My Anglo-Saxon SAGA WIP.

[Eldarion Telcontar]

29/11/11
Just picked a bunch of Anglo Saxon miniatures last weekend at Smoggycon and will be posting pictures here as I go. Progress will be very slow though as I'm at uni in my third year.

My collection to date includes:

King Alfred the Great (GB)
Anglo Danish Warlord (GB)
8 Anglo Danish Huscarls with Dane Axes (GB)
44 plastic Saxon Thegns (GB)
32 plastic Saxon Fyrd (WF)

GB = Gripping Beast.
WF = Wargames Factory.

I was inspired by a player at my local Gaming Club to base my figures on 2 Pence coins. That means I don't have to fret about where to find suitable bases, and best of all they're cheap. It also gives the figures a nice heavy weight, though this might result in chipping when models fall over so I'll have to get a decent Varnish (my pot of GW Matt Varnish is terrible, and has a tendency of chipping off, itself).

First model (King Alfred) is 90% completed, just needs the shoes, leg wrappings painted, a transfer applied to the shield and the base needs doing. I'll post a picture soon, just waiting for my Camera to recharge.

Oh, and one final thing. This lot:

King Alfred the Great (GB)
Anglo Danish Warlord (GB)
8 Anglo Danish Huscarls with Dane Axes (GB)
44 plastic Saxon Thegns (GB)
32 plastic Saxon Fyrd (WF)

- cost me just under £50 (the plastic boxes were on discount by independent traders last weekend). Screw you Gamesworkshop.

King Alfred

[JornOvera]

Very nice! That's a pretty bold model, both in colour and stance. Should stand out nicely on the field! And yeah, I've recently taken an interest in similar miniatures. I was aware there were other minis companies out there, but from what I'd seen previously, none of the models looked that good to me. But Feanor recently pointed some out on a different thread, and I was really impressed. Since then, I've discovered Gripping Beast, and I have to say, I am seriously considering buying a great deal of their stuff. Multi-part Viking kits? Hello cheap, varied, dynamically posed Rohirrim!

I'm not familiar with 'WF'. What's their stuff like?

[Eldarion Telcontar]

I would say that the Vikings are more suited to Dunlendings, Anglo Saxons are imo more suitable for Rohirrim (Rohan is after all an imagination of what the Anglo Saxons would have been like had they made a greater use of Cavalry).

I bought one box of their Fyrd and havn't assembled anything yet. So far I've been doing the Gripping Beast Thegns.

So far I've assembled:

2 spearmen
1 Axeman (with shield)
1 Swordsman (with shield)
2 command groups - two horn blowers and two Draco (Dragon) standard bearers - assembled.

The Gripping Beast models are a pain in the arse to assemble. They're multipart plastic models in the Lord of the Rings scale. Damn fiddly. Some pieces (particularly the shields and spears) get in the way of each other - I often had to go through several spear arms to find one compatible with the shield arm I'd chosen.

The figures (both metal and plastic) come with tabs attached to the models legs, which might look a little odd when you glue sand to the base as there might be a raised lump between the legs (though this isn't noticable with the King Alfred model as hes modelled as standing on a rock, which I painted grey; and on my Anglo Danish Warlord I used a gravel heavy mix of GW sand and gravel so the tab is disguised).

One other criticism (of Gripping Beast) is that the chainmail detail appears quite shallow, and doesn't look like it'll drybrush up very well as it would with most LotR models (at least it is shallow on the metal King Alfred model, havn't painted any plastics yet).

Other than that, I love the models and the details overall are good. The poses are rather static, as though they're in a shield wall (whereas the WGF ones are posed as though they're running or charging). And I don't think you get any Dane Axes with the GB Thegns.

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The WGF Fyrd, I havn't assembled yet and won't do for a while yet (need a new figures case - already have a 100 figure storage deficit with my existing LotR and 40K collections!). But looking at the sprues:

The weapons are THIN - too thin I'd say. They look very fragile.

They come with more choice of weapons than the GB Thegns. The WGF Fyrd get bows, axes, swords, Dane Axes (2 hand), round shields and the Norman/Continental style Kite Shield (Might use these if I ever want to convert Hasting era Huscarls from the GB Thegns). Whereas the GB Thegns get just spears, swords, axes (1 hand) and round shield.

They come with Ball jointed heads. This gives them rather elongated necks, which looks a little odd. But at this price (32 for about £15 - the price I paid at Smoggycon last week as they were discounted), I'm not complaining.

Every single arm, except the 2 hand axe arms (which come in pairs, attached at the fingers) comes seperate from the torsos, giving you a great deal of freedom in posing them. I've heard that this tends to create odd poses, so a little planning is probably necessary so your models don't look weird. Whereas with GB some torsos come with arms attached, and there is less flexibility in possible poses.

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The mold lines seem more noticable with the WGF Fyrd than the GB Thegns, but its no worse than 40K plastics.

Both kits come with torsos and legs as one piece.

GB come with plastic Renedra bases in a variety of shapes - single square, group rectangular, group square etc. At a glance it appears that there aren't enough for the whole box (44 miniatures) but I havn't checked and don't care as I'm basing all mine on 2p coins so I can play SAGA, Age of Blood, and possibly LotR SBG. The coins give the models a nice weight, especially the metal models.

WGF come with no bases.

[Dînadan]

Nice painting, although I'd highly recommend using some GW washes on him to make him look less 'flat'.

[JornOvera]

A nice review Eldarion! And I did consider using the Vikings as Dunlendings, and using Thegns for Rohirrim, but I think they look a bit too similar (from the pictures I've seen so far, anyway), which could make games confusing. I thought that the Celtic Warriors would work nicely as Dunlendings (link below, in case you're unfamiliar). They may not necessarily be accurate to the film, but they'd work as general-purpose evil men too. Although, since you've got a bunch of Thegns now, I don't suppose you'd be able to say how similar they are to the Vikings?

http://store.warlordgames.com/celtic-warriors-104-p.asp

[hithero]

With the WF its best to drill the hole bigger for the neck to go in or they look really stupid. You also cannot get a decent archer pose but it is possible. for the right arm, choose the one with the biggest bend, its in one of the corners. Instead of attaching as you would expect, shave a bit off the inner arm and attach it there instead. The hand will now be at the chin as it should be instead of looking as if he is pulling back a piece of elastic. You will need to round of the flat (where it would have joined) to make the shoulder.

If its not to late I'd still recommend using 25mm round bases as then youcan use them with your LOTR models or WOTR movement trays. They only cost a few pence from Products for wargammers.

[Eldarion Telcontar]

Cheers Hitherto.

I've chosen to base my models on 2p coins as they're easy to get hold of and give the models a nice weight. I've actually got a bag of a few hundred coppers lying around somewhere at home which is handy. The size is very similar to LotR bases, only about 1mm wider in diameter so that shouldn't be a problem for SBG (especially since I no longer play at GW, only at a Gaming Club where people are more relaxed about models and rules etc). And as of this moment I have absolutely no interest in WotR, but if I ever did I would probably make my own movement trays.

I've noticed you posting on the Studiotomahawk Forum. Have you posted any pictures of your own SAGA collections there?

A nice review Eldarion! And I did consider using the Vikings as Dunlendings, and using Thegns for Rohirrim, but I think they look a bit too similar (from the pictures I've seen so far, anyway), which could make games confusing. I thought that the Celtic Warriors would work nicely as Dunlendings (link below, in case you're unfamiliar). They may not necessarily be accurate to the film, but they'd work as general-purpose evil men too. Although, since you've got a bunch of Thegns now, I don't suppose you'd be able to say how similar they are to the Vikings?

http://store.warlordgames.com/celtic-warriors-104-p.asp

Those are some nice miniatures. If you replaced the shields with the more typical Round Shields of the Dark Ages they would do well as Dunlendings. The ones with armour - chainmail and helmets could be used as Dunlending Huscarls (or w.e. the newest Armoured Dunlendings are called).

I'm afraid I can't compare my plastic Saxons to the plastic Vikings (of either manufacturer) as I only looked at the Saxons. I'll have a look at sprue pictures etc online of the Vikings but can't literally compare both kits.

[JornOvera]

Oh, that's ok. Sorry, I mixed up which models you were talking about earlier, which led me to believe you owned a good number of each. I've looked through quite a lot of pictures, but I can't really find any with enough detailed models to compare. Do you know of any online pictures of the Gripping Beast Saxon Thengs' sprues?

[Eldarion Telcontar]

No, I had the same problem myself before I bought them. But there are some good pictures of the plastic Saxons assembled unpainted and painted here.

http://www.grippingbeast.com/webpage.php?PageID=94

[JornOvera]

Ah, splendid. Thanks a lot pal. I'll let you know if I ever get round to using any of these.