Gisby's Gaming Blog

August 8, 2025

Heroic Age: Kreimfild and her Companions

Filed under: 1066, Ancients, Crucible Crush, Dark Ages, Heroic Age, Pulp Figures — gisby @ 15:35

Lately I’ve been building units intended for the Age of Beowulf, Sigurd, Hrolf Kraki, and King Arthur. Geats battle Danes, Angles invade Britain, etc. It’s an age where all we know of is the Heroes, and the grimlich foes they fought.

I present to you, Kreimfild and her Companions, from Bob Murch’s 1066 range. She is a Champion, and a War Leader with an armed following of her own. To many she would appear as a Valkyrie, gathering heroes for Valhalla. To others she is merely a powerful foe. But she is a valuable ally in either case.

Kreimfild, (In some tales referred to as Bunnhilde) is the series’ 10453 Isobel Of Conches, given a round shield for use in an earlier age. The model was a lovely, clean casting with a separate shield. I would have liked a more active pose, looking forward – as it is, the unit leader seems to be rather shy.

She is surrounded by a band of companions, referred to variously as Champions or Brothers. I intend to add to their numbers in future.

It seems a small force, but under the rules I use, it represents 100 men. The figures themself have a good heft, and they look impressive on the table.

This is pack 10505 Mounted Armoured Saxon Warriors

And likewise, 10511 Saxon Un-armoured Riders

July 17, 2025

A Simple Stone Wall

Filed under: Ancients, Cowtown Chronicle, Dark Ages, Mexican Adventure, terrain, VBCW — gisby @ 10:15

This is a wall made of 3mm thick Sintra, an expanded PVC used mostly for signs, so far as I know. It cuts cleanly and easily, takes primer, paint, and putty, can be sanded, and glues easily with PVC weld or Cyano adhesive.

First I cut a series of 1/4″/6mm strips, and drew them through sandpaper to remove rough edges. Using a craft knife, I notched the sides, and carved the faces to make them look irregular. On One out of six, I did the same on the face, to make a top row. Looking at the example, you can see that not all strips got the same level of treatment – But when assembled, that detail disappears. If you space the notches regularly, you can make brick walls rather than stone.

I sat in the gazebo, watching movies while I did the carving, so it wasn’t bad at all. A Dremel might have made it even easier.

The strips were piled up to act as courses in a wall, and topped with the ‘top’ strips. I trimmed the ends after. The assembled wall was glued to a Sintra base. Corners are easy to make.

The stones were primed grey, and some were picked out in other colours, and the whole wall was washed in black.

As a project, it’s easy. Just bring a bag of strips to carve, and a knife, and you can keep your hands occupied while you watch TV, sit in the sun, etc. Use a drop cloth, it’s messy. Of course, although I show one example, I made a bunch of ’em.

In the end, you have a bunch of nice walls, both attractive and cheap, and a feeling of accomplishment.

You could use the same technique to make a foundation for an Old West building, or a complete building.

EDIT: I buy my Sintra in 4’x8′ sheets from a Plastics supplier, but you can usually buy offcuts at sign shops, or get hanging signs from retail shops when they change promotions

July 14, 2025

Dark Ages: Saxon Warriors

Filed under: Ancients, Crucible Crush, Dark Ages, Pulp Figures — gisby @ 22:44

This is set 10504 Saxon Fast Melee Warriors from Crucible Crush’s ‘1066‘ range – A five-figure pack of unarmoured Saxon warriors, suitable for use as wealthier members of the Fyrd, local defense forces, raiders, or even as Norsemen.

They are posed to rank well on a small frontage – Not all the same pose, but complimentary. There are 15 head variants, so your pack may not be identical to the illustration. (Each pose comes with one of three different heads, at random)

The figures all wear knee-length tunics, and gartered trousers. Shields are supplied, and need to be attached.

NB: If you want a bigger group, these same figures are sold as 10540 – Saxon unarmoured Warriors, in a pack of 16.

January 30, 2025

Irregular Frankish Infantry

Filed under: Ancients, Dark Ages, Franks, Irregular Miniatures — Tags: , , , , — gisby @ 11:01

Not that these are more irregular than other Franks of their period, but the figures are produced by Irregular Miniatures, in their ‘Scots-Irish’ range.

This is one of my favorite units in any of my armies. I love the period, and the sculpts and poses are great. They are dressed and equipped as depicted in ‘Armies & Enemies of Imperial Rome’ and in ‘Armies of the Dark Ages.’ Each figure is subtly different, but similar enough to look like a cohesive unit with no silly poses. They rank up nicely, and fit on bases with no overlap.

They also required little work. I replaced any spears with wire spears, and I may have changed a few hair styles. I added a draco made of putty. Cleanup (if any) was minimal.

The commander is from the Vikings range. He was illustrated on the Irregular site, so I asked for him specifically. Ian was kind enough to oblige.

October 11, 2024

More Plastic Chariots

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Plastic Figures, Wargames Factory — gisby @ 10:00

Many years ago, Wargames Factory produced 28mm plastic Celtic chariots. They have long been one of my favourite plastic kits.

I have reviewed them here, and their Celtic infantry as well.

I am slowly building my way through all my boxes, six chariots at a time. I reserved some of my infantry to use as chariot drivers and crew – Two boxes worth, as it turns out.

I have been building them in a random manner. I build a bunch of chariots, a bunch of horses, and a bunch of crew, then pull them together randomly.

Some crew are infantry figures, if so, I remove the base. The drivers’ hands are drilled to take reins, and their hair filled hair out with putty.

The warriors have also had their hair filled out, and have been given wire spears. They each have a wire peg added to their foot and glued to a hole drilled in the chariot floor.

The horses have mostly the reined heads with the reins trimmed away, and a hole drilled for cotton reins.

The chariots were assembled as per instructions, except I shortened the yoke poles by about 5mm. Assembly was done with plastic cement, except for attaching wire spears and pegs.

Chariots and horses were assembled on 40x60mm bases, with the chariot wheels sitting on pieces of horse base. (So it will be level with the horses.)

Drivers and crew were glued in place. The wire gives a secure joint. Space can be tight, so you may want to check before gluing, and even switch crew around to see who fits best where.

Reins were made from crochet cotton, dipped in a mixture of white glue and paint. Draw the rein through your fingers to squeeze out excess glue/paint. This should also remove the fuzziness. Hang it to dry.

Put the rein through the horse mouth, then feed it through the rings on the yoke. Put both ends of the rein through one hand. Repeat on the other side. Trim reins to length.

September 7, 2024

Dark Ages Saxon Warband

Filed under: Ancients, Crucible Crush, Dark Ages, Pulp Figures — gisby @ 10:00

I needed a prosperous Germanic warband for a force I was building. I wanted a well-armoured centre, and lesser-armed flanks. It could also be fielded as a body with an armoured front rank.

These are two packs from Crucible Crush‘s ‘1066‘ range –10509 Armoured Saxon Spears unit builder and . 10510 Unarmoured Saxon Spears unit builder. At 16 figures each, they are perfect for my requirements.

I based them for WRG 6th ed. But they are intended for ‘Romans, Goths, and Huns,’ where two 60mm bases placed behind one another will count as one base. They can also be used for DBA or whatever is en vogue right now.

The fact that they are single-pose packs is a genuine plus for me – I would be extra pleased if both sets were in the 10509 pose. The poses are good, they rank up well, and fit on 15mm wide bases without interfering with each other.

Their bodies may be the same, but their heads are not – each pack has fourteen variations. The head is about all you really see behind a shield, so it’s fine.

The Armoured Saxons are a delight. They wear beautifully-detailed hauberks and have the aforementioned fourteen different heads. They each look like a Hero, which is good, as I intend them to represent Hrolf Kraki‘s guard.

The unarmoured Saxons are lovely, sculpted in knee-length tunic and gartered trousers. They too have fourteen varieties of head, mostly without helmet.

They are posed with their spear horizontal to the ground – I bent each arm up to angle the spears, and had no problem.

All figures in both packs are cast with open hands, I supplied them with home made floral wire spears. Shields are supplied, and must be attached.

In all cases, the sculpting is crisp and clean, and the casts flawless. They paint up well, and make amazing-looking units.

TL:DR These are great. I painted them.

February 17, 2022

Old Glory Arthurian Warband

Filed under: Ancients, Dark Ages, Old Glory Miniatures — gisby @ 17:26

Many years ago I picked up a copy of Simon McDowell’s ‘Romans Goths, and Huns‘, a book on gaming the Age of Migrations. (Note, various editions change the order of the names*) It was a great little book, with rules, scenarios, and figure ideas, and I found it quite inspirational. now, 30 years later I wanted to try them out, so I made a few units for the game. (You can just use WRG-based units, of course.)

subroman1

These are Old Glory Arthurian infantry. They are in a mix of armour and equipment, and are beginning to show their age. Some of the poses are a bit dodgy, and they require some care to rank up in units.

subroman2

The shields are hand-painted and look far better from a distance (40 feet or so). The banner is Saint Cassandra, Nostra Domina de Motu Perpetuo. It’s based on a banner I made for use in the SCA.

I like the unit well enough, but it isn’t anything special – It probably would have looked better with shield decals rather than hand-painted Chi-ros.

* Simon McDowell later released the Comitatus rules, covering the same period, well worth a look.

Old Glory Gothic Cavalry

Filed under: Ancients, Dark Ages, Irregular Miniatures, Old Glory Miniatures — Tags: — gisby @ 00:07

This is a unit of (mostly) Old Glory Gothic Cavalry – I actually intend to use them as Franks, but they’ll do as pretty much any Germanic cavalry of the era.

They are on the whole a good set: Not badly sculpted, poses aren’t bad, and they look like what they are supposed to be. They look good as a unit, without any christ-on-a-cross poses.

I replaced the leader’s horse with a rearing horse, but the dramatic aspect seems to be totally lost. Oh well. The hornist is by far the worst pose, but a slung shield hides many sins.

The spears and banner pole are made from floral wire, hammered flat at the end and clipped to a point. The shields are separate, so you can vary the angles a bit.

Old Glory cavalry packs are ten figures strong, and I needed twelve figures for the unit, so I had to search through my spares for a couple of figures to round out the unit.

The outside pair of figures on this stand are from Irregular Miniatures. I clipped their shields off and replaced them with Old Glory shields, and they mix perfectly. Both they and their horses are similar in size and heft.

They won’t win any prizes, and probably not many battles, but I still like them. I don’t really enjoy painting cavalry, but all in all, they weren’t so bad.

November 17, 2020

Old Glory Franks

Filed under: Ancients, Dark Ages, Franks, Old Glory Miniatures — gisby @ 11:48

A while ago, I saw an auction on eBay, someone was auctioning off a couple of packs of Old Glory Franks. (or Old Glory for more pictures) He had some very good pictures of the miniatures (far better than either Old Glory site has) and they were pretty darn nice. So I ordered a couple of sets.

og-frankred1

They have two Frankish sets, PLF-01 Infantry with axes, and PLF-02 Infantry with angon – both include command figures. All are dressed in tunics and trousers, some with cloaks or fur vests. Their hair is in various styles of Suebian knot.

og-frankred2

The sets come with a mix of large, Viking-style shields, and smaller (they call them Gothic) shields. I specifically asked them to supply the smaller shields, and they were happy to do so..

og-frankblue2

The Gallic Wars range also has a number of packs of Early Germans, most of which will work as earlier (or wilder) Franks, if you order them with the ‘Gothic’ shields. Have a look at CWG-31 Germans with One Handed Axes. (I did not use any here)

og-frankblue1

I replaced all the spears with wire spears, and mixed the two packs for variety.

I was four figures short for the units, so each has two figures from PAA-02 Romano-British Infantry, which match well in size and style.

August 21, 2020

Wargames Atlantic Irish Chariot

Filed under: Ancients, Celts, Plastic Figures, Victrix, Wargames Atlantic — gisby @ 14:40

I made an Irish Chariot for my Wargames Atlantic Irish: I used a Victrix chariot, because I had one.

irchar1

The Warrior is Wargames Atlantic, and the driver is the original Victrix driver – With his knee breeches he is far more accurate as Irish than he is as a Briton or Gaul. He has a Wargames Atlantic Irish head, though. The two figures scale well together, and the head fit like it was made for him.

irchar3

The dogs running alongside are WA as well – If you do this, be careful. I have noticed the tendency is to pick it up by the dogs, and since they each have two feet on the ground, they flex alarmingly.

irchar2

The gawdawful plastic reins have been replaced with crochet cotton. The shield is painted freehand. It probably shouldn’t have a design, but people seem to expect one…

I had to enlarge the base a bit for the length of the chariot, and the width of the dogs

irchar4

The Victrix Chariot is a nice kit, but has a lot of pieces for a wargames model. It also seems a bit large, but Victrix figures are pretty big, so it fits with them. The driver is more suited to Irish or Cisalpine Gauls than Britons, but that worked out well for me.

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