Men of Harlech, indeed! Up next from me are 32 Welsh spearmen in 28mm from Gripping Beast for use in Saga. This was a big batch I wanted to get done by New Years Day. I succeeded, but never got a chance to post them! They are nice figures, as are most from Gripping Beast. As with all the Dark Age guys I do, they are done with realistic, muted colors for their attire. Here's the obligatory group shot.
22 of them have shields. Ratehr than decals, I went ahead and hand painted them all (along with ten more for the next batch of elite chaps). I really could not figure out what 9th Century Welsh shields should look like, and I really did not want them to look like my Saxon or Viking hordes. So, a lot of them got a cross pattern, though I did quarters for some of them. These are rank and file guys -- I avoided fancy for the most part! I did these 22 plus ten more shields for the next batch. That let me select the best ten for the elites.
Although lower end warriors, they are a step above the archers I recently did (after all, some of them have shoes!). So, they got slightly fancier attire with more variety of decorative patterns.
For some reason, I had a devil of a time with spears and shields easily coming off after being glued. I must've reglued fifty times! And every time, I had to quote Zulu: "You slovenly soldier..." Here's one of the common malefactors with the style of shield I arbitrarily decided would be common among my Welsh.
Another guy, without shield. I suppose, in hindsight, I could've given one over his back, but I was ok with less shield painting!
And another representative chap. He got a hatched design on his tunic. Fancy him.
That's all for this batch. One more small one of elite Welsh and that project is finished and its on to the Irish. With 32 folks at 28mm, that's a cool 160 points.
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Cracking post Keith, and from the offset I have been humming 'Men of Harlech' and can hear the distant banging of spear on shield - Damn funny. Like a train... in the distance. I was sorry to read about the difficulties during the painting and find that sort of thing very frustrating myself - 'slovenly soldiers' have been known to reach orbit when something similar happens here. Delighted that you persevered and you have ammaseed a fine body of men. Kudos also for the hand painted shields that I feel are worthy of recognition so this little lot will bag you a cool 165 points.
Great work I like the colors and style of dress these Welshmen look formidable
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Keith :)
ReplyDeleteI'm loving these Welshmen Keith - great to see hand painted shields and Kudos on these. I'm reminded of a comment that the Welsh love to pray upon their knees and prey upon on their neighbour! Looks like a find raiding party you've got there.
ReplyDeleteI need to remember that!
DeleteGreat looking dark age bunch of warriors!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Bam and there's more your on a roll now
ReplyDeleteSo these would be the baritones then?
ReplyDelete; )
Good to see the Welsh getting some long-overdue attention!
(though I may be the TEENSIEST bit biased...)
DeleteWell done Keith - and I salute your efforts on hand-painting all the shields! I can relate to the “shield popping” issues...sometimes no matter how much !@$#!@ing glue I use, it never works...
ReplyDeleteYou sir, are a Gaelic painting machine!
ReplyDeleteAnother great batch of Datk Age figures kind sir! You know, I would really like to see a groupshot of all these chaps together, that would be awesome I'm sure...
ReplyDeleteI'll be sure to do that at some point!
DeleteGreat looking figures Keith.
ReplyDeleteGood work!
ReplyDeleteLove the shields, Keith! They turned out very good. I also like the variations in cloth and the "fancy" stipes.
ReplyDeleteFailing glue...the orcs I'm painting are old, some more than 30 years. That is an issue with fatigue and the plastic seems to be getting brittle too I hope I don't need to replace hips on them!