28mm Pagan Rus

Yay!  Back to the Dark Ages for the first time in, well, ages.  I've loved this period of European history since childhood - my boyish allegiance usually torn between the Vikings and Saxons of my own genetic origins, with the odd grudging nod to the Carolingians.  Airfix didn't do 1/72 Vikings and Saxons, so it wasn't until I was older and able to afford metal miniatures that I could really game in this era.  Over the years, I've done very little commission work for this period - so it was with great pleasure that I was approached to tackle not one but two Saga-era armies for a client.  The first of which is Pagan Rus (vikings who settled in the river basins of Ukraine and Southern Russia - giving Russia its name);

These are all metal miniatures, manufactured by Gripping Beast.  I tackled the ordinary troops first (saving the heroes for later, and for a later post), who were mostly spear-armed, with typical centre-boss round shields.  The client had kindly provided Little Big Man Studios shield and banner transfers, which I'd never used before.  What an absolutely top-notch product!  I recommend these to everyone - if they make what you need, buy from them.  If they don't make what you want, then write to them / pray / ask Santa until they get round to producing your requirements.  They are beautifully-detailed, easy to apply, and so far seem to be pretty robust with only a light sealing coat over them.  Brilliant.

The miniatures are lovely too.  I don't normally enjoy metal miniatures as much as plastics, but these were a joy to paint.  Nice smooth cloth areas, fine detailed mail, and good anatomical proportion / pose compared to many.  The only thing I didn't like was the open hand / separate weapon combination.  To me (and it's just me, maybe...) this approach leaves the hand looking thumbless.  I'm not keen on metal spears either, but for non-painting reasons.  I've found that, in use, the spears get bent - which looks daft.  Of course, with enough brute force a plastic spear would break... which is even more noticeable.  But I have found the 'spring' in a plastic spear helps it to survive.  The hard wire spears I employed on a Landsknecht force some months ago (see earlier post) were best of all - thin, resilient, and springy enough not to bend easily.  Mind you, I was stabbed about 20 times during painting and photography.

The shield transfers made light work of replicating both fancy painted designs (right hand pairing) and the less decorated.  The clean lines and smooth surface of the miniatures made painting the cloth areas easy - even where a contrasting line or edge was added to the tunic.  If you've looked back through many of my other posts, you'll notice almost everyone has dark-to-mid-brown hair.  This is for batch-painting reasons, and also because I reserve that particular colour only for hair - so it doesn't turn up on a cloak, backpack, or pair of boots.  When more hair is visible, such as with English Civil War troops, or these hairy pagans, I introduce more variety.  Blonde and lighter brown both make an appearance, as does grey - and ginger (red) hair of course, as that's where the Rus get their name (slavic word for ginger!).

Not everyone was lightly-armoured.  The chap on the left has done without a helmet, but has a lovely mail shirt and bronzed scale armour vest.  Combined with his baggy trousers, he looks pretty exotic.  The chap at the right has also gone for a stand-out look, using a large rectangular shield and keeping his big fur cloak on.  The rectangular shield doesn't use a transfer, I did the simple geometric design by hand, copying an image in a reference book but switching the colour to blue.

Three more with rectangular shields, showing the variety in headgear (including the chap on the left, who originally had a red cap, until he was christened 'Santa Claus' by a casual observer.  It's brown now...).  Again, the very simple geometric shield designs are just hand-painted.  By now, I needed some relief from painting spears - the chap on the right already had sword in hand, but the other two have hand-grafts from Fireforge medieval sergeants, axe and sword respectively.

These two veterans warranted standout colour schemes.  Purple cloth was expensive and difficult to make, so would only show up on those who could afford it.  Since the guy on the left was bald, and had a fur cloak and fancy shield, he seemed to be displaying a bit of wealth anyway... so he got the one and only purple tunic.  He's keen to keep it clean too - standing off and throwing an axe instead of getting stuck in.  The other chap is clearly a person of some note - mail shirt splinted leg armour, fur-trimmed coat - so he seemed a natural companion for the axe-thrower when taking the pictures.