Irish SAGA

Gerry, from Gerry Can hobby tips fame, shared his ideas on how to get a good base force from the Wargames Atlantic box.

1 pt – 12 levy javelins (though might mix in slingers for fun)

2pts – 2 x 8 warriors

1 pt – a pack of 8 dags. (aka dogs) and handler.

I then need to turn to the Saga Age of Vikings book for where best to add two more points to make a standard 6 point army.

I have some metal heroes. I have a priest, but he looks a bit too Norman to me, so might kit bash my own.

Quite by accident, whilst picking up minis I liked at Salute, more as a painting project than playing, i have picked up the Gripping Beast Ulf the quarrelsome and the Footsore Ulf the quarrelsome. I can use them as my Warlord or as the hero of myth and legend.

Will wait until I have painted them myself before final judgement. ?

Like cutting blancmange with angel delight, i mixed some 50p sprue Wargames Factory dark age bodies with Wargames Atlantic heads, shields and right arms. This gave me 4 more warriors. I had wondered that with the saxon like clothes and the best shields and helmets whether they would pass as a hearth guard group, but looking at them once built, I think I want some mail or heavy leather armour for my hearth guard.

The arms are slightly more heroic scale than the Wargames Factory bodies. I needed to fill the neck with sprue, because the Wargames Atlantic heads are designed to rest on a flat neck piece, rather than the ball joint style of the Wargames Factory minis. I think once painted they will add some fun variety to my force.

For a look close up at the kit and some build examples…

Unboxing: Dark Age Irish Miniatures | Wargames Atlantic

But for extra help on list builds and to share your paint jobs I started a Facebook page which has over 600 members. ?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1748859648777691/?ref=share

And for general great quality chats on Saga try this YouTube channel.

Decided to keep my kitbashed warriors as warriors and probably use spare Gripping Beast Saxons or Viking Bodies as the basis for some Irish hearthguard later.

I liked the free hand on this guy. The Little Big Men Studios Irish shield designs seem to be Black and Yellow with standard geometric symbols, serpents and gaelic swirls. This was my first freehand attempt in this style.

I think I will just use similar colours but have fun with different designs.

I will be consistent with the basing, a mix of flint chips and woodland floor flock left to dry and then patchy steppes grass on top.

The plaid could be far neater, but as a test piece I think it’s OK.

No tartan this time. Lazy. I know. Hope the shield design makes up for it a bit. ?

Zandri dust trousers, steel legion drab clothes, Snakebite Leather Contrast paint on the leg wraps and belt, Mournfang Brown hair with Jokaero Orange highlights. Almost everything had an Agrax Earthshade wash and used Reikland Fleshshade on the head and hands. The flesh was Bugman’s Glow with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh mix highlight.

Got some solid advice from Gerry and found an old picture from SuetoniusPaulinus (RiP Andy)
Wasn’t sure how to paint this Wargames Atlantic shield.
Andy painted his quite a pale bronze, but a lot of images from museums were a more golden bronze.
I think I decided on a middle ground for mine. Army Painter Weapon Bronze with a bronze and silver mix for highlight. Bit of Reikland Fleshshade to wash and some weathering.

Happy with the colours I chose and the freehand. This has given me plenty of food for thought to create my warriors from the main box.

The last guy is in a red padded ensemble from the catwalks of Normandy most likely. Accessorised with a high status Irish shword and shield. ?

I think I want an 8 man shield and spear warrior unit and another 4 shield and hand weapon minis using the best clothes I can find to finish this warrior unit.

Then I will use the minis with the least clothing etc to make my 12 levy javelin skirmishers. This will be 24 minis from the 30.

Then I want one dog handler, and One kit bash priest. This leaves me another 4 minis to consider what to do with.

I still haven’t dug out my rule book to check on what are actually good options to get the best out of the Irish battle board.

For my hearthguard I will see if the chain mail covered arms from some Gripping Beast sprues look any good on Wargames Atlantic bodies and give the impression that there is a chainmail coat under their over clothes. If that doesn’t look right I will add Wargames Atlantic heads and shields to Gripping Beast chainmail covered bodies. ?

Irish Druid. ?

Was going to make a Christian priest, but realised that I had an animal skull on the sprue and none of the shield designs I had in mind were going to have Christian iconography.

It is a really simple paint job, with some rips added to the shirt but I am happy with it. I might add a severed head to the left hand if I think he is too simple later in the project. Maybe a bloody animal head, just adding some flesh and eyes with green stuff back to the skull on the sprue to show off a recent sacrifice?

My general feeling was that I needed to make this guy more sinister. I thought gore was the way to go.
I picked a head from a Warlord Games Project Z zombie sprue. This head was already set in a hand grasping the hair. The head seems a little more true scale, but the abundance of hair etc means that you barely notice.
I used a scrap of flock on the top of the fist to represent the hair the druid is grasping to carry the head.
Bit of blood on the grass and I am calling this guy done.

Making minis straight from the Wargames Atlantic box this time.
Some more Irish warriors to make a full unit.

Using thinly cut sprue bits to make the edge of the basing tab less defined when I add my basing mix. Then priming Army Painter Leather Brown and making my way through my minis.

More plaid fun.
Mechanicus Standard Grey with Wraithbone lines and Blue Contrast alternating lines, all hit with a Camoshade green wash.
This box is fun to assemble and paint. ?

“Eamon smarten yourself up, straighten your helmet… The enemy warlord is looking at us.” ?
Irish warrior again and by happy accident it looks like he is straightening a slightly ill fitting helmet.
Not sure this particular axe hand sits well on the minis I have tried to use it on thus far.
When I dry fitted it with the arm down it looked wrong, when over head it seems to want to hit the face (on the bodies I have tried so far at least.) Might need to take the arm way back behind the head and see if that is where its meant to rest?

Painting between nightshift rarely produces my best work, but this guy turned out better than I expected.

The gore on the sword was just a piece of the brown spongy leaf litter on the base stuck with PVA and painted with Blood for the Blood God paint.

I enjoyed the freehand on the shield and the plaid looks OK. Tried to make the plaid look more faded with different washes. I painted the orange vertical lines (Jokaero orange) over a Army Painter Leather Brown primer as the base and then used Reikland Fleshshade which dropped the intensity. Then when i completed the Wraithbone vertical and Death Guard Green horizontal lines I used a Citadel Camoshade and then added my Flesh Eater Red Contrast horizontal lines.

Thanks Gerry for the help with this project.

With not a spear in sight, sadly these chaps are not meeting the Saga gaming expectation that they be javelin armed men.

I decided to find ways to put the javelin element into my first point of Irish warriors. I think there’s enough pointy sticks and nods at recent javelin use here now to make it more acceptably wysiwyg. ?

These warriors are clearly keen to drop their javelins and get stuck in, the other unit of warriors I planned to make with spear and shield anyway, but I will try to make the posing look less like a shieldwall and more ready to launch their spears at the enemy.

The levy I have already built and primed were always meant to be javelin levy, with a couple of slingers just for variety so they should be fine.

Levy. 10 with javelins and 2 singers, just for fun and variety.

Here are my first two. These are very plain and most of these guys will be slightly more plain than the warriors to show their lowly levy status.

Disclaimer…. Colour schemes, basing, miniatures posing, etc. are either the products of the painter’s imagination or based loosely on dark age history. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

I have used two slingers when building my levy. Just for variety and enjoy using the different options on the sprue.

This guy talks softly and carrys a big stick.

This levy unit would be ill advised to get into close combat in Saga, but some of the fun poses that jumped out at me from this box just meant that the bare armed shillelagh with javelins in a shield hand was too tempting to miss.

Had fun with this one.

Black Templar Contrast Paint for the tats over a Bugman’s Glow and Army Painter Barbarian Flesh mix and washed with Reikland Fleshshade. Then an Army Painter Barbarian Flesh highlight. The back tat is a stylised serpent and the swirls on his left shoulder were just wild and deliberately unsymmetrical.

All the naked arms seem to look slightly “off” when connected to the body. Even if I cut the ball joint connection piece and glued it direct to the body it would still look slightly off. This arm looks like it was designed to show a person throwing the spear, but the sculpting under the arm looks so soft that it was tougher to paint.

All that said… I am still happy.

For the affordable price point, ease and variety of assembly options and overall look as an army I think it will be great to look at.

Irish levy continued.
Last slinger I made from the box for this project.
Simple repeated pattern on the shield was subtle but nice.

The dark small shields will be enough to differentiate between warrior and levy, but the added element of having my two slingers in the mix is a nice visual cue and makes the levies look less uniform and less well equipped.