Small, Far Away Part 3: More 15mm Dark Ages

It’s been a few days since I’ve updated the blog, mostly due to being busy with work, real life stuff and editing my Midgard rules for the latest play test draft. However, I’ve been quietly basing up a load of 15mm Forged in Battle miniatures to go with my small scale Dark Ages project. My chum Matt offered to get involved so I’m busy collecting and painting full armies for both of us (it was always going to happen!)

I also received some of the Wiglaf Miniatures 18mm Saxons – actual production models this time – and was able to do some size comparison shots. It’s interesting to see that the Forged in Battle 15mm minis stand around 18-19mm tall and are only marginally smaller than the Wiglaf ones (19-20mm tall). The posing of the Wiglaf minis takes up slightly more space, largely because of the separate spears allowing more dynamic poses, but I won’t hesitate to have both of these on the gaming table at the same time. You can see more the of Wiglaf Saxons in my earlier post here.

First up we have a band of Scots-Irish warriors. While they are perhaps a little early in style for the 7th century, I picked these figures because they are very different in feel to the Saxons/ Welsh (and also Wiglaf won’t be doing Irish just yet). I’m trying to colour theme my armies to aid recognition on the tabletop, so these chaps got black shields (bit of Bernard Cornwell influence there) and a mix of yellow and white tunics with various brown and green cloaks.

Painting was carried out mostly with GW Contrast Paints using exactly the same techniques as in my previous Welsh blog post.

To distinguish my upper-class warriors, I gave each unit a flag using a print out of a Celtic pattern: once cut to shape and over-painted, these did the job nicely. They are unlikely to be authentic but look the part.

Figures were based up on 80x40mm 2mm MDF round-cornered bases from Warbases. I went for a less-organised look for the Irish, with warriors dispersed around the base; the noble units received more figures to create the impression of a chieftain’s hearthguard. As per last time, I left a space in the centre of most of the units to accommodate leader figures on round bases.

All the Irish figures were from the following packs:

WE-GS 2 Dal Riatan Mercenaries

WE-GS 3 Scots Irish Warriors

WE-GS 4 Scots Irish Levy

I also added to my Welsh warband – more units of warriors and skirmishers plus a couple of leaders, again from the Arthurian Character pack. Definitely a bit of Merlin going on!