Monday, 2 January 2017

Anglo-Saxon huscarls


Here we go again, the start of a new army for the Dark Ages. The Norman warband I recently finished only served to "whet my appetite" for this period, so the natural next step was to start putting together some Anglo-Saxons. Here are the first 12, heavily armed and armoured huscarls ready to repel the barbarian invaders.

The models are once again from Gripping Beast. I gave these guys a lot of equipment traditionally associated with Normans (kite shields with Norman designs and painted helmets), as it seems quite likely that the same styles were in vogue on both sides of the channel. The equipment and the similar colour palette also help to tie my two armies together. The models from Gripping Beast are lovely and were a joy to paint. I shortened the dane-axes a bit, as those provided by Gripping Beast are ridiculously long (they should be at most shoulder height).