Darrell H Thematic Byzantines, Varangian Guard (130 points)

Many years ago, under the influence by two exceptional painters and modellers at the Edinburgh Club, South East Scotland Wargamer Club (SESWC), after much study of their work I came to realise that the secret to creating interesting dynamic looking units was to go for as much variation and dynamism as possible and to limit in as much is possible, the repetitiveness of the miniatures! I won't jump too deep into that concept except to throw in a few pictures below..... 

Anyway, with that in mind, as I started to clean up these Varangian Guards and ordered some extra sword and axe hands from Gripping Beast. With a quick-ish hand swap, I think these have reduced the level of homogeneity in the unit to make each miniature more interesting and the unit feel more "alive".

The Anglo Danish unit below is a nice example of how I strive for variation and to create as much dialogue between the miniatures as is possible with my toys. To have the miniatures "talk" to one another. There are many manufacturers in the unit which at first glance oat the list one might not think would necessarily fit together; Wargames Foundry, Footsore Miniatures (Matthew Bickley), Footsore Miniatures (Bill Thornhill), Gripping Beast, and Long OOP Gripping Beast so the variation was easy enough to create by using the various manufacturers. This was not the case with my Varangian Guard units where all the miniatures were from Gripping Beast's Thematic Byzantine range ergo the variation in weapons option.

                             

With this in mind here's what I managed with the simple hand swaps for the Varangians.....

(Yeah, I know, two of the same miniatures has the same sword but I was having an off day!)

All the miniatures in the Varangian Guard unit are from Gripping Beast except the standard bearer to the right which is from the new exciting "fantasy" venture from Colin Patten, Ragnarok miniatures. Well worth checking out if you are interested in wargaming with the Norse or indeed are interested in Tolkien!

Unit from a more or less level angle:

From a slightly higher angle:

I put quite a lot of work into the miniatures so wanted to show the bases off. They have been based for (ye olds) Warhammer Ancient Battles but could be arranged to fit quite a few different rules systems- even if that process might be a bit fiddly. 

It might not look it but the border on the captain's cloak was a lot of fun to paint up. 

I have made a point of going a little further than normal than I ordinarily might do when painting a whole unit by adding little details such as the borders and stripes on some of the trousers etc.

All the banners and shields are from Little Big Man Transfers. It would have been lovely to have had the time to paint the shields and the banners freehand but unfortunately this isn't possible in the time allotted for the AHPC and taking into account the speed I paint LOL.

So, at 5 points per 28mm miniature I have that at 120 points(?)

These Varangians are just wonderful Darrell.  Really appreciating the time to do the weapon hands switches to give more variety.  And the time invested on the pant stripes and tunic/cloak borders.  These figures really come to life under your brushwork and I'm bumping you up a few points to reflect the work involved.  Now I have to get lost over at Ragnarok's kickstarter.....