Manda’s (Amachan) Order of Heimdallr

This is the Onager with Norman Crew from Gripping Beast which I will be using as my siege artillery for the Order of Heimdallr. I honestly think the Norman crew will blend in well with the rest of the army.

Look, I got a box of packing peanuts……

Once I got all the packing peanuts out, it is the Fireforge Games part of the models needed for the expansion of my fantasy army the Order of Heimdallr.

I am not a big fan of multi-basing. While I like the idea of making nice diorama’s of units, I want to use these models for other games as well. Doing the multi-basing makes that very difficult. So, since I am magnetizing all the bases of the miniatures for a transport solution, I got ferrous rubber sheets to cut in size as movement trays. This way the miniatures stick to one base, are of the correct size in terms of unit frontage and are still removable and can be used as individual models in other games. And they will also conform to different types of terrain for which I will do a test later on.

Also this big red book to slap Warhammer Old World players in the face with has arrived. Which makes me question, would they even know a good game if it hit them in the face?

To answer this I will go over all the changes I am making to the army. I will be using the Kings of War unit names for this so people familiar with the game might know what is what.

Bowmen, I currently have 20 which would be a regiment and this will be upped to 40 to create 2 regiments.
Crossbow Block, I currently have 12 and I will add another 8 to make a full regiment.
Foot Guard, The current number is at 10 and I will add another 10 to make it a full regiment.
Foot Guard with Two-handed Weapons. I again have 10 and will add 10 more for a full regiment.
Spear Phalanx, I have 20 models currently and this will be increased to 40 for 2 whole regiments.
Knights, This currently stands at 5 and will go up to 10 for a full regiment of cavalry.
Mounted Sergeants, I have 16 of them now and will increase this to 20 for 2 full cavalry regiments.
Beast Cavalry with Fly and Speed 10. I have 4 and this will stay at 4. However I am going to make 2 empty bases to put in between them so they can still form 2 regiments.
General, I have 1 general on foot, this will not change.
Wizard, I have one wizard on foot and this one will be replaced with a different model.
Wizard of Horseback, I have one and this will not change.
General of Winged Beast, again I have 1 and this will not change.
And lastly The Captain for which I also have 1 and this will not change.

And then what I am going to be adding to army.

I will be adding a regiment of 20 models forming a Pole-Arms Block.
Another 20 models for a Shield Wall.
A Horde of 40 peasants to represent a Militia Mob.
A regiment of 10 Mounted Scouts.
1 Onager as Siege Artillery.
2 more heroes on foot, 3 on horseback* and 1 on a pegasus.

I am planning on maybe adding a giant as well, but we’ll see.

This is my current plan for expansion. This should give me well over 2000 points for Kings of War and plenty of options to choose from.

*On horseback as by the rules, the models may not necessarily be mounted on a horse model.

Since my body isn’t capable of doing much physical hobby today, I decided to make a new header logo for this project. That was really needed as well.

The first part of my enhancing and expanding the Order of Heimdallr is by starting a new project where I finally make a dedicated scenery piece for use in SAGA: Age of Magic for this army. Yes, the army will still be valid for SAGA: Age of Magic. And yes, I will be entering that in the TerrainFest competition.

I am going to be bringing the Order of Heimdallr up to date. I will do some repairs and rebase them on 2mm square/rectangle MDF bases with rounded edges according to the sizes required for Kings of War. Those bases will have a magnet in them so I can arrange them on ferrous rubber sheets and use that as a movement tray. I will update the paint scheme to suit my current standards and then expand it to a 2000 point Kingdoms of Men army for Kings of War. This will almost double the infantry and add a couple more units. The new units might have a slightly different tone to the rest, but it should be hardly noticeable and I don’t want to repaint everything.

Don’t mind the unpainted metal Romans or the LEGO in the background, that is obviously for different projects.

More updates to come as I progress.

The bases are now removable to make transport easier and 3 of them will most likely be on the table tomorrow… I did manage to break a shield of one of them and since I don’t have any superglue anymore I glued it on with some PVA glue, this will most likely not hold, but will fix it once my new super glue comes in. I also have a couple more upgrades planned for the Order of Heimdallr. I want to replace the spears on the Valkyrjur with wire spears that are much tougher and I want to add a banner to one of them. And then I want banners for my infantry as well. So those might be coming in the near future.

I put a quick coat of an aerosol primer over the new bases early in the morning, didn’t want to fire up the airbrush compressor that early.

I then painted the rim and the shaft in appropriate colours, let that dry. In the mean time I fixed up the 2 cavalry models that needed fixing. I then used a ground paste on the bases, stuck in some rocks, logs and tufts and sprinkled it with static grass. Let it dry a bit as I removed the Valkyjur from their old bases and drilled a hole in the bottom for the shaft to go in. I then applied a quick coat of a matt varnish by hand over the rim and the shaft and that is them done. 1 of the Valkyrjur is also missing their spear, but I have to wait until my super glue comes in before I can fix that. I only need 3 for Age of Sigmar anyway. A picture with them on their new bases will follow later today or tomorrow depending on how quick stuff dries.

A bit of a fix and update for my Order of Heimdallr today and tomorrow.
First of all, 2 of my cavalry models have lost bits, one a shield and the other his head and cloak, those need to be glued back on, no biggie. Second, my Valkyrjur has a bigger issue. The resin stands that came with the Fireforge Games Pegasus models didn’t stand up well to the heatwaves, especially not since on top are metal rider models from Bad Squiddo Games…. So I am rebasing them. I am using the same size base with 2mm brass rod and a bit of clay on the base. I will then drill a 2mm hole in their bottoms and keep them removable for easier transport. And then maybe I can use them as well. I am literally going to try and rush these bases out in 2 days….

These are my 10 huscarls for the Order of Heimdallr done.

While taking a break from working on the Order of Heimdallr, my personal fantasy army. I thought let’s take a shot at where I’m at right now. It’s definitely ready for games of SAGA. Most of the miniatures are from Fireforge Games, with a couple of Bad Squiddo mixed/kitbashed in and a gryphon from Titan-Forge as well.

All 16 mounted sergeants are ready to charge for the Order of Heimdallr, my personal fantasy army.

These are my 20 bowmen for the Order of Heimdallr, my personal fantasy army.

These are all my 20 Men-at-Arms for the Order of Heimdallr finished.

This is Þórhildr, the warlord of the Order of Heimdallr, my personal fantasy army. The mounted model is a Gryphon from Titan-Forge miniatures with a rider from Bad Squiddo Games. The rider also came with an unmounted version and thus I also have Þórhildr unmounted. The Vallhundr (Doggos) are also from Bad Squido Games. Shields are Fireforge Games with custom transfers and the spear is custom made.

This is Víðarr, captain for the Order of Heimdallr. The miniature is from Fireforge Games.

These are my Valkyrjur. These are mounted shieldmaidens from Bad Squiddo Games riding Pegasus from Fireforge Games with custom spears.

For Þórhildr, the warlord of my army, I wanted her to ride a majestic beast and went for a Gryphon in this case. The Gryphon is the ‘Griffon Lady’ from Titan-Forge. I didn’t like the rider though so for that I went with ‘Jarl Lathgertha’ from Bad Squiddo Games. This set came with both a mounted and an unmounted version so I also made an unmounted version of Þórhildr.

First off I did have some problems with the Titan-Forge model, some miscasts and such, but all was easily solved and replaced by them. The next difficulty came in with assembly of the Gryphon, this is one of their older, hand sculpted kits and does not easily go well together and building the Gryphon was more work than converting the rider on top. I think my sculpting skills have leveled up quite a bit by doing this.

The wings did not fit properly at all. So I managed to glue one on with a bit of brown stuff in between and then worked the surface of the wing to the body using brown stuff. And then I had to do the same for the second wing.

That was the hard part done, but nowhere near finished. I had to attach the tail, one claw and bit of hind leg on the model, of course these didn’t fit well either so more brown stuff was used to sculpt in the gaps.

I had to get the rider to fit. The Gryphon came with it’s own set of legs for the rider cast on the Gryphon, so I had no option other that to use those. And thus I had to saw a metal miniature in half and glue it on the already existing legs.

I did work her in to the Gryphon so it looks like she belongs on there with some brown stuff. I unfortunately don’t have any separate pictures of this.

The model does come with it’s own moulded ‘Gryphon-on-rock’ base and I attached that to a 50mm square base. I also wanted to add a little Vallhundr, also from Bad Squiddo Games, to the base to add a bit of decoration. So I worked him in with some brown stuff I still had workable. I also made a simple spear by using a brass rod with a plastic spear tip glued to the end of it and glued that into her hand.

With some of the remaining brown stuff I managed to also get a Vallhundr and the unmounted model onto a 20mm square base for the unmounted version and both are now ready for painting.

I’m quite happy with the result, however this built took me a couple of days to get done.

I will add shields I made earlier to the correct positions later once the model is painted.

This is Hjǫrdís, my pagan witch for the Order of Heimdallr.