Viking Ship Gokstad

I thought the Airfix Golden Hind would have been my last ship build  but never say never.

The Build
The hull and decking fit together easily. I decided to go for the under sail version which meant covering all the oar holes. The covers are tiny and adding them was fiddly to say the least.
A couple of hours and many layers of paint.

The Sail.
After trimming the sides it (it´s one of those preformed plastic sails) was scored with fine sand paper to remove the shine and give a paintable surface. Fine thread glued on along the edge of the top and both sides. Several layers of paint. The 1st two in opposing directions and layed on with a course 1/2" brush to give some texture, then 3-4 dry brushes. Masking tape and the red stripes added.
Holes drilled and attached with thread to the spar.

The Rigging.
The Emhar instructions are a bit, er?, not that good. They suggest drilling holes in what are essentially, very thin ribbing to secure mast ropes, nothing on how to rope up the anchor and some other oddities that don´t strike me as being quite right.
After looking online I found two examples;
1. A Dusek kit HERE
2. Another wooden ship (make unknown) HERE
I used both as inspiration for the following rigging, except I´ll use plain slightly modern blocks instead of the odd looking "H" things shown on both the above linked builds.

As soon as I added the sail, it became very apparent I´d need three hands, one to hold the ship and another two to attach the rigging so...
...I made a stand out of some old polystyrene packing.

Most of the rigging completed.

Prefit of the rudderman. The Emhar Bods are hard plastic, so the arms can be altered into position and they stay put without warm water treatment

The Crew
Mostly Emhar and one Strelets bod. I know, there´s only 14 but I haven´t found enough decent poses that would be usefull for crew members but I´ll add some more as and when I find them.

Norman Staff slingers - Tumbling Dice

Set NF10. As with the light slingers, 8 bods in 4 poses, so again, I´ve painted just the 4 poses.

I said way back in 2011, (HERE) there´s no Medieval  staff slingers in 1/72nd and in a sense, I´m still right. These are after all, Dark ages Bods, two of them wear the classic norman Nasal Helmet and, at the time of posting, I wasn´t aware of Tumbling Dice,  so wether they were  making them before 2011, I don´t know.

As with the light slinger norman set, the other 4 I will, at some point,  convert  into early medievals.

Norman Light Crossbowmen - Tumbling Dice

Another batch of Normans from TD. Light (as in wearing no chainmail) crossbowmen NF13
8 Bods in 4 poses, 6 loose crossbows.

Norman Light Slingers - Tumbling Dice

Set  NF12. 8 Bods in 4 poses. As my basic rule is to try and paint only one of any pose unless I can convert somehow (head swop, weapon change etc)
I´ve painted the 4 poses in a uniformed look. They are Normans after all but obviously they could be used as soldiery for other armies of the period and with a less uniformed paint job.
The other 4 repeat poses? I might convert to early medievals but first a few more dark age bods need painting.

Comparison pic with a Strelets Norman Archer

Tumbling Dice - Saxon General Fyrd (AS4)

8 bods in 8 poses with 8 detached shields.
Mostly spearmen, as it should be. One is swinging two axes so either the shield can be attached to his back, or, as I have done, left off entirely.

No flash. Some of them had extra bits of tin from the base to the butt of a spear but that´s the sprue to enable the spear to be fully cast. Easy to remove, snip, snip and it´s gone, although, I recommend using a stanley knife (other brands are available) to cut it free from the spear as using snippers/pliers tends to leave the butt squashed.

Cast in Tin (pewter) as Paul from TD says on his site

In all the ranges figurines or models are designed to be used as games pieces, this dictates the model must have a certain amount of robustness along with the need for historical accuracy. I cast small items in Tin (Pewter) for strength......

This post is the first of quite a few, I´ve got another 25 sets to get finished😊

Corsairs of Umbar (Pt2)

Second up, the 1st set of Corsairs (Purple Pirates ) from Dark Alliance
12 Bods, flash virtually none to deal with.
This lot are expecting a fight and each of them have at least two weapons  Maces, axes, swords, boarding pikes, daggers and throwing knives.

Close ups
Boarding pikes and a boarding hook

The boss and his shieldmen. The leaf design is a bit odd but maybe he pinched it from an elf?

Both sets together. I´ll add a standard at some point but other projects are taking precedence

A Dark Tale

During the time of the plague, Death approached a small town.

An old man sitting outside the town asked of Death "May I ask, What are you doing here?"

To which Death replied, "You may well ask. I have come to collect one person from each house" and he proceeded into town.

Later that day, Death left the town. A crowd, numbering many more than the count of houses, followed him.
The old man once again questioned Death, asking, "you said you were going to take one person from each house but it appears you have taken many more. Why?"

Grinning,  Death replied,  "I did only take one from each house, the others ? They died from fear."
And with that, he went on his way.

Franks crossing the Rhein

Frank Jackson, his son Frank Jackson Jnr. and his apprentice Frank Smythe,  cross the Rhein.

On the other bank waiting for them are Norman Clarke, Norman Huds and his son Norman Huds Jnr

Corsairs of Umbar

Or, as I prefer to call them, the Purple Pirates.
Corsairs set 2 from Dark Alliance, featuring long range weapons.
10 bods and one ballista. Tiny bit of flash.
The colour scheme is my own.

The set divides up into, 4 Archers, 4 crossbows and a ballista with crew.
The Archers

The Crossbowmen

The ballista I´ve covered HERE.

Purple Pirate Ballista

Actually, it´s the ballista and crew from the 2nd Dark Alliance Corsairs set.

The crew.
They seem to be a commander and ammo supplier and niether is actually interacting with the Ballista, although the commander can have his left hand put onto the winding gear.

The Ballista.
It comes in two parts and is held together with two pegs. This works fine although I added some second glue to make sure.

Anglo Saxons - Strelets

Set M003, the second set from Strelets titelled "Anglo Saxons". The first set (016) which came out a couple of years before this lot,  is, IMHO, as titelled Anglo Saxons, a bit of a mess.
Not to say they haven´t got a use,  a lot of them  could  easily be employed as medieval levy types.

This lot are the Saxon  Shield wall bods. As both Vikings and Anglo Saxons looked very similar they could be added to the Viking set M004 to create quite an impressive 24 man Shield wall. Add other bods from the various Viking and Anglo Saxon sets which are holding thier shields to the front and it could be as many 30 bods wide.
Add to that, headswops, weapon swops and Bods from other makes and the wall could get endlessly wide. Something to do one day…...perhaps :-)

12 bods, very little Flash.
The sprue also has A Sword, an Axe, two spears and three shields (two round, one Kite)
Three of the bods carry Kite shields. Two  are already attached but they could be easily replaced with round shields.
The  Kite Shield and one of the round shields have odd looking "riveting" around the rims so I replaced them with ones from the Zvezda Vikings set.
The spears got ditched in favour of one handed weapons.

A couple of close ups

What you get in the Strelets Stamford Bridge big box set if only one of each pose from each sprue is painted and no conversions.
39 Anglo Saxons and 39 Vikings.

The whole Anglo Saxon army so far. 68 bods, Emhar, Tumbling Dice and Strelets

Anglo Saxons before Battle - Strelets

14 bods, quite a mix of armour, and weapons. Tiny bits of Flash to deal with, except, one of the spearman´s spear was a bit too covered in Flash,  so rather than spend ages removing it, I replaced it.

This lot are available as either set M050 (4 sprues)  or with the Hastings 1066; Anglo Saxon Army big box set (3 sprues) or in the Stamford Bridge set (two sprues)
There´s a bit of  possibility for conversions but not a lot so the Stamford Bridge set offers the best value.

"Come on, let´s be avin ya!!"

Fyrd types. 

I didn´t add a bowstring as the bod would probably string his bow just before the Action started. 

Axes and a mace. 

The mace threw me a bit, did the Saxons use maces? 

They are shown in the Bayeux tapestry, (pic 49B) William I with his mace over his shoulder and another mace flying through the air during the battle (top left Corner 51F)*

Ok, the Tapestry is older than the period the bods above are intended for, especially if they are part of the two big box sets but it´s an obvious weapon. 

Also, the Stone attached to a stick as a throwing weapon. On the strength of a comment  that what is shown is a "flying mace" I tried this out. Not going to the effort of making a hole in a Stone  but adding a stick makes the same Stone fly a lot further than without…..you get an added leverage Advantage (?)


*interestingly, one of the soldiers is Holding his axe the wrong way around. Mistake on the part of the Person who embroidered that bit or was he shown to be About to throw it?