Anglo-Dane Warlord: Special Offa

I realise that Offa was an Anglo-Saxon king, but the only Anglo-Dane I know is Cnut - and where's the pun in that name?

Of course, Offa had a Dyke.
The whole Dark Ages is a linguistic minefield

This model, the first of my Anglo-Dane warband, was previewed before WoffBoot IX, but he's now finished in his fully-flocked glory. Being on a larger base than usual gave me scope to be a bit more creative, but in the end I drew a blank and just went for a collection of weapons and shield.

The model itself is a conversion of bits from the Gripping Beast's plastic boxes. It's mostly Saxon Thegns, but I wanted a bare-headed character to stand out, and all the Thegns are rather-sensibly helmeted, so I chose one I liked from the Dark Age Warriors box (suitably veteran-looking and shouting orders).

Since going into battle without a helmet wouldn't do much to raise the life expectancy curve of the Dark Ages, I took one of the Thegn heads and cut off the lower part until only the helmet was left. It would look better if his left hand was actually holding the helmet, but it looks passable tucked under his arm.

The right hand needed another conversion - Anglo-Danes come with Dane Axes, and the Thegn box doesn't have any. I used a cut-down spear arm, with a regular axe head attached on top, which seems to work well.

The rest of the model is the standard pieces: body and cloak. The cloak is especially nice, although being part of the command sprue, you only get two in the box. Understandable, but a shame - a whole unit with cloaks would look great and I'd have sacrificed a few of the 44 models in the box to get them. The 44 models cost a mere £19 by the way (that's two Battle Wizards in GW currency).

Ignore the bit of flock on his cape.
Somebody grassed.

With a black undercoat, this model was a breeze to paint. Once the armour was drybrushed, it was out with the earth tones and brown washes. I'm making green (and yellow, on the shields), the accent colour for this warband, but even that is only applied to the cloak. Less is more, after all, these are historicals.

In the spaces between WFB battles on the WoffBoot weekend, we managed to get in a few games of SAGA, and my Anglo-Danes actually won a few (no reports, so you'll just have to take my word for it).

The first victory (Kill the Warlord) came when the Viking warlord unwisely charged my battle-line alone and was put on the express coach to Valhalla. The second (Capture the Bridges) came from a combination of concentrating my Hearthguard into one large group (not a bad tactic) and the relentless use of the Anglo-Dane's fatigue abilities (much more potent in a battle of manoeuvre, rather than a head-on clash).

They were both fun to play, and so short it took my by surprise. Looking forward to playing some more.