Saxon Horde

[dashing blade]

Question,
I've been asked to make up a saxon horde for the 5th/6th Century,Now i know gripping beast is a good place to start BUT! they do a box of plastic saxons for what looks like the 9th/10th Century. If i replaced the large round shields with the bucklers , is the clothing/armour close enough to be ignored? Or are there overwhelming differences?
The picture on their website looks good but its hard to compare with those big late saxon shields.

Any thoughts,drawings,explainations or wild babblings?

[Anonymous]

Are you talking about the Saxons of this windy rainy Northsea Island or of the Saxons on the European Mainland?

As I think you are talking about "your" Saxons so they look a bit like early Vikings wearing something between Leather and partial chain armor. Probably they would have had some late roman armor too,i.e., Lorica hamata or even Lorica segmentata.

This link may give you some ideas:

http://cd7.e2bn.net/e2bn/leas/c99/schoo ... Saxons.htm

Hope that helps

Günter

[dashing blade]

Thankyou my Saxon friend,
Intresting site, I did mean the mainland europe saxons, who came to Britain on long holidays back in the 5th/6th centuries. Their opposition is Romano-British/Mercenary Saxons. So early saxons to Britain.
Thanks all the same

[Atheling]

Hi,

The miniature choice is all really down to a question of when warfare changed from small warbands fighting in a loose skirmish like formation to the more rigid 'shieldwall' that we are used to imagining when we think of Anglo-Saxons warfare.

Currently ideas seem to be leaning more towards the idea that the earlier 'beef' then the more fluent the fighting. I am no certainly expert but I tend to agree with this idea as does some of the more recent academic thinking (eg Ken Dark is an advocate).

We at SESWC were lucky enough to playtest James Morris' Age of Arthur WAB tome and smaller shields, more fluent warfare etc was the consensus for the Saxons (and probably most others although not reflected in the actual army lists) up to the end of the 6thC into the 7th etc. Don't let the WAB part put you off, the book is fantastically researched and guidance and imput was provided from the likes of Prof. Guy Halsall, you may remember his 'Dark Age' articles from MW and WI many years ago?

So, with all that in mind I would be tempted to go for the Gripping Beast Early Saxon range. The mini's were relatively recently sculpted by 'Soapy', not the Patten brothers and thus has much more animation and dynamic in the sculpts.

You can see the range here:

http://www.grippingbeast.com/shop.php?CatID=281

I hope that has been of some help?

Cheers,

Darrell.

[dashing blade]

Cheers Darrell,
I was thinking plastic would be cheaper, but when all is said and done , metal has the weight and seems nicer to paint. So early metal saxons it is! And your right, they are nice sculpts.
Thanks for the info.

[EvilGinger]

Doing this as we speak & when the plastic route at least partly with a box of Wargames Factory early Germans & Saxons fyrd mixed with metal shields from Essex. I stopped as I quickly discovered that the figures though fine where very definitely 25mm & all the Other stuff I had was very defiantly 28mm & they looked too small by comparison.

I like Griping beast even if I loath cast on shields & their QC on flash can be a bit variable & the early Saxons are not afflicted with former problem as the late Romans I am doing as Romano British are.

I wish Griping beast did unarmoured Saxons as I could do the same trick I did with the Wargames factory stuff using extra bits form Warlord early Germans for head swaps & the odd - torso.

Ginger