Half a unit is better than nowt!

I managed to get half a unit of bondi assembled and painted in the last fortnight, alongside a minor excursion into huts. Well, half a Lion Rampant unit that is, they are only two men short of a point for Saga. One thing I can say about blogging, it certainly spurs you into painting things, just to have something to put on the blog instead of waffle. Well...alongside waffle in my case.

Gripping Beast plastic Bondi - charging to the front!

The bondi are made up from the Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors plastic set, with additional bits such as heads, belt-pouches and seaxes taken from the spares in the Viking Hirdmen box. I am not as keen on these as the Hirdmen, the bodies tend towards a rather hunched look, unlike the generally upright Hirdmen. Another problem is that the shields don't fit into the hands of a couple of poses. The hand is held at the waist but the chest and hem of the tunic prevent the hand fitting behind the shield boss without major and rather ugly re-sculpting. This is largely unseen if the shield is glued onto the arm but it is a minor annoyance. Minor gripes aside, they paint up lovely and there are plenty of characterful options between the two boxes.

...and charging away again!

I did have a slight disaster with my talc/varnish mix, one of the bondi (probably the last one in the line for varnishing) ended up looking rather frosty but fortunately a light coating of GW Nuln Oil shader followed by a fresh coat of varnish did the trick.

Well, it is the Winter Solstice and I aim to be quite drunk for a few days so maybe there will be an update before the New Year, maybe not. In any case I will wish you all a Joyful Solstice, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in that order!

Viking Hirdmen for Lion Rampant (and maybe Saga)

Well, less waffle and more pics this time. I finished my first unit for my Viking army today, a unit of six Foot Men-at-Arms in Lion Rampant terms or a unit and a half of Hearthguard for Saga. This means that the two Men-at-Arms units I need for Lion Rampant will give me three points of Hearthguard for Saga, two birds, one stone.

Gripping Beast plastic Viking Hirdmen - Front View

As you can see they are Gripping Beast plastic Viking Hirdmen that I made up straight out of the box, with only minor adjustments to the way the arms fit. Some of the arms have a slight shoulder attached which looks a lot better if it is filed flat and any gap filled with liquid greenstuff (from Games Workshop) or just bunged up with gesso at the undercoating stage if I forget.

...and from the other side...

They were an absolute joy to put together, very few bits and they all fitted reasonably well. The separate shields were the best bit, one of my bugbears is cast on shields. While cast on shields are good for painting as they shadow all the bits you would otherwise have to paint, you can't just take out a bunch of shields and paint them when you have five minutes to spare. Plastic shields are also easier to attach after painting than separate metal shields, just scratch away a little paint and use polystyrene cement, wiggling until the melted plastic is fully mixed for a stronger bond.

...and my usual view of them on the table (hopefully!).

Overall I am very happy with the way they turned out, especially as I now have flat varnish again so it is on to my next unit, twelve Bondi to back them up. More next time.