Unleash the Kraken! (That never gets old...)

Greyjoy Elite Household Warriors

Asha with banner on left, Victarion on the right

Well, I've finally started moving things forward with this Westerosi project. Sometimes it's Dux Westerosum and sometimes it's Lion-Stag-Direwolf-Dragon Rampant. Here is the first unit - plus important leaders - of my Greyjoy core retinue.  I will expand with a few units from other Ironborn houses over time - after I have 24 points painted.  Shown here are six foot men-at-arms led by Victarion and Asha Greyjoy.

This retinue is built around an imagined longship crew of 48 men and leaders.

2 x 6 elite household warriors (foot men-at-arms in Lion Rampant)

2 x 12 sworn warriors (fierce foot in Lion Rampant)

2 x 6 scouts (bidowers in Lion Rampant)

They operate in two war parties of 24 - 6 elite/12 warriors/6 scouts.

Ultimately, this retinue will also work as a proxy for Saxons in Dux Brianniarum. i.e. 2 elite units of 6 and 3 units of 6 warriors.  My Lannister and Stark forces will also have enough models to proxy for Romano-Brits.

Victarion and his banner-bearer off their command sabot

Asha and command sabot

Three of six household warriors of House Greyjoy

Remaining 3 of 6. Figure in center will double as his lord's champion in DB - on a 30mm sabot

Six of 12 Ironborn Warriors (Fierce Foot) primed and ready for the brush

Six Scouts (Bidowers) waiting to mount the paint pots of transformation (West Wind Saxons with Pict heads)

Next Steps...

I'm working in groups of six to avoid burnout, alternating model types.  Six warriors, six scouts, six elites (still being assembled/primed) and then another six warriors, and six scouts.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Behind these, I have STARKS.  :-/

Banner Bearer Test Model

Foot Serjeant Test Model

Until next time...

See their warrior pennants streaming - FINAL

As I warned weeks back, I've been consumed by finishing a masters thesis and a hellacious schedule at work with some signficant travel.  I've done some minor miniatures work but am at a bit of a standstill until Fireforge releases their Templar and Teutonic Knights on foot.  I need those cloaks and bodies to finish my Stark and Greyjoy forces. 

In the meantime, thanks to my talented and patient friend "Captain Z", the banners and artwork for shield decals are finalized.  Without further ado, I present to you the banners and lance pennants for my first three great houses:

STARK

LANNISTER

GREYJOY

I'm thrilled with his work and have a greater appreciation for the frustration of graphic designers with clients who don't appreciate how detailed good communication needs to be.  He'll be providing excerpts of these sigils on plain fields that I'll be sending off to a professional service that makes shield transfers. 

Sigils for Shield Transfers

Coming Soon - Testing out Dux Britanniarum!

Plans, Dreams, Schemes...

In this post, I share with you my plans - both baked and still squishy - along with the attendant variables and tangents.  Let's see if I can keep this on track, shall we?

Core Idea: Create 3 forces - Stark, Lannister & Greyjoy - in 28mm mixing and matching miniatures and parts of miniatures across such reputable and generally comparable lines as Perry, Claymore, Fireforge, and Black Tree. 

Game Systems: Initially, my plan is to use Dux Britanniarum with Stark and Lannisters following Romano-Brit and Greyjoy conforming to Saxon force composition, career tree and cards.  Having Stark AND Lannister allow me to introduce two gaming buddies - Jay and John - to the DB rules as I play parallel campaigns against each as the Greyjoy raiders. (Greyjoy's Rebellion)

Four classes of troops in DB will translate to: Household Knights (elites), Men-at-Arms (warriors), Bannermen Livery (levy) and skirmishers.  Initially, we will play un-modified DB with only cosmetic changes to the nomenclature until we're conversant with the original rules enough to know what we want to modify.

Additionally, I will build enough levy-level troops to also try a few games of a translation of Studio Tomahawk's Saga to the Westeros setting from Tabletopdeutschland with dice boards for Stark and Lannister.

Painting:  This is a dilemma for me.  I'm a respectably good painter but I'm slow, don't have scads of free time and I don't do free-hand (shields and banners).  I am seriously considering painting only test models and farming them out to a painting service.  I give up the personal pride in exchange for having them finished in our lifetimes.

On a related note, I have a friend who is a graphic artist working up some paper banners for these three factions and their primary bannermen - Karstark, Glover, Umber, Piper, Clegane, etc.  If that goes well, we'll move on to complimentary art that can be translated into DIY water transfers for shields. 

Achieving this will be plenty of project for this year. But some thoughts for what lies beyond are:

• Scale up to massed battles in 28mm using Hail Caesar and maybe, maybe Impetus which my group has not explored.  
• Pursue massed battles using "Grand Scale" - i.e. 10mm or 15mm with Warmaster Ancients/Medieval translations on the Specialist Arms board. There are two versions; one by Wellspring and another by Happymcclap.  Both have great ideas.  I've wanted to game in a more command and control scale for some time and doing it with this project appeals to me.  We'll see.

Coming soon: Photos of Stark men-at-arms conversions...