SHIELDWALL!

Hey folks! It's been a while since my last update. This time I have something totally different for you.
We are leaveing the grim darkness of the 40K Universe and visit the grim dark age.
This August is dedicated to my small side project SAGA. A historical tabletop System from Studio Tomahawk. This game can rather be played in a skirmish scale and it seems to have an interesting and easy ruleset, that can be customized for your own needs. There is also a new book 'Age of Magic' that is designed to play fantasy factions.

My goal is to build two small forces in one month. First a small viking force and an undead horde (I'm a huge fan of Vikings and Skyrim by the way ;-P). Due to that, I don't focus on historical correctness but use the rule of cool. Let's see if I can handle this in the deadline i've set myself.
 
For the vikings I found some awesome Minis that are from different manufactures like Stronghold Terrain, V&V Miniatures, Gripping Beast and Brother Vinni. The undead horde will be presented by GW's Nighhaunts and Skelleton warriors. The recent days I was very busy with building and painting the vikings. And as one of my hobby-habits I made some smaller kitbashes and include a few minor conversions. The first Mini that I've test-painted was Torvi from Stronghold-Terrain.

The used colours are rather desaturated and I tried to achieve a dark colour scheme with a limited pallet. The bases should match my Namorra Prime Terrain, and they do :-). I'm pretty pleased with this tabletop standard quality. The method I used is just base colours, washes, edge highlights and a bit of weathering. For the weathering I used enamel products (AK striking grime and white spirit) for the first time and also some pigments for light dirt. After a bad experience with the matte spray varnish from Army Painter I wanted to try something new. AK's Matte Varnish, diluted with airbrush thinner was applied with an airbrush. But to be honest, this looks more like a satin finish and the surface remains rather shiny, as you can see in the pictures above. So I ordered AK's Ultra Matte Varnish and it worked like a charm in the end. It eliminates the shine of the first varnish, of washed surfaces, PVA glue, enamel products and so on. I love this stuff and finally found a proper way to varnish my models if needed. You can see the difference in the following picture.

Painting these models is very enjoyable and I can practice my skills in painting faces, freehands, clothes and speed. A few pictures of these details.

I finished nine models so far. These are already playable and can count as a warlord, 8 warriors or 2 x 4 elite warriors. I want to expand this force with 8 additional vikings and then I'm looking forward to work on the undead force. And now some pictures of this warband so far. SHIELDWALL!

 
Please let me know if you're interested in this non-Warhammer stuff in the comment section down below, thank you very much for your visit and stay tuned!