JJ's Dark Ages - Saxon Warband

It was on my little sojourn to France last month I put together the box of Gripping Beast (GB) Saxons that I bought in February and I received  a very nice birthday present from Tom of the GB King Penda and his champion.

The reason for embarking on a collection of Dark Ager warriors is two fold, firstly the Xmas game at the DWG in December where everyone in the club comes together to play in one big end of year extravaganza, and this year it happens to be Dux Brittaniarum and we all need to bring some figures.

Secondly I love this period, particularly the 8th century onwards with the Viking and later Norman raids and invasions.

So I thought I should get on and at least have my minimum of six warriors done in time for the game and then I can add to the collection as I go from then on. That idea saw me pick up two boxes of GB plastic Dark Age Warriors, a box of Viking Hirdsmen and assorted bases at Colours the other weekend.

So here we go with the Penda and champion figure that Tom got me together with some command and theign figures from the plastics.

I love the King Penda model with severed heads in hand astride another fallen foe, perhaps one of the five or so Saxon Kings he did in during his remarkable reign of Mercia.

I have continued the Warwickshire theme for my contributions to previous club games when I fielded the Earl of Warwick for our Wars of the Roses big game a few years ago and being a son of the heart of England and birthplace of the great Bard of Stratford it seemed fitting to have Penda at the head of my Saxons.

King Penda and his champion, mix well with the Gripping Beast plastic range

The banner was fun to do using one of the Little Big Men offerings that requires soaking the decal onto white paper and then cutting to shape and fixing on to the pole,

Like wise the shield decal for Penda's champion, the fierce looking fellow with spear nonchalantly carried over his shoulder (far right above), required a bit of cutting and painting to allow for the hand on the shield.

I was really pleased to see how well the plastics match in with the metals, with the latter very slightly larger but not really noticeably so, when in a group on the table as I hope my pictures illustrate.

King Penda was famously, the last pagan English King and stands here among his warriors sporting Christian crosses at their necks, which is not to much of a problem as the King was not known for forcing his religious beliefs on his fellow Mercians or the other Saxon Kingdoms he conquered, which probably explains the religion surviving and prospering after his demise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penda_of_Mercia

Once the collection has grown I will put together a JJ's Dark Ages section on the blog where I can bring all this stuff together in one place. Still it's good to have things underway and to know from small acorns mighty oaks do grow.

It has been interesting times here at Chez JJ this week as the bare brick wall on the right in the picture below illustrates we have the builders in.

Carolyn has decided we need a new bathroom and a refit in the others and so a new door way was needed to gain access to our bedroom to allow for the addition. This entailed knocking holes in walls with the new door just visible in the picture.

As you can see my little painting desk is very close by and with the first bit of serious knocking the 1930's vintage plaster evaporated into a dusty air choking miasma that covered my desk in plaster remnants.

Once I had rescued important stuff off of it and chucked a dust sheet over the rest I had to temporarily relocate the painting table and was only able to tidy up and rearrange the desk later this week once the wall was finished with and now needs the attention of a plasterer.

Anyway things are sort of back to normal and the desk gets covered in the day just in case!

So it seems that every other wargame blog features the painting desk at some time, so here is my little altar to the God of Wargaming all tidied up with everything in its place and minus the plaster and brick debris.

So there we are and it will be back to the Spanish in the next post with the Alcantara Heavy Cavalry Regiment.