Saga Undead Vikings

It’s a pleasant scheme to paint. Primed black. Slight zenith of Halfords Red. Pick out some base clothing colours and don’t do full coverage in the recesses. Play with weathering and blood, pick out a few metal bits. Gore over any mistakes. Highlight a few bits but not uniformly to try and keep the rotten look going. Use a beige or green tinted light colour for the last of the fleshy bit and pick out the eyes in a pure white, maybe some teeth too. Use washes over anything too poppy. Nice no pressure paint scheme.

The kitbashed Draugr are made from 3 Wargames Factory bodies and a Gripping Beast Dark Age Warrior Body. They have Gripping Beast Viking heads. The arms for the Wargames Factory bodies are a bit true scale compared to the metal Draugr so I went for a slightly more heroic Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish spear arm instead and used the smaller left arms to hold the shield. For most of the shields I used the metal shields from the Kickstarter to help make them blend with the metals I already painted. I used some Gamers Grass meadow / marsh land set because it has a mix of black based and brighter grass tufts.

So glad that my 4 points of Saga Draugr have arrived from the Ragnarok 2 Kickstarter.

The warlord leader miniature looks really nice and detailed. As I try to figure out how to chalk up the last point of miniatures for this army I have to think about the rules and battleboard I will use.

There was a Version 1 Saga undead army called Revenants, but it didn’t catch on strongly and hasn’t had a Version 2 update as yet. The appearance of Age of Magic gives you fantasy army ways to play, but I didn’t want to add sorcerers and wizards. Gerry and others have helped me think about my options.

Chuffed with my mention on the community spotlight to get a lovely golden button.

I really enjoy painting and photographing my efforts.

At times the golden buttons I have received have really helped me at a low ebb. This time I was excited about backing Ragnarok 2, was really enjoying the project and I imagine this came across in my work.

So I backed the 2nd Kickstarter to get a 4 point Saga bundle to bring the project to fruition.

The campaign was doing so well that they are considering offering the Goblin / Dark Norse elves in an early option on this Kickstarter.

I have spoken with Colin, the sculptor of the range, and he might be able to do me a 12 goblin blister (Saga levy size) addition to my pledge rather than committing to a horde of 80 currently on offer.

Failing that I might be able to use some of my evil dwarves as levy.

I think getting to 6 points will be easy one way or another.

While I wait for the Ragnarok 2 campaign to finish and ship in a few months I can look at adapting the battle board to fit my undead vikings.

I dropped a mini. Already painted. The shield popped off and the spear bent and popped off. I glued the spear back into his hand and it looked like he was holding the spear and a huge clod of earth. So I went with it, rather than strip the spear and hand back to metal and try again. I added some grass and some Typhus Corrosion to the area and an extra dab at the end as though he has fetched his spear from some mud.

This gave me the idea of adding grass to a shield and I am happy with the results.

These were a lot of fun to paint. The zenith did a lot of the work to getting them grimdark and grotty looking. The dry brush of Zandri Dust across all 4 minis allowed me apply Aggros Dune Contrast on one and and Reikland Fleshshade with a minimum of highlighting after. The other ones got a Deathguard Green coat and a Steel Legion Drab coat.

I started with some Army Painter Black Battleground flock and some brown Woodland floor flock (can’t remember the seller.). Black flock at the back half and brown at the front.

I used some green sponge pieces as shrubs and dotted on pink and white paint as flowers.

I bought some rubbish tufts ages ago. I cut them up because they were too big. The tufts were an ugly unnatural looking bottle green, but I added a Deathguard Green highlight to the top of the grass blades to improve the look. Then I painted the grass tuft at the rear of the base in black.

This was meant to represent the poisonous, life draining effect that reanimated corpses had on plants as they shambled through the countryside.

The only problem is a lack of contrast on the black grass and it gets lost in the shadows. I think I will highlight the tips of grass with silver paint. I think it will look more other worldly, perhaps frosty, like in horror movies where the warmth is sucked from a room in the presence of evil.

On the four of my minis with mail the Citadel wash Cryptek Armourshade has been a God send. The fact that whatever colour paint you put it over gives it a rusty / brassy tint was great. I didn’t need to do a metallic dry brush first. I just put it right over my Zandri Dust dry brush and then follow up with a metallic dry brush of a mix of Runelord Brass and Stormhost Silver. I picked out a few links with Jokaero Orange to push the rust effect and dabbed Typhus Corrosion and Blood for the Blood God technical paints wherever I felt the mail was too bright.

I got a small pledge with dwarves and draugr and it fulfilled well before the expected date.

I primed the draugr in black with a zenith of Army Painter Leather Brown. I just figured that would be a strong starting point. Then I dry brushed the 8 minis in Zandri Dust and decided on the next step.