From StuartL - Qui étaient les Bretons? (Who were the Bretons?) - 295 Points

As part of this challenge, I am aiming to get some larger forces done as well as the various bits and pieces for the Squirrel duel. This was one of the larger sets I had ready to go. In all these took me about 2 weeks, half the time I had expected and way less time than they probably would have done without the challenge to motivate me.

I started playing Saga nearly 2 years ago and have Saxon and Viking forces already. I bought a few boxed sets of the Conquest Games plastic Normans a while ago and started building up a force for them. After a friend gave me some extra Normans, I realised that I had more than enough for a second force, so I built them as Bretons. In Saga Normans are the go to choice for heavy cavalry. The Bretons use the same rules more or less, but are more lightly armed skirmishers, preferring the harass the enemy with javelins rather than run them down with spears.

To lead my force, I have a Warlord and 2 units of Hearthguard. These are the best units in the army and can generally be expected to unleash a shower of sharp pointy sticks on anyone that gets too close to them. To further differentiate my Normans from my Bretons, I have used round shields on all of the Bretons (the Normans get the more recognisable Kite shields).

The Bretons were based in Brittany on the North West coast of France, but as the name may imply, they originated in Britain. When the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain, some of the locals felt that there were too many foreigners entering from Europe and decided to leave, a kind of Brexodus if you will. Mainly between 450 and 600 AD waves of British people crossed over the channel to what is now Brittany and settled there.

Next up is a unit of warriors. These form the core of the force, offering a mobile unit capable of dealing with most enemy troops on an equal footing and scarpering away when it looks a bit dangerous. If need be I can also split them into two units of hearthguard if I want to play a bigger game. 

For all of my Saga forces, I try to create a fairly uniform look, while keeping them visually distinct by limiting my palette. I use 3 colours for the tunics, 3 different colours for the leggings/under-tunics and 3 for the shields. In this case, Vallejo's Hull Red, Russian Uniform and Iraqi Sand for the main tunic colours, Ultramarine, Warm Grey and Mephiston Red (GW) for the leggings/under tunics and Ultramarine, Mephiston Red and White for the shields. By mixing them up, you get a cohesive looking force while maintaining an irregular look.

These 8 warriors on foot are my defensive troops. Armed with spears instead of Javelins, they are in the army to take and hold an area while the more mobile troops cause havoc on the enemy lines from a distance.

All of the shields are hand painted, it takes a while and maybe doesn't look as nice as transfers, but I like the chance to be creative and again, create an irregular uniformity to the force. On some of the shields I have painted small Christian crosses. The original British people who made the crossing to France may well have been Pagans early on in the migration period, but there were certainly Christians among them during the later part. As these models are all from the 1066-ish era, they would all have been devout Christians and I wanted to represent that on the tabletop.

My final unit is a group of javelin armed levies. These are a weaker unit and I'll probably use them as a speed bump to guard the flanks of my more valuable troops from my opponent's melee units. I have very low expectations for them based on similar units in my Saxon force. If they manage to cause a casualty or two, that's enough for me.

These are the only models that aren't from Conquest, being instead from Gripping Beast's Dark Age Warriors box. As figures go, they are pretty simple, but they do the job of looking like ragged peasants forced into service.

Some of the models have small water effects on their bases as I wanted to do something to make them even more visually different from my other forces. It was my first time trying to use basing material to build a hollow area for the water effects, but I think they came out ok. 

And this is the army as a whole. They were a lot of fun to build and paint, and I hope they will frustrate my opponents as they dash forward, lob a volley of javelins and then retreat back to safety. They seem like a tricky force to use, but fun.
I am a big fan of plastic kits and one of the best parts about them is being able to kit-bash models together from a variety of sources. Sadly Conquest made some design decisions that makes their kit incompatible with other makers like Gripping Beast or Fireforge, which is a shame as I would have loved to be able to do some head swaps. If you have the time and the patience, green stuff and a sharp pair of clippers would allow you to mix and match parts, but as I wanted to have these ready to go for the challenge, I just built them straight from the box. They still look great and I'm happy with them. Maybe when I get round to my Normans I'll have the extra time to convert them a little.

In total, there are 17 cavalry and 20 infantry, which I believe is 270 points and an extra point towards my Squirrel tally.
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Well done, Stuart, and a cracking second submission for the week. I'm throwing in 25 extra points for the painted shields as well, terrific job!

Ev