The Coppergate Helmet

Alanicus my old Roman rival has been up in York for the Viking festival this week. He sent me these lovely shots of the Coppergate Helmet. Soak up all that Dark age goodness.

It has a Christian blessing on it so is reckoned to be late 8th Century.

Notice the security guard who is posted next to it all the time.

 

Games Day

Rupert's Blew coats got together again today for another day of gaming. I was very pleased because after years of hearing about it, I finally got to play a game of Dux Belorum. 

I enjoyed it very much and the rules really seemed to make sense and reflect a true Dark Age battle. The mechanic of placing tokens on units to aid them really was fun and made you plan ahead.

I did like how the shield walls twisted and kicked across the battlefield. A nice set of rules I thought and one I can finally tick off my bucket list.

The epic battle came down to basically an even match right at the end, with two units of levy fighting eachother. I lost of course, but even that gave my bard a good story to sing about. 

The other game I got to play was a large Donny Brook battle, with different players with a unit each.

The Spanish fort bustling with activity.

My corn and wheat fields got another outing and this time acted as jungle undergrowth. Best half an hour I ever spent cutting up that plastic door mat. I must pick up another when I see one. Here they can be seen trampling through a wheat field made by Two Sheds Fred. These too are worth they're weight in gold and always get used somewhere in the day's events.

Royal Scots approach the monastery and push on through the gardens.

My trusty unit of red coats open fire onto the Spanish fort.

Early Saxon Reference 2

 I took these beautiful images from a Dark ages Facebook page for reference latter on with painting. Thank you Jack Sarge for posting them.

Dux Bellorum Saxons

 Remember these guys, well they finally made it to the flocking stage. Like the ECW forces, I based these as if on a rough field so hit them with the layers of brown flock. I was hoping the long green grass will make up for the lack of base detail. Although saying that, I did sprinkle a few pinches of rough sand onto the glued base before the flock, this did give it some stoney detail. This seemed to work well so next time I will add a little more.

I want my units in Dux Bellurom to be quite large so I increased the base size to a whopping 120x80mm. This should give enough room for nice dioramas and cavalry formations. I love this era and it’s nice to have burning away on the back burner.

 I still need to touch up the banner a remove the grass from the figures, but now they are done and can make room for others.

 

Early Saxon Reference

Early Saxon Reference

Just some quick reference pictures taken from the inter-net. Researching new eras is really fun and can be full of surprises. I am amazed at the range of colours used and the bright spear shafts will be a nice touch to my rather drab army.

Arthur takes a break

The Warlord Arthur takes a break and enjoys a squirrel lunch, times are hard...

Making Early Saxons from Old

 West Wind Saxon heads really come into their own when trying to re age these figures.

 Since taking these pictures I have sculpted furs and cloaks. Nothing says early Saxons more than a cloak and some fur on the shoulders. I think it sets them apart from the later look, something tells me I will be going crazy with the green stuff.

 Here are some of my old painted Essex minis, the bare headed ones are fine but the nasal helmet guys will have to be changed.

A large base with around twelve figures on it, I intend to use Footsore miniatures for the leaders and command as they are some of the best sculpts on the market. My old Saxon figures will back these up.

Sutton WHO?

Early Saxons

This new year I have been playing around with getting a base of Early Saxons painted up for Dux Bellorum. I have around a hundred old Saxon figures from Essex Miniatures I painted back in 1998. A lot of these figures are for a late Saxon ( Hastings) range but can be easily used for early stuff too. I have bought some extra heads from west wind productions and I'm in the middle of cutting off the nasal helmets and replacing them with earlier designs. Single heads are great for conversion work and West wind do a nice range, they will come into their own now there are lots of plastic ranges to play around with.
 Anyway, I thought I would give you all a heads up as I have been sitting on these old Saxon figures for a while with no chance of using them. I did use them once many years ago in the Roman campaign as Germans, but that was the only time.

I'm not going to stress out about painting another army with these guys, I've given myself the task of doing one base (one war band). This way I won't start feeling bad when other projects start to mount up. I see this as a very long on going project I can dip in and out of when the mood takes me. It's nice to revamp the old figures and get them into units I will use.

One of the main pulls for this project is the chance to do a large unit on a single 120mm x 80mm base. I had planned to do the units on the standard 120 x 60 bases but looking at them it didn't give me enough space. I'll do one and we'll see how it turns out.