Work in Progress - Vikings

I'm teaching a unit on the Vikings at the moment, which has inspired me to paint up a couple of armies for the 9th century struggles in England. I'll be basing the figures for Basic Impetus.

In a radical departure from standard Dux Homunculorum practice I have decided to have a go at painting 28mm figures. The figures are from Wargames Factory, and I'm generally pretty happy with them. As Neldoreth points out in his brilliant review of the Plastic Vikings, the figures work well as a loose unit, perhaps charging, but less well to represent a shield wall. My only real gripe withe the WF Vikings is that their hair is much too neat. Indeed, this was the first reaction of the Duchess when I asked her to admire uncritically my finished painting.

At this stage, I'm contemplating using WF Vikings, but pitting them against Saxons from Gripping Beast, which are much more suitable for making a shield wall.

I'm new to this 28mm malarkey, so any constructive feedback is very welcome.

IV/30 Teutonic Order DBA Army

Here's another old DBA army. The wonderful Teutonics over on Paul's Bods blog have made me think I should redo these at some stage. These chaps are from a big project about four years ago where I was painting sets of historical opponents for DBA, so these were opponents for Mongols, Russians and C13th Germans.

German Crusader Knights. They couldn't afford the big pilgrimage package to the Holy Land, so have decided to spend their summer holidays in the Baltic instead.

The camp was done in a rush with modelling clay for the tent and monks from Strelets 'Medieval Britain' set. The tent does sort of look like something Smurfs would live in. If someone knows a good way to make bell tents, I'd love to know it.

III/78 Early Russian DBA Army

Click on images to identify dodgy painting.

Well. School has started back and life is busy, so not much progress in the Dux's workshops. So I thought I'd take the opportunity of just photographing some old DBA armies. First up are the 13th century Russians I finished about four years back, consisting mainly of Strelets figures with a few Zvezda and Caesar as well. I love the look of this army (not that I've done it justice), combining the appearance of Vikings and Steppe peoples. Unfortunately, I've had no success with it at all, either in DBA or Basic Impetus. The cavalry aren't tough enough to tackle western knights, and they can't skirmish properly against Mongols. What I really need is a big lake of ice to fight on that all my enemies can fall through when it cracks. Now there's a thought.

Hmm. I'm not sure why his horse is blue either. Might have used Payne's Grey, thinking it was - yes - grey.