The Saga of Symbaroum

The Godinja (I think it’s a soft J, because the makers are Swedish) Clan are the southern most of the three “northern clans”. However they’re still far enough away from the Ambrians that their influence has not really touched on them. The Godinja are renowned as craftsmen and in particular make fine jewelry and ornate masks that many barbarians treasure. They also claim Elven heritage and it is claimed that their current clan chief has Elvish blood in his veins.

To try and maintain consistency with the previous two clans (Enoai and Gaoia) I wanted another classical era civilization to use as an inspiration and also something I could source miniatures for relatively cheaply. Initially I started with some plastic Germanic tribesmen from Victrix. Aesthetically, before you apply any colour, they’re not dissimilar to the Gauls, the only real differences being the hairstyles and the shield shapes (although the shield bosses are pretty much the same style and shape). However it quickly became apparent that there wasn’t actually a great out there in terms of variety of miniatures. But I also happened upon the Dacians on the Victrix website. They had a similarity to the Germanic warriors about them and it turns out that it was not uncommon for Dacians to be found fighting alongside Germanic tribes against Rome. So I bought a sprue of Dacians off eBay and also one of the command sprues with the Armoured bodies. The Dacians also come with the Falx as well as shorter curved swords (or sica) which helps to separate them from their fellow northern tribes. Another interesting coincidence is that the general look of the falx is not a million miles away from the style of the middle earth Elvish swords which really helps bring some of the lore to life. It stands to reason that a clan claiming Elvish heritage might also indulge in some mimicry as well. Another thing that I like about the Dacians is the incredibly ornate helmets, again playing into that idea of the Godinja clan being artisans.

For painting I went with greens and golds this time, and I mixed a small amount of blue into the green to change the tone a little. I also used dark brown on some of the cloaks and trousers, it’s a nice neutral tone that just fades into the background without spoiling the contrast of the two primary colours. It also breaks up the over all look of the models and stops them being a mass of colour. Within the set of models there really are two extremes. On the one hand there are some rather sensibly dressed fellows, all wearing nice hats. At the other end of the spectrum there are some semi-naked, borderline feral looking individuals and I tried to maintain the colour scheme even in these weirdos.