Anglo Saxon Skirmishers - Tumbling Dice

Set AS5.
8 bods in seven poses. 8 Loose shields.

Archers and Javelinmen. Bowstrings added as shown HERE

I wouldn´t normally paint a repeat pose unless it had been converted in some way but adding a shield is a small alteration so acceptable.
The slinger with the red/white shield is the same pose but with a  head swop from the Norman light slingers set

So..I´m slowly getting through the Dark Ages Bods from TD so I´m going to be  getting some more from them..specifically the Renaissance (WotR´s) range (HERE) and the Frankish Crusaders (HERE)
I´m getting the Frankish Archers, Crossbows,  Peasant archers , Peasant Levy and Robinhood command* sets from the Franks range and the 3 artillery sets, WotR´s foot command, mounted archers (both armoured and liveried) from the Renaissance Range.
Any requests for other sets from both ranges?

*I can´t imagine what characters will be included in that one!😊

Norman Archers in Chainmail - Tumbling Dice

On the TD site labelled as NF6 Chainmail Archers.
8 Bods in 4 poses and 8 kite shields. The shields I haven´t used.

Viking Command Mounted - Tumbling Dice

VK11
4 bods in 4 different poses, 4 nags in 4 different poses, 4 shields and 4 different flags/standards.
I used an axe from my collection for one of them and used 2 flat shields from another TD set.*

The winged helmet. Ok, it´s not historically accurate but here it looks spot on. 

*The shields.
It can be seen in the Saxon General Fyrd, that there are two types of shields. Flat and curved. There´s debate as to wether the Anglo Saxons sometimes used slightly curved shields. TBH, I reckon flat shields would be the most common on grounds of ease of construction and flat shields are better for creating shield walls. A curved shield would be slightly more advantageous in close single combat, the opponents weapons would be better deflected due to the curve..so maybe leading/better warriors used them as a supprt to the shield wall (?)
Anyway, the shields come as pairs, one curved and one flat cast on the same sprue. IMHO, it would be better to have a range of castings for the shields;
Pairs of castings with 1x curve and 1x flat  and castings with  only flat. Why? The flat pairs could be used for the Viking sets, the falt/curved for the Angl saxons.

Viking Huscarls with Axes - Tumbling Dice

Set VK1, 8 Bods, 7 different poses and 8 shields.
How the repeat pose selection is done I don´t know. It could be that each set of eight has the same repeat pose I got or it´s a matter of one of the seven being doubled to make up the round eight. Whatever,  they are all great poses so  it doesn´t make much of a difference as to which one is repeated.
I´ve attached shields to 4 of them.

Close ups.
The two on the left are the doubled pose.

Size comparison pic
Emhar Viking Warriors, Strelets Stamford Bridge, Zvezda Vikings (conversion) and Tumbling Dice

Norman Light Archers - Tumbling Dice

Set NF9. 8 bods in 4 poses
As ever, I´ve stuck to my "Paint each pose only once" rule.
Bowstrings added.

Comparison pic.
Revell, Tumbling Dice, Strelets
Note, The base of the TD Bod is thinner than the other two

Norman Crossbowmen in Chainmail - Tumbling Dice

Set NF7. 8 bods in 4 poses, 4 loose crossbows and 8 loose shields.

Rear view. Although they don´t show some form of strap across them suggesting some form of securing the shields I added them anyway.

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