Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Vikings and Anglo Saxons?

My Gripping Beast Vikings

My little boy had to write an essay about the Battle of Stamford Bridge this weekend and mentioned that it would make a great wargame. Quite right too! I am sure that some of the magazines have had scenarios before and maybe it was covered in one of the WAB supplements (Shieldwall?). Can't check as I am in Dubai at the moment. At least there is no temptation here to start up another army just becuse I am visiting somewhere!


So maybe I will have to put my Early Saxons on hold and paint some late Saxons! For wargaming purposes I split the Saxons into three periods: Early Saxons from the Romano-British period (Musketeer make the best ones by a mile), early Anglo-Saxons to take on the Vikings (Kind Alfred period) and late Anglo-Saxons (1066 period). Unfortunately they all look different and finding figures I like for the later period isn't easy. Gripping Beast do some but the range isn't very large. Crusader have a nice range but they are from one of his shorter figure ranges. I have some Black Tree Design ones but they are very variable. I quite like the new Foundry figures but they don't have any kite shaped shields (although GB do them). Maybe I will get some of the Foundry Saxons and give some kite shields (I have a few anyway) as the look stylistically similar to my Foundry and Artizan Vikings.

2 comments:

  1. I have a WAB Stamford Bridge orbat/scenario at home somewhere I think - at least I used to, as I started building up a Crusader/Gripping Beast Saxon army at one stage and I have loads of painted (but unbased) Foundry Vikings from years back. I'll try to dig it out for you. From memory, if came from the old Wargames Journal website.

    Giles

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  2. I make my second year undergrads design a board wargame as their coursework and it works as a teaching tool, but I guess using miniature wargames to teach history to younger kids would be good too - in fact, I remember seeing that some gamer in Virginia does a kids summer camp based around miniature gaming, but I can't remember the exact reference right now. I blogged my own experiement at mikecosgrave.com

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