Romano-British for Dux Britanniarum

I finished the two groups of elite Hearthguard this week.

Each group consists of three Footsore and three Gripping Beast. The Footsore are a combination of their Early Saxon Thanes and Heavy Infantry command group, whilst the Gripping Beast are the Gedriht from their Early Saxon range. The shields were done with LBMS transfers. If you know the figures you’ll be able to tell the difference, but the two ranges are a good size match and gel well when grouped together.

All of the Gripping Beast models came with empty scabbards, implying that they should be holding their swords. They are all open handed figures but come with a variety of white metal swords and axes. It seemed odd to give a figure an axe if he had an empty scabbard, so I did try to see if I could fill a scabbard but chopping off the hilt of the sword and gluing it into place, but the fit was impossible to get. Instead I embedded the now broken sword into the sabot base as a weapon shattered in combat!

I particularly enjoyed painting the figure in the wolfskin cloak. This was done with a mix of VMC Olive Drab and VMC Ivory, steadily lightening the mix with Ivory before a final highlight of White.

These two were particularly striking figures.  The one on the left is the standard bearer that comes with Footsore’s Early Saxon Chieftain. But I’ve given him a Gripping Beast axe to make him stand out. The one on the right I just like because of the pose.  I think of these two as the leaders of the two groups, even though that has no impact on the game. But they will probably be always the last to fall!

Next up are the two Nobles, the Champion and the Lord.