Pictish Raiders 8

Well then, here are the final models for my Pictish Raiders force for the upcoming expansion to Dux Britanniarum. These are the Lord, his Champion and a lesser Noble. And for a little extra flavour I added a standard-bearer to accompany the Lord in battles.

L to R: Champion (GB), standard-bearer (WW), Lord (WW)
and Noble (GB).

The miniatures are from Gripping Beast and Westwind. I spent a little more time painting these models, adding some extra highlights etc, like I usually do for commanders and I'm pretty happy with how they all turned out. Unfortunately the light is really weird today, making it impossible to take decent photos (the champion's white cloak is not that flat looking for example) but these will have to do.

As usual, the shield transfers and the banner are from Little Big Men Studios.

The Lord and the standard-bearer are mounted on a custom made sabot command base for greater flexibility.

I had this one made by special order from Warbases, along with a couple of other variants as well. More about these in a later post.

And with these miniatures, this project is now finished. For now at least! I have some more stuff I want to add, some nice extras, but as I'm no real hurry these will be done in-between other projects.

When I have the time, I will take some snaps of the whole force assembled.

Now, all I have to do is wait for all this Chain of Command hysteria to die down and for Too Fat Lardies to finally publish the Raiders supplement so I can try out my new warband ...

Finally, a long overdue greeting to the new followers: Mike D, Remco de Groot, Emilio and Willie Anderson. Welcome! I hope you'll like my blog and find much inspiration here. Do make yourselves at home.

Have a great weekend everybody!

Pictish Raiders 7

This is the finished skirmish cavalry for my Pictish raiders force for Dux Britanniarum. The miniatures are a mix of Black Tree Design and Westwind.

BTD, WW, BTD, WW

In reality, I imagine the Picts would have ridden sturdy ponies, but since these horse models are a bit on the small side they look OK to me.

As usual, the shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios.

The BTD cavalry are as nice as the rest of the range, but unfortunately there's only three poses and they're all a bit static. A couple of more sculpts with more animation would have been nice.

With these skirmishers done it's just a couple of characters left before the whole force is finished. Nice!

Oh, and another thing: it seems this blog reached 10 000 total hits sometime during the last weekend, which of course is a very nice milestone. Back in April the total hits reached 5 000, which was some 15 months after I started. Well, it certainly seems the monthly hits are increasing as the next 5 000 was reached in just 4,5 months. Of course, counting hits is a fairly blunt instrument when gauging how your website is doing, but at least it gives you some indication ...

Anyway, I just want to say a big "Thank you!" to all visitors, especially if you're not a Russian spambot and also if you took the time to comment on one of the posts.

Have a great week everyone and thanks for reading!

Pictish Raiders 6

Well then. Here is the fourth and final unit of raiders for my Pictish Raiders force for the upcoming expansion to Dux Britanniarum.

GB, BTD, WW, BTD, GB, GB

The miniatures are the usual mix of Black Tree Design, Gripping Beast and Westwind, and the shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios.

Not much left now, just the skirmishing cavalry and the characters.

Have a great weekend everyone and thanks for reading!

Pictish Raiders 5

I have finished the third unit of raiders for my Pictish Raiders force for Dux Britanniarum. And finally, I did some tattoos! Very simple, but they look quite nice in my opinion (although I'm perhaps a bit biased).

Anyway, here are some more pictures:

GB, GB, GB, BTD, GB, WW

The light is a little tricky today, killing some of the highlights, and so the pictures are unfortunately not the best.

The miniatures are from Black Tree Design, Gripping Beast and Westwind. The pose of the Westwind model is maybe a bit akward, but he looks very cool with his flowing cloak and the half-hidden face.

Shield transfers, as always, from LBMS.

Just another unit of these, and then it's on to mounted skirmishers and then the characters. Should be a breeze!

Pictish Raiders 4

Here is the second unit of raiders to be finished for my Pictish Raiders force for Dux Britanniarum.

GB, BTD, GB, GB, BTD, GB

The models are a mix of Black Tree Design and Gripping Beast, and the shield transfers are as usual from the excellent Little Big Men Studios. I've been trying out some new stuff with the bases and I'm liking how they look now – a bit more interesting without being too cluttered. When all units are done, I will go back and update the bases of the first units using the same techniques.

Unfortunately I've had some problems with the wash drying uneven and patchy, as you can see in the close-ups. I think it might have something to do with the weather here in Sweden the last couple of weeks – very hot and humid. The models look good on arm's length distance though, which is how they will be viewed most of the time so I guess it's not that big a deal.

With this unit finished it's already half the army done, which is certainly good for the painting morale! I'll be off on vacation for most of next week but I aim to have another unit done before the week is over.

Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks for looking!