Fyrd Focus

 Never one to let a project sit idle, I have finally finished the Anglo-Saxon army I started in [checks notes] ... 2015.

So these have been sitting in my unpainted pile for some time now. I can't remember the catalyst to get something done about it. It was either the promise of an actual game next month (Saga: Age of Vikings has only advanced one edition in the interregnum, which is promising), or the fact that I found some shield decals that I wanted to use.

These decals were the reverse of the usual waterslide ones I'm used to - so naturally I procrastinated for years before figuring them out. But it turns out, they're really simple, and I immediately tore off the shields from my 20 completed warriors to upgrade them.

The top-tier of a Saga warband are the hearthguard (known a 'thegns' for the Saxons), but there's not much to distinguish them, so I put some bronze on their helmet rims, and added some unique features, like a banner or double-swords (playing a bit fast and lose with historical reality there, but I'm sure there was some chancer who fancied himself).

I also liberally distributed axes (thanks to Kraken for the spare bits), since Anglo-Danes (who are basically Anglo-Saxons a bit further down the road) can make use of dane axes, so I'd have the option of running them.

The real meat and potatoes (or maybe parsnips, in an age before Walter Raleigh) of the warband are its warriors (aka 'ceorls'). I had one set of eight to replace the shields, and another set to paint. But I enjoyed painting them so much, I dug out all the old Gripping Beast sprues, and assembled the lot!

Being mostly chainmail, drybrushing did most of the work here. The only trick was to mix up the greens and browns to avoid uniformity in their tunics, hose, leggings and shoes. A wash of Agrax and it was done.

I also had to restrain myself from assigning them all shields of a uniform colour and style. Much as I would have liked that, the randomness feels more dark age.

In any other Saga warband, I'd be almost finished now, but as my luck would have it, Anglo-Saxons are the horde army, and rely heavily on their levies ('geburs' to you), so I have to assemble the fyrd!

One advantage of the Anglo-Saxon levies is they can have shields, and can potentially access good tactics from the Battle Board, so that can make them an intimidating prospect to grind through.

And to add some missile troops, I put together one unit of levies with just slings and arrows (hoping for some outrageous fortune from this lot). Even with their numbers, and lack of chainmail, they weren't that troublesome to paint. The whole warband took around a month, which is not bad for 50 models (plus 20 restored).

To complete the force is the warlord, who was the original paint job, but holds up well (especially considering his shield is the only one I left hand-painted). The new edition of Saga allows for special characters, such as Bodyguard (who seems like an extra warlord), so this guy might get demoted if someone more important comes along.

Speaking of which, the final model is Alfred the Great (told you there were special characters). He probably won't see much action, but as I am presently eyeball-deep in historical novels, I couldn't resist.

And that's the entire Fyrd done. In Saga, 4pts gets you a basic game, and 8pts is considered a big game. So all this adds up to 9pts, which should cover my options.

Now for my next challenge: resisting getting another warband!