The Shieldmaidens are in action. Two Saga AARs

On Sunday I finally got my Bad Squiddo Freyja's Wrath Shieldmaidens onto the table in an all-Scandi pair of battles against Clive's Anglo-Danes.

In the first game my force was as follows;

Freyja (War Leader)

One group of 4 Berserker Hearthguards

One group of 8 armoured Hearthguards

Two groups of Warriors

One group of Shieldmaidens (4 warriors led by a Valkyrie, plus a warrior with a War Banner)

My lack of ranged attacks left me at a clear disadvantage and my plans were massively disrupted by losing all my Berserkers to archery. From then on, I just had to attack, using Ullr and Thor abilities to maximise my hits. Unhappily, Clive was able to use the defensive abilities of the Anglo-Danes to pretty much negate my ability to score hits.

Net result: a win for the Anglo-Danes. Here are the pictures of the first battle. i think, from looking at these that my initial deployment was terrible.

Here are my short-lived and ineffective Berserkers.

Some spear-armed Warriors.

My main strike force. desperately trying to get into a better position.

With the Berserkers gone, Clive's defensive line starts to look like a problem.

My large Hearthguard unit gets ready to attack.

The Shieldmaidens led by the Valkyrie are completely useless here.

After two rounds of combat, my Hearthguards vanquish one of Clive's groups of 6 Hearthguards, but I am left in a weak condition in a dangerously exposed place.

Clive's bow-armed Levies and a group of Warriors combine to cause havoc to my spear-armed Warriors. After six rounds of play, I am defeated.

Here is the second game. I decided to replace the Berserkers with 12 Levies with bows.

I have retained the Shirldmaiden unit and have two groups of Hearthguards, one of 4 and the other of 8.

My other unit is one of 8 Warriors.

Things start off much more equally, with my archers targeting one of Clive's groups of Warriors.

I send my Warriors into melee with the archers. This is quite a success, forcing them to retreat.

Elsewhere, the two battle lines watch each other warily, no doubt exchanging insults and expletives.

My Warriors were attacked by Clive's Warriors. I use Ullr and am victorious. His Warriors are destroyed, but once again, I am left weakened and in range of the bow-armed Levies.

Battle is soon joined in the centre. My large group of Hearthguard charge in and destroy one group of Clive's Anglo-Danish Hearthguards, but are then themselves wiped out. 

I send in the Shieldmaidens, who are all killed except for the Valkyrie. However, they have weakened Clive's line. My smaller Hearthguard group charges, but is defeated. The battle is over. The Vikings have lost again.

I wasn't too upset at losing both games, because they were fun to play. The Vikings really do have to attack and try and cause maximum damage, which I generally managed to do quite regularly, but the real strength of the Anglo-Danes comes from their abilities to roll a lot of Save dice, which they also managed to do pretty regularly.

My main mistake was the way I used the Loki ability. I kept on forgetting to make it the first ability, but when I did, it really helped make a difference in melee.

These two armies are pretty much two sides of the same coin. One attacks ferociously and the other defends doggedly.

I have finally finished all my Freyja's Wrath shieldmaidens

Well, it has been a bit of a long job, mainly because I really wanted to do these lovely figures justice, but I have now finished them. I have enough for a Saga Viking warband, with some optional changes to the basic band.

Anyway, here are the final sets of figures. First, here are 12 archers, who will be classed as bow-armed Levies for Saga;

Next, eight unarmoured Warriors with axes;

And finally, eight unarmoured Warriors with spears;

Obviously, I will be fielding these as Vikings, but they could also serve as Anglo-Danes or Jomsvikings (without the archer levies).

Regarding the colour palette I used, once again, I wanted to keep a few unifying touches, therefore, the spear-armed shieldmaidens have predominantly black and yellow shields and the ones with axes have shields that are mostly red and black. I also kept to a basic set of three or four main colours for the clothing and I did a fair amount of dry-brushing to tone down the brightness of their appearance. I think that this has worked pretty well, they are not too subdued overall, but they are reasonably understated.

Now they are finished, I have a game of Saga arranged for next Sunday at the club.

These will also find a place in my Dragon Rampant plans for 2019.

Freyja's Wrath - armoured Shieldmaidens and more

Well, I've made excellent progress with my lovely Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens and I am really happy with the results. If I use these for Saga, they are all going to be classed as Hearthguards. I've tried to stick to a relatively simple colour palette, with the same few colours being used across all the figures, including on their shields. 

First, here are four Shieldmaidens with axes. I really love the one with the chainmail veil over her face. She looks like she is ready to dish up some serious trouble to someone.

Next, here are four Shieldmaidens with spears. These make a nice contrast, being bare-headed.

Next, here are the rest of the armoured Shieldmaidens. These are brandishing swords.

So, these 12 figures will probably be my default 3pts of Hearthguards for Saga, but I also have the option of fielding a group of four Berserkers, and here they are, wild women clad in animal skins and waving some big choppers about. I really love these figures, really dynamic. I suppose they could also be used as a Reduced Unit of Bellicose Foot in Dragon Rampant, with each figure having 3 lives.

Finally, here is my other Thorrun mini, painted to fit in with the colour palette of my Shieldmaidens, together with Morgana, who I see as a magic user, but who my partner described as "that weird nature priestess". I think that Morgana is a really terrific figure. I love her staff, and I've tried to paint it as though it contains some kind of captive Green Man spirit entity. To keep the nature/fertility theme going, her base has actual tufts plus a lighter green flock with coloured bits that (to my eyes, at least) looks like a carpet of young grass and tiny flowers.

Latest Freyja's Wrath figures - WIP and completed figures

I've finally got round to working on my Bad Squiddo Freyja's Wrath figures again. I am initially working on the armoured Shieldmaidens, who will all be Hearthguard for my forthcoming Saga Vikings, plus various other figures which will be used for a variety of things. Below you can see four each of spear, axe and sword armed Shieldmaidens, four Berserkers (in bearskin clothes), Fenrir, a big scary wolf, Morgana, a user of some kind of nature magic, Skalmöld the Valkyrie (with the severed head in her hand) and two models of Thorrun, an earlier Bad Squiddo model. The reason that I have two of her is that I want to paint one up for my Frostgrave warband. There are also shields to paint.

Anyway, that was where I started and now I have three completed figures. Skalmöld the Valkyrie, Thorrun (for Frostgrave) and Fenrir. First, here is Thorrun. I wanted to keep her looking quite sombre to fit in with the general theme of my Frostgrave warband. I will be using her as a Knight, or maybe as a Woman-At-Arms. I really like her fox fur collar.

Next, here is Fenrir, who is a very Big Bad Wolf indeed. No huffing and puffing required by this guy. He'll just knock your house down with a few swipes of his paws, and as for the Three Little Pigs, well, what can I say? Those guys are clearly just going to be snacks.

And finally, Skalmöld the Valkyrie, clearly a woman who is not to be messed with, as the chap currently missing his head found out.

As I have said before, these Bad Squiddo Shieldmaiden figures are absolutely fantastic; lovely crisp detail, virtually no flash and really lovely to paint.