The Saga of Symbaroum

A very quick update.  This guy was painted separately to the rest of the Gaoian models Because as one of the Barbarian witches, although he looks like the Gaoians (on account of him being a spare Miniatures from the Gallic Chariot set), I am doing a fairly standard colour scheme for the witches, much like I will with the Wrathguard.  The Witches will be wearing mostly neutral greys and browns rather than the colours of their native clan.  I have to say, he’s a very chonky model, easily 28mm heroic in size and possibly almost into the 32mm range.   He isn’t the only one either, I purchased a few models from Warlord games’ Hail Caesar range to act as, well, warlords for the northern barbarian clans army and the scale is all over the place.  Some match with this guy, others like dwarfs stood next to him.  Anyway, more on that when I get around to painting the war chiefs.  One other disappointing discovery is that Glistening Blood from The Army Painter is, well, pants.  It’s not even remotely the right shade of red.  I suspect that I might be switching back to Citadel for the special effects because, like the (exceedingly glossy) Army Painter washes, they’re just not as good as the citadel equivalent.  Speed Paints my choice over citadel because of the consistency and intensity of the pigmentation.  Washes and special effects not so much.

Each of the eleven barbarian clans is expected to provide 9 of their warriors for the Guard of the Slumbering Wrath, the protectors of the holy site of Karvosti.  Karvosti itself is an interesting place, it’s the seat of the High King of the Barbarians, it’s the home of the Huldra, the leader of the Barbarian witches.  At the same time it’s also the site of a large temple to the Ambrian Sun deity, Prios staffed by members of the Ambrian clergy and defended by Prios Templars.  It’s a holy site for both Barbarian and Ambrian alike and is a  real melting pot of clashing cultures.  The Wrathguard are charged with defending the site and also keeping the peace.  This is the only picture I can find of a Wrathguard.

Unfortunately I couldn’t muster all 9 but this represents the Gaoian contingent of the Wrathguard.  Also, from a Saga perspective, 9 is not a useful number as everything is in multiples of 4.  These represent two potential units of Hearthguard.  With that in mind it’s worth pointing out that I don’t intend to do all 99 Wrathguard, some clans won’t appear in my collection at all.  I may do a couple more variants on this theme from each of the tribal groupings I identified but I absolutely won’t be doing each clan’s offering.  The Miniatures themselves are armoured gauls from Aventine Miniatures with shield swaps to my own 3D printed ones.  I also added some decorations to their helmets which were taken from the plastic Victrix sprues.  I think these actually work really well for the Wrathguard.  They look suitably heavily armoured and although technically they are wearing the same stuff as the nobles I painted for the regular force, I think they somehow appear more heavily armoured.  Perhaps it is the fact that half of them are wearing a solid breastplate rather than chain mail.  To try and keep the overall colour scheme dark I opted for a bronze coloured armour.  This also fits in well with the artwork for the Wrathguard as it has an overall brown look.  I used a deep red as a contrast colour on the cloaks and then used gold as a spot Colour on any decorative metal elements.

This has been sat on my desk for a few weeks. I made some banners using a Microsoft PowerPoint (yup, not Photoshop, power point is easier if all you want to do is basic shapes and clip art) and printed them a few weeks ago. However I got too excited by painting the barbarians it kind of just sat there. I decided I had better get them done before I lost the sheet with the banners. This is the first time I have tried to do this and although the results are ok, I think there’s probably a few things I might do differently next time. I’ll talk about those in a little while.

The basic method is to cut the banners out and then glue a square of tin foil to the back of one half of each one. Then cover the surface of one half of the banner with PVA glue, leaving the bit that goes around the flag pole free of glue; when I designed the banner I actually placed a narrow rectangle in the middle that would be the bit where it attaches to the flag pole. Fold the banner over and press the two sides together, being careful not to press the flag pole side (referred to as the hoist) together. When the glue has dried you can now roll and crease the flag to give it a more natural look, the tin foil will help it to retain its shape. For this I rolled it around the handle of a large paintbrush and then manually added a few bends a creases at the corner. When you are happy with the shape paint the flag with PVA glue (I actually use Matt Mod Podge for this), again avoiding the hoist, and then leave them to dry. Once the glue is dry the flag will be more rigid.

Ok, you will have to be very grown up about this next bit. No smutty jokes please, it was difficult enough to write this as it is.

What you should have now is a flag with a sort of paper tube at one edge (the bit that is hopefully completely free of glue) that you can just slide over the flagpole. For this I placed a small blob of PVA glue at the bottom aperture that way as you insert the flag pole, it will carry the glue with it and coat the pole, ensuring that the entire flag is glued. There’s an obvious limitation with PVA glue in that it takes a long time to dry, so to hold the flag in place I added a small dab of superglue to the top and bottom of the flag where the pole and flag meet which held the flags in place until the PVA glue dried. At this point you can also press the hoist edge of the flag together as this will also assist with adhesion.

So, what would I do differently? Well, I found that after I glued the two halves of the flag together, it’s wasn’t as flexible as I would have liked. I have seen some videos on this and it might be because I used neat PVA glue, a recommendation is to use watered down glue instead. Or I could try curling the flags while the glue is still wet, although I suspect this might also cause the flag edges to de-align. I might also be tempted to glue the flags to the poles before coating them in PVA because that way if the banner doesn’t look quite right, I can still adjust it whilst it’s in position before finally adding the PVA to set it in position. That aside though, I’m actually quite happy with these and they really do add so much character to the army.

The Gaoia are the most northern of the Barbarian Clans, at least those who owe allegiance to Karvosti, the seat of the High Chieftain and the Huldra (a coven of witches who act as an advisory, some may even say authority, capacity to the High Chieftain). The Gaoia live in what is referred to by the Ambrians as “Dark Davokaar” the part of the forest that is less travelled and explored and, being less populated, home to many more dangerous creatures. They are seldom seen, only rarely travelling south from their lands and they speak a dialect of the barbarian considered base and gutteral by the other clans. The exception to that rule is the Wrathguard, the warriors each clan is expected toa send to guard Karvosti and the High Chieftain. Despite the clan’s somewhat insular nature, they still maintain their obligation and ensure that the full complement is sent. But for most travellers, Ambrian and Barbarian alike, this is the only contact they will ever have with this clan. In battle, the Gaoia are known to utilise poisons and some of them also capture some of the many large and poisonous spiders and herd them towards and even throw them at their enemies.

Partly because I know our next RPG session will take place in the forest of Davokaar, the home of several barbarian clans, and Karvosti, a sort of defacto “capital” for the clans (although it’s more of a sacred site than a city), I am painting up some Barbarians and fleshing out the world beyond the lands of Ambria. I think it’s here where the Symbaroum setting really starts to grow and shine.  Several of the barbarian tribes have names that are not a million miles away from the latinized names for the Celtic and Germanic tribes in the way they sound, especially those towards the north of the map and so that set me down a path.  Rather than approach the barbarians in the trad fantasy sense of musclebound hunks in fur underpants or deranged beserkers foaming at the mouth or high on some kind of hallucinogenic mushroom, I wanted to represent the barbarian clans as cultures within their own right.  While the Ambrians may consider them “backwards” they are by no mean primitive or unintelligent.  They may not be as societally or technologically advanced as the Ambrians but they are each a vibrant society with cultures and traditions of their own, although the influence of the Ambrians is spreading among some of the clans (very much by Ambrian design) and it’s starting to change the look and feel of the clans.  However, the tribes in the north are closest to their traditions and roots with the least contact with and thus influence from Ambria so it makes sense to give them an appearance that looks older and for this I have gone with Classical period Celts for the Gaoia (a theme I will continue with the other northern clans). I think this definitely makes a nice change from the typical Conan-esque portrayal of barbarians and it also leans into the historical roots of the word, which was essentially the Roman way of describing certain “uncivilised” foreigners.  However the Celts and Gauls were far from uncivilised, they had a vibrant culture and created many beautiful works in metal.  What they essentially lacked compared to their Roman contemporaries was a strong societal order and central government that enabled the creation and maintenance of large bodies of professional soldiers and the Military innovation that goes with it.

Getting the models was relatively easy – I purchased a couple of sprues of Victrix Celtic Warriors, including a command sprue and also a chariot. I doubt that the Chariot with feature in the RPG however I am planning now to make an army based on a coalition of the northern tribes and it will be most useful for that. I also have some Germans/Dacians which I am going to use for one of the other tribes and I stole a couple if weapons off them for these, equipping a couple of models with a Falx and another couple with bows.  The inclusion of the Falx may not be historically accurate but this is, I feel, an example of how you can use historical Miniatures to make believable and relatable fantasy miniatures with very little effort. It also means, when I come to do the next tribe they will also be armed with Falx and it creates some common themes between them

To paint them, I am using almost entirely speed paints and having dabbled with the slapchop method and being reasonably happy with the results, I decided this would be a good test of that method at scale. All in all, it took me two evenings to paint all 10 of the miniatures, although the first evening was mostly preparation – priming and drybrushing – and I reckon I could probably have doubled that number if I’d had more to paint. I designed them using a simple palette of 3 colours, each Miniature would be painted with a combination of two of the three colours likewise the shields. I also stuck to ginger and blonde for hair colours and deliberately tried to thin the flesh tone to make it quite pale. The final step was picking out details with bits of gold and silver and then adding some very thin turquoise body paint.

Obviously these aren’t going to win any awards but the shading and highlights that you get from Slapchop are really pronounced and when you view them from distance, they look really good.  Combine that with the quick basing glue and base mixes (I use Geek Gaming but you can make your own) and I think this is a great method for getting large volumes of average painted Miniatures to the table in next to no time – and that is a very useful thing indeed

I spent another evening painting the 4 nobles (basically the command sprue and the Boudecia model from the chariot). I put a little more effort in here because I wanted the armour to be metallic. I also had to delay painting these because I upgraded the shields. The shields were created on Tinkercad by “lifting” a Celtic design from something else and combining it with a couple of basic shaped to create oval shields.

After printing I was really, really pleased with these. The details are a bit fine in some places and I probably need to increase the depth of the designs by a few fractions of a millimetre to compensate but overall they are a nice upgrade to the models that help further set them apart from the other soldiers. And in terms of the detail itself, I have purchased 3d printed shields with similar designs in the past and they were no different, so my own efforts are at least as good as the ones I purchased on ebay.

To paint the nobles I also stuck to the same simple colour palette of red, blue and green so it’s very easy to see they are the same tribe. I was particularly happy with the way the Boudecia model turned out.

All in all, 3 evenings of effort went into these and I think overall the quality of them is a more than acceptable trade been quality and speed.  15 miniatures could have easily been 20+ Miniatures in almost the same time.  If you apply that to something like Kings of War, that’s a standard regiment; for Saga that’s 1 point of Levy or 3 points of Hearthguard.  It’s not going to take very long to paint armies this way and they will look reasonably good

Only a small update, more for completeness than anything else.  I took a break from painting Infinity Miniatures, which I feel like I have been doing forever, and painted up another unit of warriors for the Queen’s Army.  They’re essentially the same as the first group although these are all from Footsore’s Baron’s War range.  Apart from the guy charging with a spear, he was a freebie I got from Footsore when I placed an order over £10.  Lucky I had him because otherwise I would have been left one model short of a unit …

I did experience a major failure of the spray varnish I used for these.  It mister over big time.  I absolutely hate the acrylic varnish sprays, they’re so temperamental.  Even the slightest hint if moisture in the air and they fog up something rotten – not great when you live in the North West of England.  I would use one of the lacquer options out there, something like Mr Hobby Superclear, but they’re really expensive (same price as a Colour Forge can with about 1/3 the amount).  However I have found a workaround to the problem of varnish misting over.  Let it dry off and then take some cooking oil and paint it over the model.  You don’t have to be particularly neat but I would recommend going with as thin a coat as possible because it does take a while for it to dry off (and yes, it does dry off, it’s exactly the same as sealing a cast iron pan).  If you have gone a little heavy with it, take a cotton bud (q-tip) and dab the excess off.  The result might leave your model with a slight shine to them, but Satin Varnish would do that anyway

With the lower classes (Levy and Light Cavalry) out of the way it’s time to start looking at the professional soldiers, the standing army that has given Ambria such an advantage over the barbarian clans they have displaced. There’s nothing specific about the army in the Symbaroum books, not in any great detail.  But using the principles of Saga with its three tier system, these are the middle tier unit type called “warriors”.  They are professional soldiers and would likely be knights; second or third sons of noble or wealthy families.  Service in the army offers an opportunity for them to make a name for themselves that they would not likely get from their family.  They are wealthy enough to have decent equipment and spend a reasonable amount of time training.  In the world of Symbaroum, plate armour does exist however it isn’t really described as being ubiquitous and it’s still incredibly expensive to buy. Most armours are portrayed as flexible armour rather than rigid, armour like chain, scale or lamellar. Thus it would seem unlikely that for the main army, plate armour would be the norm although it may be used for elite troops and leaders.  So I have gone for chainmail armoured knights, again a mixture of Footsore and 1st Corps for the “Warriors” troop type.  These are the middle tier of soldier so obviously for the HearthGuard, the elite soldiers, I will need something a little better.  However the 12th – 13th century look is absolutely perfect for the soldiers.

When I looked in my collection I already had a few foot knights from Barons War more than enough to make a single unit but not enough for two.  So I topped them up, again, with Miniatures from 1st corps as well as buying a second command group so both units would have a banner.  Again, for scale comparison purposes, just in case anyone is interested, I have placed a 1st Corps Miniature on the left in the photo below, the rest are footsore.  The 1st corps looks slightly bigger but I think some of that is also down to the fact that the metal tab that they come mounted on is slightly thicker.  However, regardless of why it’s slightly taller, the difference is not so large that it looks weird and out of place.  They’re a very good match.

These troops also represent the first time I have painted a full unit of anything using paints other than citadel.  I recently switched to army Painter but have also picked up a few Vallejo paints as well.  I can’t say that I regret the decision.  I never actually had any problem with Citadel Paint, but I was absolutely sick of the pots clogging up, not closing and drying the contents out.  I can get to element games as easily as a GW store and they’re open 7 days a week.  That basically ended the “convenience” factor that had kept me with citadel for so long.

As well as new paint range, they’re the first unit in the army that I didn’t paint using speed paints.  The reason I opted to go with regular acrylic paints for these is that I wanted them to look brighter and cleaner than their peasant counter parts.  These are professional men-at-arms, their full time job is soldiering so it stands to reason they would have better kit and more time to look after it.  And of course being the Queen’s Army, not looking like you have been dragged through a hedge backwards is probably also very high on the agenda.   Also, it wasn’t really practical to go with speed paints because there’s so much metal on most of these, which made a Black undercoat preferable. If I have to go and pick out the cloth areas in white before painting the speed paint on, it would be almost as quick to paint the purple base coat and add some highlights anyway.  And finally, I actually enjoy painting, Speed Paints are a means to an end, actually sitting down and painting is a joy.  So there.  The finishing touches were some shield transfers, which are old Bretonnian transfers I have lying around, and a base ready mix from Geek Gaming.  At some point (i.e. when they arrive) I will be adding a few tufts as well.

On the subject of tufts, if people are looking for a reasonably priced supply of basing materials, look at a company called Serious Play.  They do a HUGE range if grass tufts and flower tufts in all sorts of colours and, more importantly, they are dirt cheap.  Delivery is sometimes a little slow (a week or so) but then, I remember a time when Amazon Prime wasn’t a thing and things always took that long to arrive so it doesn’t really bother me.

There are three tiers of troops in Saga, Levy, Warriors and Hearthguard.  In the Great Kingdoms faction archetype from Age of Magic warriors and Hearthguard can be mounted.  To represent mounted warriors I decided to go with mounted sergeants and light cavalry.  These have a similar appearance to the Levy, which is why I chose them.  Another of the features of Ambrian culture, as well as it’s militarism is its materialism.  All Ambrians purse “more” and/or “better”.  Whether that’s land, lifestyle or belongings, they are always looking to improve or increase what they have.  So having some light cavalry that is similar in appearance to the levy represents Ambrian commoners who have earned a little more wealth, enough to perhaps buy a horse and some better armour.  Like other warriors, a full unit requires 8 models but they won’t all fit in the photo booth.

To get the 8 models required for a unit, I started with 4 mounted Sergeants from the Barons War range by Footsore.  Now, I could have just bought another 4 and been done with it but as much as I absolutely love Footsore Miniatures, they are mono-pose and they only have 4 variants so I would have been buying the same Miniatures again, I didn’t really want any duplicates as it would be difficult to disguise them with colour scheme alone.  So I instead turned to 1st Corps and bought some of their early medieval knights, which can be made to look like sergeants by selecting different head options.  You also get a selection of weapons to arm them with including falchion, maces, flails, axes and swords.  Needless to say I’m now a big fan of 1st corps and I will likely be using them again in the future – I have already started eyeing up conversion bits to use on some of my barbarian forces.  I think 1st corps also scale really well with the Footsore Miniatures, which do tend towards the smaller end of the 28mm scale (unless you bought the Mortal Gods Argonauts, which a fahooking massive).  The Miniature at the front in the image below is from 1st Corps, the other three are Footsore so you can see the comparison.  The 1st corps are ever so slightly bigger, but that’s more to do with the horses than anything else.  I bought some foot knights as well (coming in a future article) and they’re virtually indistinguishable from the footsore ones in terms of height.  In addition, as a leader model, I have selected the Dante miniature from the Wargames Illustrated Giants In Miniature range, but that will have an article of its own.

These were an experiment in using the new Army Painter speedpaints.  The results were quite good, I think, although I did get a lot of reactivation, especially when trying to put a brown wash over them – I had to varnish them before adding the wash.

The first army I will be working on will be the Queen’s Army, turning a collection of Barons War stuff into the mainstay of the Ambrian Army.  This is the first step of taking what was a small collection of Miniatures for an RPG into one of several Saga Warbands.  I am not aiming for a specific points limit, my plan is to expand in 1 point blocks (12 Levy, 8 Warriors, 4 HearthGuard) or perhaps 2, depending on how many troops I would need to paint.  Eventually I want to have the flexibility to build 4-6 point warbands and have options available, which means painting more than 6 blocks of troops.

Because I was closest to having full troop blocks for Levy, I decided to convert the soldiers I already had into Levy.  They’re a great match for levy, being lightly Armoured Sergeants.  Although I had 12 available, and it is possible to buy split a block of 12 Levy in 3 blocks of 4, I opted to buy an extra couple of sets of Crossbowmen from Footsore, giving me 12 – a full, one point unit.  That left me with 8 spearmen and rather than buy another 4, I bought a command pack from Crusader Miniatures which again bumped the number up to 12 – another full, one point unit.  Even though the Queen’s Army is supposed to be a very well disciplined fighting force, it stands to reason that they would still rely on Levy troops to swell their numbers as many historical Armies often did.  And having them appear as sergeants, rather than peasant rabble, fits with the militaristic nature of the Ambrians; the Levy aren’t mere peasants, they are still soldiers with a level of training and discipline but somewhat lack the equipment and armour of the professional soldiers.

At some point I will be making banners but I will wait until I know how many I need before printing them out.  I reckon I will likely need 3-4 as not every unit will have a flag. HearthGuard for example only have 4 Miniatures and I don’t really want to drop that by converting one into a banner bearer.  I might also get a mounted banner bearer and use it as a lieutenant/captain in the army, which takes the place of half a unit’s worth of soldiers (i.e. sacrifice 6 levy, 4 warriors or 2 HearthGuard)