Out of the mist they come...

Many moons ago (well, a few moons ago) I promised to show off my SAGA Welsh warband. Today I will make good on (a portion) of that promise. I still have Cavalry and the Warlord to paint, truth be told, but other than that they are all done... erm....

Anyway, lets take a look at some figures. These figures are all Gripping Beast; as I tend to stay with one manufacturer and Gripping Beast published this amazing game I thought they deserved my money. The figures are nice too, which helps.

First up we have the Welsh levy with bows (Bonnedig).

The astute amongst you will be thinking that the bows they carry are not the ones that come with the miniatures. And you would be correct. I purchased the Gripping Beast wire spears (which are really great, by the way) and, noticing that the bows would I also be brittle I bent off cuts of wire and made my own. I like them.

Next, some Hearthguard (Teulu)

 They are painted with better cloth and shield patterns than the warriors, to represent their higher social status. They also have more red in their colour scheme for the same reason.
Talking about shields, most people seem to use the Little Big Man shield transfers; obviously, I do not. This is because I simply prefer to hand-paint all my own shields.
The original warlord has been re-appropriated to lead the Teulu (he is my Warlord's brother. The other Teulu figure is a battle-banner bearer; he needs painting).
You will also notice that my welsh carry a lot of javelins (usually tucked behind shields); I wanted to represent the javelins on my models so I used the original spears and cut them down.

Next up, some Warriors (Priodaur).

A lot of Christian symbolism on my shields (mostly, ChiRho). Also, each of my warrior units carry a small banner (cosmetic only, not a battle banner) with a Christian symbol. I just like little banners and pennants. The Hearthguard are meant to have one but I have not gotten around to it yet.

The second unit of Warriors (Priodaur)

I just want to mention the bases and how I did them. I used a polymer air drying clay to make rough ground (use artists air dry clay, not kids because it crumbles; I used fimoair from Hobbycraft in the UK). I then pushed broken bits of slate into the clay before it dried (use a little PVA to fix it in place).
It was painted brown and drybrushed lighter brown (mud) before adding patches of static grass and finally lichen. I think they look pretty good, personally.

See you in the next update.