Dark Age Irish

Here is a small warband of Dark age Irishmen.  They are meant to be the Black shield Irish from the Winter King books. I struggled with just painting black shields as I wanted to paint some designs. I got around this by painting some fancy shields, then painting them black then rubbing off the paint.

This represents the warband painting over their war shields with black. After some heavy campaigning and harsh weather, not to mention dips in the sea, some of the black paint has started to wear off.

There's enough Celtic design underneath to show through.

Not many more to do now, just the druid and four skirmishers.

These are a mix of Crusader, Gripping beast plastic and Wargames Atlantic plastics. They have been very enjoyable to paint too.

 

Fomorian Coastal Scenery

Here are some rock pools to add to a coastal game mat. I've added some kelp seaweed to make them a bit more North sea.

There are also a couple of other prints that I plan to use as Fomorian shrines. Places where they honour their dead and stack weapons and armour in tribute.

To save on the greenstuff, I switched to Milliput as it's cheaper for bigger pieces. 

I'll add some more skulls and weapons etc to these bases.

Update: So the Fomorians crawled out of the icy North sea in the night and adorned the pools with their burial goods.

Fomorian skulls and weapons now litter the swallow pools, soon to be covered by the rising tide.

Barnacles were just grit stuck with PVA glue. After the glue was dry I gave the grit another wash of the glue. This should make it stand up to a good dry brushing.

One of the new swirly shields gets placed in the pool. I gave the water a coat of PVA glue just to get rid of the 3D printing texture.

I will add a little more seaweed now the skulls are in.

Update: These models were sprayed black then dry brushed with grey and white. Contrast colours were then painted over the highlighted pools.

To make them look a bit more aquatic and fantasy, I included colours like blue and purple into the palette.

Here we can see a highlighted model before the Contrast paint washes.

Fomorian Shields from Hobbycraft

yesterday I popped to Hobbycraft to see if they had any pieces I could use for the new Midgard rules. I couldn't find any goblets but I did track down the beads needed for heroic deeds.

While I was travelling through the bead tray, I saw one that I thought would make a great Celtic shield.

It has a nice wrap around curve to it but more importantly, sports a nice Celtic swirly pattern.

Ancient Irish warriors fight with the sea devils.

It has a good level of detail to make it look well crafted and ornate. Once I sculpt a boss for the centre I think it will look just the ticket. Nice deep grooves that will catch ink and weathering very well. The swirl too is a very Celtic looking design.

 This tub was £4 which is unbelievable for an armies worth of shields. I might end up using these beads as heroic deeds markers too as they won't roll unlike the rounder ones.

You can get a next size up in container to fill with your beads for £8, again for hundreds of shields this isn't bad. The small tub should be enough though.

FIW using Bonnie Blue Flag Rules

Here are the craziest scribblings of a madman. Having selected BBF for my black powder games, I'm now just trying to down scale it for a skirmish type game. Smaller units but still using multi bases for figures. Units of four seem to work as a base number.

 

Here are the unit sizes in Muskets and Tomahawks that are good to see as a guide. All just early days still just throwing ideas around to see if something sticks.

Drilled Vs irregular base.

Dark age Irish

I have to say after the mad month of painting for the Partizan show, my painting mojo is well and truly fried. So I thought I would ease back into things with some gentle building and sculpting.

These figures are a One Hour Wargames Rules campaign set in the age of Arthur. I was picked for the Black shield Irish and so bought a couple of plastic boxes.
 

Skirmishers.

I thought a few Celtic blankets and cloaks wouldn't go a miss. The kits come with some cloaks, but I thought I'd have a go at making my own.

The leader and hero figure from Crusader miniatures. The Druid was a purchase from eBay.

These are a mixture of plastic kits from Gripping Beast and Wargames Atlantic. It's always nice to have more heads etc to create variety in the units.