Irish SAGA

Scar on face, serpentine and nature based shields and otherwise a very basic scheme for these fellas.

These two make it 11 levy and only 1 to go.

Moving on to using spare Gripping Beast Vikings to make some Irish Hearthguard minis and another point of Wargames Atlantic Irish Warriors.

So…

Painted

1 Druid (Wargames Atlantic, WA)

1 handler and 8 wardogs (WA)

1 unit of warriors (8 minis – 4 WA and 4 Wargames Factory)

1 warlord / hero (metal Footsore with WA dogs)

1 unit of levy (12 minis, all WA)

Planned

1 point of warriors (8 WA minis)

1 point of Hearthguard (4 Gripping Beast minis)

Thanks for the encouragement. Loving this project because it has a definite ending. Once I have made an army from primarily just the Wargames Atlantic box I will call this done. I have added a Footsore Metal, 4 Wargames Factory bodies and looking at 4 more Gripping Beast bodies at the moment, but I still feel in essence the Wargames Atlantic box is doing the heavy lifting in the army.

If I stick just to the box you can easily make…

12 levy, 16 warriors, 8 dogs, a dog handler and a warlord and still have two dogs left over. That is 4 points with a warlord making it a feasible entry level army.

With my druid, my planned Gripping Beast Hearthguard and a metal Gripping Beast hero I will have a 6 points Irish Army with a choice on how to field it. Any purchases onward will be manageable because I would be looking at my elites (alternative heroes or more Hearthguard) rather than another dozen levy.

Irish Hearthguard kitbashed from a Gripping Beast Viking body, with Wargames Atlantic spear point, sword, head and shield.

Enjoyed making this one. Gerry head looks good. Dab of blood on the head perhaps wasn’t needed, but there was something about the face paint job I didn’t like and felt a bit of battle damage would add some character.

Another Irish Hearthguard kitbashed from a Gripping Beast Viking body, head, sword and shield with spears with a Wargames Atlantic sword scabbard and cloak.

The head is from the command sprue so is often used as a Warlord, but once I chopped the pigtails a bit the cloak seemed to suit him.

The shield design is much like the Footsore warlord in the project earlier, to help tie this mini in as a Hearthguard. All the Hearthguard are going to have an element of grey plaid and similar shield design.

Irish Hearthguard kitbashed from a Gripping Beast Viking body, with Wargames Atlantic spear and using the attached hand, sword, head and shield.

The shield was deliberately not symmetrical with the swirls, but will have to practice some symmetrical ones on other shields just to prove to myself that I could if I wanted to. ?

Deliberately choosing brighter less common blues and reds for the Hearthguard also helps show off their improved status.

Really happy how the unit looks in the end.

Now just need to build and paint a metal hero and 8 Wargames Atlantic warriors.

This is the Gripping Beast metal Ulf The Quarrelsome. I think I like the Footsore metal more if it was a direct preference comparison.

Sadly I think the underside of the cloak had the better plaid effort but it has turned out OK.

Glad to finally be back into this project. I am still building the last 3 minis, have painted these 3 and have two primed up.

After a week or two away from painting I feel the plaid on my first attempt was poor, the second better and the last great, but I over washed the last one and you only notice the pattern up close.

On the last guy with the blond hair…
No idea why he felt the need to take a targe/buckler smaller shield and a standard shield on his back.
No idea why he has an animal skull on his shield. Though it does tie into his druid’s iconography.
A back story will naturally develop, but if you want to throw in suggestions that would be great. ?

Making the strap for the shield was a pain, but I didn’t just want to put it magically on his back with no support or just a painted belt. It was a piece of headphone wire supporting flex. Some headphones have only a small amount of copper, but with a supporting cord to hopefully keep the copper from snapping when wound too tightly. That flex is nice and thin and good for small scale projects like this. After dry fitting several tumes I had to secure it at the shoulder with superglue and let it dry, then similarly anchoring the syrap to the back and then finally to unit in the middle on the chest.