PsychosisPC:
I’ve put aside the Crusader project for awhile to work on a Viking Saga project for WAB/CoE and SAGA. The core of the army will be built with the Gripping Beast plastic Viking kit, with a number of metal figures tossed in for characters and other eyecandy. Those that know me and my work, know my general disdain for most metal castings, and my love for plastics. I do like these GB Plastic Vikings, great looking minis. The metals I have are character models that I picked up that included a number of henchmen also in metal. The quality of the GB metals is okay, not as good as Reaper and Foundry and Red Box Games and Avatars of War in my opinion, and a little better than the Perry Crusader stuff that I have worked with. That said they are still a pain the arse to clean-up, lots of dremel work, filing, and sanding to get rid of rough spots and pits and miscasts and ugly flash lines. And don’t get me started on the crap for weapons. Thankfully GB Plastics are loaded with extra weapons which should make for an easy and cool weapon swap transition. I also plan to do a number of conversions to get even more variety out of them using bits and pieces from other manufacturers.
This is the first unit. It has the non-uniform look that I really enjoy.
I’ve done a lot of head swaps and added some extras here and there. I’ve also gotten crazy with some of the poses so, some easy mail sculpting to blend in those subtle arm repositions.
No banner yet, but the one uninspired metal guy in the middle is a place holder for that banner. My character will be the third guy from the left, next to the Berserker and the Musician. The front rank is all mounted on single 20 mm bases.
The entire second rank will be armed with throwing spears in all of the units and are on 20x 40, 20 x 60, or 20 x 80 mm bases. Back ranks are 20 mm square or 20x40 bases. On the movement trays, I have switched up my method. The shields are being left off for now, as I plan to paint them separately, will also be using some transfers on some too to cut down some of the paint time. I’ve decided to go with the narrow sides, as I can see these units being massed closely together for WAB at least, much different than my crusaders. The front will eventually get some eye-candy. What’s a good viking unit without some carnage and pillaging eye-candy.
The first of many…
PsychosisPC:
I love the versatility of this kit, it has a ton of different heads, that can be converted by adding hair and such hanging out of the helmets. The one thing the kit does not have is a number of unhelmeted heads. I do like my armies to look diverse and also like to add a bit of character all over in the units. I’ve also found that I can get a bit more variety with some head swaps using other manufacturers bits.
Namely Warlord Games Barbarian heads and GW Empire Flaggelant heads, and more than likely some others that I don’t have.
PsychosisPC:
Viking Unit #2. Still have tons more models built and ready for assembling. Like the other unit this will have lots of single minis on 20mm bases in the front, and the longer 20mm deep bases in the second rank with the spears.
There is a variety of bits being used on these. In the front rank I’ve mixed Warlord Games minis with the Gripping Beast minis also. Barbarian Warlord heads work with the GB plastics. As you can see my two berserkers for this unit are Warlord barbarians. The one guy on the right end is also from the barbarians. The third guy from the right with the two handed axe actually uses the two handed axe arms from War Factory Games, which mate up quite well with the GB plastic torso. If you are a converter, you will want to sculpt the mail on the shoulders, as the War Factory Games mail is not very good.
About half of the second rank of spear have not been glued to the bases, to make it easier to paint them, especially with multiple figures being placed on the same long 20mm base. After painting I will adhere them to the base in the proper location. I actually mark the base and the model so I know where to put them.
As with the previous unit, I have left many of the shields off of the models purposely, as I plan to paint a number of them separately then attach them later. As I stated with the previous movement tray, I’ll be adding eye candy to the front. I still need to model that stuff and cast it up.
PsychosisPC:
I was looking for a good reason to use up all of these Warlord Games Barbarians. This seemed as good a reason as any: Viking Skirmishers in addition to using a few as berserkers.
This is the first part of two units. While modeling them I thought I should give some of them beards, fairly easy to do with the heads that already had mustaches. Also added some long hair, furs, left over knives and pouches from the Gripping Beast kits, and pony tails. Some of them look like younglings. Scale wise they are very close to the same size as GBP models.
Gradually getting the whole WAB/CoE army built, then I will build the pieces for SAGA with some of the left overs.
—PPC
PsychosisPC:
I started painting a test figure for my Vikings. This is one of the metal models from Gripping Beast. It is still a work in progress, I have yet to do any fleshtones. What you see on the face is simply some white paint.
I tried a couple different things that I normally do not do when army painting. I typically prime my armies in black primer, especially my heavily armored armies that either have a lot of plate armor or in this case mail. I did that with this model, but I painted the red cloth area and the pant legs white first, then added the colors. It definitely gave me that faded red look that I was looking for in short amount of time. I also hit the flesh areas with a little bit of white paint to. Still need to paint all of the flesh.
So one test piece started, but not finished. I guess that might be considered some progress.