry Miniatures 1st Crusade range, so who are basically Normans.

One of the ball-aches of 28mm dark age miniatures is gluing in spears and shields which are usually separate items. No matter what glue you use there's always the risk of them getting knocked off.

I was pleased to see Perry trying something to alleviate this problem, namely a protrusion, or knob, on each figure's arm, and shields with a hole in the middle. 

By sliding the knob into the hole, so to speak, the knob becomes the shield boss and this makes for a much more secure attachment than just sticking a whole shield to the arm. An innovation which goes some way to counterbalancing the usual rough casting from Perrys. 

I handpainted a banner for them. The Normans, being practical souls, don't require fancy knotwork animals like other Dark Age armies, relying on straightforward Christian iconography, bless them. The surface wrinkled a bit, I think I started furling it before it had fully dried. Like a fool.

Here are the dastardly continental scumbags, riding about England's fair land as if they own the place.

Veteran spearmen

Here are the completed veteran spearmen with their greenstuff cloaks. I did half the Pulp Figures pack, leaving the other half cloakless. Those will be dotted around other units so that their monopose nature is disguised.

The basic cloak shape added. The fur was done previously.

My initial view about the order to add the fur and body of the cloak was wrong, it turned out that adding a cloak after the fur was much more hassle than the other way around. The figure already stuck to a base and with a spear is the one where I did the cloak first. He definitely was the easiest to do, and looks the best. 

Second stage, bulking out a bit.

I added the basic shapes of the cloaks first, then once that had cured, I added the deeper folds with small sausages of greenstuff which were smoothed into the surface of the cloaks.

In the photos you can really see some roughness in the surface. The greenstuff was curing very fast and I was still working it when it was really a bit too hard. I could try some of the liquid greenstuff that GW sell to try and smooth them out. Or just trust to the painting to disguise any imperfections. Ah, well, it's all a learning experience.

And so to paint.

Pulp Figures Anglo-Saxons

Last year, Bob Murch of Pulp Figures posted on Facebook an Anglo-Saxon spearman he had sculpted. It wasn't intended that it join his range, but he said he would send a pack of fourteen casts with variant heads to anyone who PayPalled him the required funds.

Monopose, but with 14 head variants. Very crisp castings.

They've been sitting around since last summer and I thought it was about time they got some paint. I also want to add cloaks to some of them, as I have in my mind the idea of a unit of grizzled veteran spearmen, and I think giving them bear and wolfskin cloaks would make them stand out a bit on the battlefield. Most of the helmets on these figures are a little earlier in style than C11th English would probably have worn, so although strictly speaking anachronistic it fits with the idea of older, more experienced warriors.

The only downside to the figures is the very thick shields they'e supplied with. Almost as unwieldy as the ones Foundry supply, but fortunately I have a pack of Crusader Miniatures spare shields to use.

The first cloaks go on. It's not that hard to do - I just rolled out some greenstuff to something approximating scale thickness and cut a cloak shape out of it. The animal skin texture is teased out with a toothpick. After doing the first two I realised it would be more sensible to add the animal fur section first. Adding it on top of an existing cloak will make the shoulder area absurdly thick. The other two might have to live with mere woolen cloaks. I'll accentuate the folds with more greenstuff once the first layer cures.