Irish SAGA

Irish wolf hounds and handler.

The leash is just the plastic cord that lives in some earphone cables with the copper wire to help the wire survive the trauma of being twisted and thrown around.

The tartan wasn’t very good this time, so bad i revisited it after taking the pics. I made him deliberately darker than most of the others and his clothes more grubby. Having to manage angry dogs can’t be a clean and easy job.

I got a bit of scarring on the right snout of one dog and the other pretty clean. Only two ended up with bloody mouths because for some reason the thought of them all being bloody just didn’t seem aesthetically pleasing.

East paint job; just Army Painter Uniform Grey, Nulin Oil, Celestra Grey dry brush. A bit of Morghast off white around the eye brows and snout, because looking at pics on line this seemed right. To add variety I used other off-whites (Grey Seer, Celestra Grey etc.)

Apart from being shaggy, big and paler around the legs there’s not a lot of patterning to the coat to play with.

Finished off the full Saga point of 8 hounds and a handler.

The remaining 2 dogs in the box have been put to good use on a hero’s base.

This looks fairly cool in the end, but I had an arduous night fighting with this Warlord / Hero.

This Ulf the Quarrelsome Footsore mini had no mold lines worth attention, was stuck to the base with super glue between the Wargames Atlantic dogs without the shield.

The Mistakes

• I thought I had stuck the metal model to the plastic base effectively, but after he fell off on two occasions during basing I realised that I had not filed the bottom and a little node of metal kept the model from glueing flat. The first time he fell off was down to me not dry fitting the shield effectively, forcing the shield into place and the dog stayed firmly in place and Ulf popped off. “Dry fit twice, cry less.”
• I painted the models but rushed into basing too early and grass was sticking to the paint job.
• I was frustrated at the falling off the base, put down a load of superglue and used the Army Painter activator spray. I didn’t realise that this solvent would make the paint tacky and ended up having to do a load of touch ups to the shield and the dogs’ backs.
• Super glue, PVA and activator spray equals nasty white streaks where the mixture converges and dries. To cover up a nasty white patch in the grass and help secure Ulf to the base I used a big piece of Flint. This also helped put a touch of weight on the back of the base, though the balance of the model wasn’t that bad to begin with.

Chevy and Cuan with their brighter shields make that 8 levy, so just 4 to go.

Realising that Levy die in their droves in Saga, given their low armour and not generating a lot of dice in a fight, I must spend less time on these minis. If they will only be in a game for half a battle they shouldn’t have hours of tartan and tattoo work thrown at them. ? Hopefully finish the last 4 soon and call another point of Irish complete.

I liked the shield design but over weathered it sadly. The simple lines suggesting wings and the bird head are nice, but the splayed lines to represent the tail are under the dust and mud.

Though I know that plaids and tartans weren’t uniform and as family specific in the Dark Age, but I have done a different pattern for every model. I have decided on which colours and patterns I prefer and might try to stick to one or two for my next few minis.

Scar on face, serpentine and nature based shields and otherwise a very basic scheme for these fellas.

These two make it 11 levy and only 1 to go.

Moving on to using spare Gripping Beast Vikings to make some Irish Hearthguard minis and another point of Wargames Atlantic Irish Warriors.

So…

Painted

1 Druid (Wargames Atlantic, WA)

1 handler and 8 wardogs (WA)

1 unit of warriors (8 minis – 4 WA and 4 Wargames Factory)

1 warlord / hero (metal Footsore with WA dogs)

1 unit of levy (12 minis, all WA)

Planned

1 point of warriors (8 WA minis)

1 point of Hearthguard (4 Gripping Beast minis)

Thanks for the encouragement. Loving this project because it has a definite ending. Once I have made an army from primarily just the Wargames Atlantic box I will call this done. I have added a Footsore Metal, 4 Wargames Factory bodies and looking at 4 more Gripping Beast bodies at the moment, but I still feel in essence the Wargames Atlantic box is doing the heavy lifting in the army.

If I stick just to the box you can easily make…

12 levy, 16 warriors, 8 dogs, a dog handler and a warlord and still have two dogs left over. That is 4 points with a warlord making it a feasible entry level army.

With my druid, my planned Gripping Beast Hearthguard and a metal Gripping Beast hero I will have a 6 points Irish Army with a choice on how to field it. Any purchases onward will be manageable because I would be looking at my elites (alternative heroes or more Hearthguard) rather than another dozen levy.

Irish Hearthguard kitbashed from a Gripping Beast Viking body, with Wargames Atlantic spear point, sword, head and shield.

Enjoyed making this one. Gerry head looks good. Dab of blood on the head perhaps wasn’t needed, but there was something about the face paint job I didn’t like and felt a bit of battle damage would add some character.

Another Irish Hearthguard kitbashed from a Gripping Beast Viking body, head, sword and shield with spears with a Wargames Atlantic sword scabbard and cloak.

The head is from the command sprue so is often used as a Warlord, but once I chopped the pigtails a bit the cloak seemed to suit him.

The shield design is much like the Footsore warlord in the project earlier, to help tie this mini in as a Hearthguard. All the Hearthguard are going to have an element of grey plaid and similar shield design.

Irish Hearthguard kitbashed from a Gripping Beast Viking body, with Wargames Atlantic spear and using the attached hand, sword, head and shield.

The shield was deliberately not symmetrical with the swirls, but will have to practice some symmetrical ones on other shields just to prove to myself that I could if I wanted to. ?

Deliberately choosing brighter less common blues and reds for the Hearthguard also helps show off their improved status.

Really happy how the unit looks in the end.

Now just need to build and paint a metal hero and 8 Wargames Atlantic warriors.

This is the Gripping Beast metal Ulf The Quarrelsome. I think I like the Footsore metal more if it was a direct preference comparison.

Sadly I think the underside of the cloak had the better plaid effort but it has turned out OK.

Glad to finally be back into this project. I am still building the last 3 minis, have painted these 3 and have two primed up.

After a week or two away from painting I feel the plaid on my first attempt was poor, the second better and the last great, but I over washed the last one and you only notice the pattern up close.

On the last guy with the blond hair…
No idea why he felt the need to take a targe/buckler smaller shield and a standard shield on his back.
No idea why he has an animal skull on his shield. Though it does tie into his druid’s iconography.
A back story will naturally develop, but if you want to throw in suggestions that would be great. ?

Making the strap for the shield was a pain, but I didn’t just want to put it magically on his back with no support or just a painted belt. It was a piece of headphone wire supporting flex. Some headphones have only a small amount of copper, but with a supporting cord to hopefully keep the copper from snapping when wound too tightly. That flex is nice and thin and good for small scale projects like this. After dry fitting several tumes I had to secure it at the shoulder with superglue and let it dry, then similarly anchoring the syrap to the back and then finally to unit in the middle on the chest.

Using a fineliner pen to get the gist of these shield designs down and then following up with paint. Seems quite a handy way of getting it done. Probably cheating to some die hards, but I’ll face the reckoning if I have to. ?

Got the last 3 minis of this unit built so hopefully be done by the weekend. ?

Also used Halfords red plastic primer on these and I really like the lovely matt coat it gives.

I like the fleshy colour of the clothes on the cloaked guy. It was a mix of Bugman’s Glow and Steel Legion Drag.

The grey of the beardy guy’s clothes is the Nighthaunt blue grey technical paint and a Nulin Oil wash.

Really loving my new red Halfords plastic primer spray.

I painted the face with Army Painter Barbarian Flesh and decided to dry brush over the majority of the model with the flesh colour in downward strokes; like a zenith type effort.

Then I covered the clothing in Aggaros Dunes Contrast Paint. The effect gave me great high and low areas and I didn’t bother highlight anything. I just went into the plaid twinned lines up and down and left to right. Really fast and nice earthy dyed clothing colour.

The unit has come together quite well.

The shared clothing pallet, basing and shield colours has really helped.

No idea if an army with this few Hearthguard can be effective, but my Saga journey has never been about minmaxing or even winning.

Army completed. Well… maybe a kitbash Brian Boru for later. I have added a handful of other bodies to the army, but I still have 3 bodies left in the Wargames Atlantic Irish box. Plenty of bits and bobs left over.
I currently have:

A druid,

A hero,

A warlord,

One unit of levy,

Two units of warriors,

One unit of warhounds

And one unit of Hearthguard.

Thank you Avernos for your guidance and encouragement throughout. Thanks to Pundancer too for the mentions on the unofficial hobby hangout. Thanks to everyone who smashed in my buttons. And thanks for the golden button earlier in the project.

I have been looking into the history and myth around Brian Boru, King of all Ireland.

Most miniature ranges have Brian seated and old. This reflects that most ranges expect people to be acting out The Battle of Clontarf, where he was anywhere between 70 and 75 years old.

I looked up some images and found a stylised Celtic lion’s head that was apparently on a ring owned by Brian. I am going to use this as his shield design.

Apparently, as a general rule of myths from that era, that a man is gifted longer life and the associated wisdom if he is graced by God. There’s little doubt he was too old to be leading from the front, but perhaps the occasional suggestion that he was between 80 and 90 might be to support that heroic tradition and promote his devout faith.

I also see his death story as potentially biased by faith. If he just ended up being caught in a fight with a far younger man as the enemy fled in an unexpected direction and into his camp, that’s an inauspicious end to a hero graced by God. If he was basically martyred, cut down in prayer by a vicious pagan, it becomes a different narrative. I have seen some art work of his end in a nightshirt or surplus kneeling, praying as a Barbarian looking guy stands over him. We’ll never know how he actually died, but for my Brian mini there’s at least going to be suggestion that he tried to defend himself and will be dressed for battle.

I have chosen some Victrix Viking and Anglo-Dane command sprue pieces I picked up cheaply a while ago for the main mini. Then use Wargames Atlantic shield and sword scabbard to tie him to the rest of the force.

Paint job wise I will be making his clothes fairly colourful as there seemed to be a tradition that not only the colour of garment helped dictate your place in society, but also the number of colours on display.

I will have him grabbing up his shield and a Dane axe to defend himself. As this is probably not a wise choice of weapons for an elderly king it gives a nod to how rushed into action he is. Just behind him I will have a Bible resting on a slab of stone that he has been interrupted in reading.

My kitbash Brian of Boru.
I used the Victrix Anglo-Dane and Viking command sprues as the base, with a Wargames Atlantic shield and scabbard. I didn’t have any scabbards left with the sword hilt, so I cut a hilt from the command sprue and glued it on top.
One of the heads on sprue had a headband. Not sure if it was meant to be fabric or metal, but I painted it Army Painter Weapons Bronze to be his crown.
The arms are meant to be joined on the axe and posed across the chest, but after some cutting and gluing I managed to get the pose I wanted and added the shield.
The flint stones took some picking and balancing, but once I was happy with the selection I PVAed them in place.
The cloth across the top stone is just a piece of PVA coated wetwipe.
The bible is made from cereal box card for the cover and jiffy bag squares as pages.

Managed to get the symbols online, printed them out, already had some red blank dice and PVA glued them up in no time.

Never say never. This project started out as an experiment into whether the Wargames Atlantic box could get you a serviceable Irish Saga force and has become the story of my Irish force as it expands a little. I wanted to make a Footsore purchase to get a cool Black Douglas not-Salute miniature that I wanted. These seemed like a good option and feel that I need some more elite models in my warrior and levy heavy force.

Primed with Army Painter Leather Brown then used Steel Legion Drab on the tunic. I used Mornfang Brown as a base for the plaid trews and Vallejo Brown Violet green for the cloak. Heavily washed the cloak with Athonian Camoshade. Used Rhinox Hide for the hair and mustache.

Quite a bland start to these 4 minis, but that was kind of intended.