Saga - The Welsh Warband

I’ve finished painting my 4 point Welsh Warband for Saga!  I had bought the Gripping Beast Welsh Warband boxed set, consisting of 33 models, because it fulfilled the requirements precisely of the welsh, while the plastic sets were too much armour and not enough bows to give the feel of a Welsh group.  The models themselves are all metal, and I actually got 34 (1 extra) in the box, including 4 hearthguard, 1 warlord, 16 warriors and 12 levy.  The casting is on the whole very good, though some hands needed a lot of clearing out before they could have weapons put in them, with a nice level of detail to match most out there. 

The models are on the large size, and, although I haven’t compared them properly yet, I expect them to be closer to Renegade Miniatures 30mm scale than Warlord Games 28mm.  I got more than enough shields and javelins in the box, but exactly 12 bows, which caused a problem when I broke one, and I had to press a warhammer Bretonnian spare into place, which actually worked nicely and give the model a more individual touch.

For painting I worked on one unit at a time – Warriors, warriors, Hearthguard & Warlord, Levy as it turns out – painted a reasonable amount of detail before using the Army Painted ‘dipping’ method, and basing them, unusually, with stone and flowers.  The flower packet I had bought for my Wars of the Roses troops a year ago at Tripples, but I’d never got round to it, and it looked good with the Welsh.  It’s the first time I’ve used stones on a base in around 10 years (since a previous incarnation of my 40k Imperial Guard army in fact!) because they used to fall off something chronic, but it had the best effect out of my various flocks available, and I think it gives the models character.  I might give them a coating of PVA glue at a later date if they prove unreliable.

Onto the pictures then; its only a 4pt army so far, I expect I’ll add an extra two points at some stage, probably in the form of another levy and either a warrior or a hearthguard unit.  Now I just need to find time to use them.  Oh, and a method to transport the models – metal javelins were NOT a good idea.

The models after being glued together.  The two barrels are for another project.  A number of the models were recipients of bits from my bits box, most notably the arrows in the ground and the Warlords 2 dogs.

After the 'Dipping' part of the process, so quite shiny.  The sheep and pastor are for my ECW games.

The Warlord and Hearthguard (and dogs).

Warrior group one - with yellow flowers to distinguish from group 2 who have white ones.

Warrior group 2.

The Levy.