It ends today!

The whole warband armed and ready.

To give a proper end to the dwarf warband project for SAGA, I wanted to summarize the all thing in a single post with some group pictures of the all bunch. By the same mean, I'll be ending the blogging for 2012. I am taking two weeks break off the brushes, incidentally to be among my relatives for Christmas, before coming back in 2013 with new projects and a challenge to accomplish.

Warlord, banner and hornblower

Now, before I leave, I wanted to share a few thoughts about this project. The choice dwarves to start with SAGA is obviously odd. My pristine intention was to put together an actual Anglo-Danes warband. But when John and I decided to throw ourselves in the SAGA joy, it seemed to me that I could never go through the all process of purchasing, preparing and so on (you all know the drill). Also I did not have quite the time to decide which figures I would want to order, so I moved on with what I had, and rush through the bushy beards.

Twelve double-handed axes make 3 pts of SAGA hearthguards

I had the design to paint a dwarf warband inspired by images from the Russian folklore and tales since a while. I actually started to put together a few figs last winter, then got caught by other idea and lost motivation. I wanted to have group of figures that would be versatile enough to be used with any kind of rule set, and slowly came to the concept of soft fantasy, of which I have read about here and there. Basically the goal was to create something that would be closer in essence to the flavor of fairy tales and myths, than to the hardcore vision of a teenager of worlds and realms torn by wars led by brutal morons armed with none the less moronic weapons or ninetypercentnaked armored chicks.

The shieldwall. Sixteen shields or 2 pts of SAGA warriors.

The fact that I picked GW LotR figures for this project was only because I found the design, that the Perry brothers gave them, to be quite close to the traditional Rus outfits, especially the helmets and scale armors. To tell the truth, even though I am a definite fan of Tolkien's novels, I never really meant to use these dwarves in their original Middle Earth setting, nor did I ever really mean to play the Lord of the Ring Battle Game. It is only now that they are all painted and ready that I have started to consider this option. Also, because John, after years of painting Napos, has suddenly jumped in his son's collection, and is slowly bringing back to life a quite impressive collection. But, I can tell, I will need to think about it twice; because the concept of Durin’s Folks, is not something I am nearly quite enough familiar with.   

Twelve bows and dozens of arrows makes 1 pt of SAGA levies.

Next projects will be all more historical in essence. Well… probably with a twist, since I am not that much an historical accuracy geek. But, I am already planning ahead to give these dwarves some opponents of their size, an unexpected warband of creatures raised in the shadows of the deepest forests from popular beliefs, myths and beyond...

Finaly for the actual Lor of the Ring fans,
Murin and Drar, the fearsome brothers.

Merry Christmas to all who pass by and see you in 2013!