The Vikings Have Arrived

It has been some time since I envisioned my initial Viking warband. I was thinking a literal "boatload" at best, and at this point I've made significant gains in that direction. My motivation was to get what you see above started and finished by the time our Friday night game rolled around for Pig Wars. I'm happy to say I made my deadline!


The Militia

I feel the quality suffered ever-so-slightly with these guys because of the sheer volume I was trying to get cranked out, averaging about five a night. In the end however, I'm very happy with how they turned out, and on the tabletop, they look just fine. I did mostly characters and militia. My characters are pretty, well, characterful, and encompass leaders, legends, and he like, as well as berserkers. A dozen or so militia round them all out.


The Berserkers

My three berserkers are kind of unique in that they're not historical figures at all. The young lady on the right int he chainmail thong, winged helmet, and, ahem, breastplate is my Valkyrie. She is a GW fig from back in the day for a Heroes of Dungeonquest figure expansion. It's "Helena the Swift" and can be seen here. She came out in 1988, making her one of the oldest figs I'm still using in my collection, geez, twenty-two years now. The strapping fellow in the middle is none other than Wulfgar, of Salvatore fame. He was part of a Ral Partha Forgotten Realms Heroes boxed set from about the same year as the Valkyrie, mid to late eighties. It's interesting, if you look at that pic, Drizzt the famous DARK Elf is painted clearly as a Caucasian, and not with the jet black skin Dark Elves are known for.


Archers


The Son (left) and his father, the Chief, with heirloom weapon


Putting the pig...in Pig Wars (I love this sculpt!)


Shield designs





Obviously, the bold, geometric patterns are not only the easiest to pull off freehand, but look the most striking. There was one fellow that I had to repaint his shield three times before I went with a simple cross pattern. I tried a checkerboard pattern a couple of times too, but failed miserably. For the rest of the figs I've yet to paint, I'll either stick just to geometric patterns, or maybe look into getting some shield design decals.

I'll post some teaser pics of the battle this warband took place in tomorrow, and when Brian gets his mega batrep written up, I'll link to that of course. All in all, these guys have been fun to paint up, and Pig Wars is a great format because you don't see anymore figs than what you see here. I've got about ten guys or so left to paint, but then I'm done (for now) leaving me room to focus on the next project, plus I'll have a cool Viking warband wrapped up!