A start

Well, you have to start somewhere ...

Dark Age Church

And now for that little something extra I pomised last week: if you have a dark age village, you naturally need a big freaking church to raid or to defend (not to mention pray in). So here it is.

The design is more or less copied from the one seen on Lard Island News, but as I had to estimate the measurements from the pictures I think mine came out a little too big. The design posed a couple of interesting challenges – especially the apse with its semi-circle and semi-conical roof took some thinking before I came up with the solutions. Coming up with the solutions to problems like these is half the fun with these projects though!

I experimented a bit with some selected washing on the plaster to get a better "depth" on the model, and I really like the effect. I'm not sure how much it shows on the photos though. I think I will go back and do some washing on the other buildings as well.

The main roof lifts off, to get access to the inside of the building.

A simple dirt floor – this ain't no cathedral.

Unwelcome guests ...

The door is not scratch-built but a resin piece from Antenociti's Workshop. It may be a bit anachronistic, but there you go.

It's a fun coincidence that my good gaming buddy Dalauppror and I both started building our churches at roughly the same time, unaware of each other's projects. His is much more impressive though – go check it out if you haven't already!

Of course, when I'd just about finished this church I came upon another design which I think possibly may be a bit more historically correct – I don't know for sure. Maybe I need to build me another church some day just to be certain ...

Now, all that's left are some peasants to populate the village, and maybe a priest or some monks for the church.

Thanks for reading, have a great week everyone!

Dark Age Village

I have now finished the rest of the buildings for the dark age village. They are made in the same style as the barn I posted earlier. There are one large house and two smaller – although to be honest, the smallest one is really more of a shed than a house.

Some more pictures of the buildings below with some saxons for scale.

All the roofs are of course removable.

Where's the loot?!

Well, I said the village is finished but I think it needs a little something extra ...  Stay tuned for next week!

Pictish Raiders

From the north they came ...

A month or so back, I realized I hadn't put up any pictures of the Pict raiding force I finished last year, so when I got the time I arranged some terrain and took some photos. Then things got in the way, as they have a tendency to do, and it took me a good while to sort out the pictures – but this week I finally took the time to finish the last few of them.

The whole warband ready to raid (click for larger image).

The force consists of the following models: one Lord with a champion and standard-bearer (the last one is for decoration only and have no effect in the Dux Britanniarum rules), one minor Noble, one group of four bow-armed skirmishers (should be crossbows according to the rules apparently, but there you go), one group of four skirmishers armed with javelins, one group of four skirmish cavalry and four groups of six raiders each.

Here is the Lord Gartnait son of Girom with his champion Caltram son of Uoret to his right. Behind him stands the trusty standard-bearer Lutrin and to the left stands proud Erip son of Domelch, a minor Noble.

Skirmishing cavalry, armed with javelins.

Skirmishers with bows.

Skirmishers with javelins.

First group of raiders.

Second group of raiders.

Third group of raiders.

Fourth group of raiders.

The miniatures are an eclectic mix of Black Tree Design, Gripping Beast, Old Glory and West Wind. Shield transfers and banner from Little Big Men Studios.

With the long (looong!) awaited Raiders supplement for the excellent Dux Britanniarum from Too Fat Lardies finally being about to be released – "in the beginning of April" is that I'm hearing – I'm getting very excited to at last be able to field this force.

Thanks for looking, have a great weekend everyone!

Dark Age Barn

It's been a bit quiet around here lately due to various boring personal stuff like being sick, parents visiting (no relation between the two though!) and whatnot. However, behind the scenes I've been working away at my current focus on painting and building terrain.

With two finished warbands, the Picts and the Saxons, eager to raid, I set to work on building something for them to plunder: a small Dark Age village. This barn or storage house is the first building to be finished. It's more or less an exact copy of the one described by Richard Clarke of Too Fat Lardies here, although I've not used the exact same materials.

The barn served as a sort of test piece, most notably for the painting, for the village. For this project I've used artists' colours from Liquitex and Daler-Rowney, which is a first for me. The paints are quite different than your usual miniature paints like Vallejo or Citadel, more like a not very opaque gel. It took a bit of experimenting before I got the hang of these colours, and found out which techniques to use. In the end, the result is quite nice I think.

Some more pictures below.

The roof is of course removable.

Not much to see indoors though ...

Some Saxon bad boys for scale.

"This barn is our barn."

In the scenarios for Dux Britanniarum that calls for buildings, the minimum amount needed is four, so that's what I'm aiming for. I have the other three buildings in various states of completeness, and might do an additional one or two.

Thanks for looking, have a great week everyone!