Saga: Anglo-Saxons (Part 9 - Hearthguard Unit 2, Finished!)

The dislike has abated. Somewhat.

I've finished these guys now to a standard I'm happy enough with. As often happens when I bumble my way to the end of a paintjob I find myself liking the end result more than I thought I would. But only a bit :-)

I'll cheer myself up with a unit of Warriors next.

More Anglo-Saxons:
More Saga stuff (including Anglo-Saxons):

Saga: Anglo-Saxons (Part 8 - Hearthguard Unit 2, Day 2)

I decided I was unhappy with the paintjob on the horses so I've updated them a bit here and there. The drybrushing was a bit clumsier than even my normal standard so I've tidied it up a bit.

Aside from the basing, I'm considering the horses to be pretty much complete.

I've still got a lot of work to do on the riders. I'm very tempted to overpaint the green bits - I really don't like them at all. And obviously all the skin and hair needs doing, as will as some pick-me-up drybrushing on the wooden bits.

Still really disliking these models.

More Anglo-Saxons:
More Saga stuff (including Anglo-Saxons):

Saga: Anglo-Saxons (Part 7 - Hearthguard Unit 2, Day 1)

Work is underway on my second unit of Hearthguard for the Anglo-Saxons.

These models (the whole army, in fact) was given to me by my good friend Mike. I got boxes of stuff from him not all of which was Anglo-Saxon, but on the theory that "one dark age warrior is much like another" I've decided to use these "Wargames Factory Germans" with Saxon Warrior heads and Shields to represent my Anglo-Saxon mounted Hearthguard.

It's purely down to availability of models - I'm actually not particularly fond of these models at all - the horses are really small and the riders are oddly misshapen. But they're here and they're free.

More news as it comes in.

More Anglo-Saxons:
More Saga stuff (including Anglo-Saxons):

Unboxing: Wargames Factory Mounted Samurai

Here is the fourth and final installment in the "Unboxing" series on the Wargames Factory "Rising Sun" range. This time it's the "Samurai Cavalry" box.

Unlike other boxes in this series, this set contains not 25 models, but 12 (fair enough as they have to be supplied with horses). The models are based on 25mm x 50mm bases so fit nicely into Warhammer games.

Riders and horses are supplied on separate sprues (which all still stack nicely - sorry if you were expecting to get away with me mentioning that this time) with six riders or six horses on a sprue. So four sprues for the models and a further sprue for the bases.

There's a bit more available to the Mounted Samurai in terms of weaponry than in the infantry set as they can  be equipped with Katanas, Yari or bows (bows did not feature in the infantry set). The parts seem to be easily interchangeable, so I don't see why you couldn't add bows from this set to models from the infantry set if you wanted.

The horse sprues are unremarkable - they contain the bits to make some horses. Not much to say, other than to point out the large, spherical items on the right of the sprue as pictured below. Apparently, these represent large leather bags that the Samurai would mount behind them and inflate with air. These provided an ingenious, lightweight armour from missiles being shot from behind them. After being pierced once or twice they might deflate, but otherwise formed an arrow-proof shield that weighed very little. If playing the "Nippon" rules, I guess these could be used to represent "Horo Cloaks".

Once again, the models are of a very high quality though are a little smaller then you'd expect in a Warhammer game. They're certainly great value at £16.00 for 12 models.

All in all I'd have to give this series of models a big "thumbs up" - my only issue is that you can really only field your rank and file from these sets. There's nothing you can use for your HQ, Specials or Rare troops.

In the near future, I'll hopefully be picking up some models from other sources which I'll use to grow my fledgling Nippon force and will report in on them.

Unboxing: Wargames Factory Samurai

The third installment of my "unboxing" series on Wargames Factory's "Rising Sun" range of 28mm 16th Century Japanese miniatures.

This time I'm looking at the "Samurai" boxed set.

Once again, we have in our hands a box containing 25 detailed miniatures on 5 neatly stacking sprues.

On the sprues themselves, we have a lot to choose from: there are 10 heads, for a start. The troops can be built in a number of different ways - either armed with Yari (spears), Katanas (swords) or Katana and Wakizashi (smaller swords as a second hand weapon). In addition, there are six body types on each sprue (though only five pairs of legs), one of which has a flowing cloak and could be used to denote a commander model.

There are a number of optional helmet-crests which can be added for decoration or left off, as well as the usual Sashimono (personal banners) which can be added or not.

I've not built any of these models yet, but it's clear that some great degree of thought has gone into the build process. Each arm ends with a sort of "Nail-head" shaped pin which gets enclosed by the body - this means it's going to be virtually impossible to have an arm that ever falls off (unless actually broken). It should also assist in posing the model when the glue is still wet meaning you don't need three hands with seven fingers each to hold everything together.

A note about scale: all of these Wargames Factory models will stand smaller than a Citadel model which purports to be the same scale, 28mm. Now that doesn't bother me (as far as I'm concerned base size is key, height is less important) but you may want to bear it in mind.

Again, at 25 models for around £16.00, these look like great value for money to me.

Unboxing: Wargames Factory Ashigaru Yari Troops (Spearmen)

This is the second in my series of "Unboxing" articles of the "Rising Sun" range of Japanese Samurai-period troops from Wargames Factory.

As in the previous article about the Ashigaru Missile troops the sprues in this set are designed to stack - I'm probably going to mention that in every post in this series: I love that feature!

The sprues themselves in this set are a bit more sparse - not as many "bits and bobs" to play with. You get enough items on each sprue to build 5 Yari troops (though oddly you get 6 Yari). Each can have a Katana (sword) and Sashimono (small, personal standard). There is a variety of heads to choose from and also a standard on each sprue (which is very useful as the missile troops didn't have that feature so I'm no longer short of standards for my archers and riflemen).

Bases as before are simple 20mm x 20mm tiles.

So this set isn't as much "fun" as the Missile troops set, but it still does the job. The sculpts are clean, the quality is high and once again you get 25 models for about £16.00 so the value is great.

No complaints from me.

Unboxing: Wargames Factory Ashigaru Missile Troops

I recently posted about the amazing resource that is the repository of fan-written Warhammer Armies books.

Well, I have become obsessed (as I am wont to do) with one of these: "Nippon" by Mathias Eliasson.

It's an amazing piece of work, beautifully illustrated and provides great "fluff" as well as a full army list. Moreover it has started me on a path to collecting a new army.

Models for the "Special" and "Rare" sections of the army will take some finding, but those nice people at Wargames Factory have nicely supplied pretty much everything required for the army "Core" as part of their 28mm "Rising Sun" range of models.

This post is the first in a short series and deals with the "Ashigaru Missile Troops" box set:

I'll start with a quick note about the sprues themselves - a rather neat feature is that all the sprues in the box are designed to very neatly stack and have pegs and holes in the corners to support this. This means they fit neatly into their box and there's no danger of sprues becoming entangled in one another, rattling about or damaging each other when picked up. Very neat.

The box contains either 6 sprues (5 sprues of models, one of bases) or 5 sprues and a bag of loose bases. The bases sprue stacks in the same way as the sprues of models.

The bases are simple 20mm x 20mm square tiles with the Wargames Factory logo embossed on the bottom.

The model sprues contain parts for 5 models with each arm, leg, torso-front and torso back being a separate piece. This enables a variety of possible poses. Coupled with the fact that each sprue contains a surfeit of heads and equipment (katanas, quivers, ammo pouches and so on) and there's lots of scope for assembling the models in a variety of ways. So there are enough parts in the box to assemble 25 models.

The only limitation seems to be that the number of weapons supplied is sufficient to assemble only 20 archers or 20 matchlock riflemen (so you can build 20 of one type and then have to "mop up" by building 5 of the other). This is a little odd, but for my purposes doesn't really matter as I've bought two boxes.

The quality of the models is good and given that you get 25 models for an outlay of around £16, this set represents excellent value for money. Well recommended.

Other posts will follow in the next few days regarding other Wargames Factory products from their "Rising Sun" range.