"New to Dark Ages" Topic

My friends and I are anxious to try out SAGA and just received the rules. But to my untrained eye…I can't see the distinctions between Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Danes, or even Welsh.

What am I missing?? Did each nation have a particular shield design? Did one faction only were blue shirts?

Please give advice on how these factions should be painted. Thanks.

Did each nation have a particular shield design?

No.

Did one faction only wear blue shirts?

No.

Please give advice on how these factions should be painted.

There is very little if any evidence for the colouring of clothing for this period. Use your imagination and generally muted colours – no one can say it's wrong. If you have a particular detail that helps you distinguish one faction from another then that's fine.

I've always said, the advantage of dark ages fugures is that most of them could be used for many different armies. Fabric Colorado were mostly based on what grew near the place that was dying the fabrics, so uniformity was right out. My Saxons could be used for many armies. Shields got bigger in the later era and they pre
ceded moustsches to full beards but…… there were few hard and fast rules. Enjoy the era.

*Shameless Plug Alert*

Have a look on the Saga forum, we have a whole section geared to help people paint their figures

link

we are a friendly lot and will help out with any questions, I'm MikeH on there, one of the moderators

I can't find it but there was a thread (harhar) discussing dye processes in England around this time. It was fairly detailed about what substance produced what color.

My singular take away was that there was no green. Or if there was it was very rare. I lamented that in particular as I had painted a whole unit themed in various shades of green.

You may Google it all in some way. Wasn't purple so rare that only the very rich could afford it?

At Mt Vernon I learned that green paint was so rare that one of Washingtons green dining rooms was considered an ostentatious sign of wealth.

My point is that it really isn't an "anything goes" world. You just have to ask yourself, "is it likely someone will correct me in such a way that will compel me to redo it?"

Plenty of examples of shades of green on the forum thread that TauboyMike linked to above.

I would think green would be one of the easier colors to produce….

Any grey, browns, reddish browns and shades in between too should be easy as well. I would think the bright colors or very starkly primary colors might be more difficult. Also keep in mind that colors would fade rather readily.

Here's the blog that was referred to: link

Very little green and NONE in the likely color palette for Anglo-Saxons AD 450 – AD 1066.

I don't know the truth. But there's the origin of the limited green story.

One thing I noticed in my reading (being new to Dark Ages, too) is that the difference between groups like Anglo Saxons or Anglo Danes or Vikings was often as small as two generations of where you've been living. This means cousins might consider themselves different "factions". Intermarriage over conquered "tribes" might mean you're now considered the very target that granddaddy came after in the first place.

It always seems to come down to who now lives where someone else wants to live.

Anglo-Saxons and Danes, Vikings – no difference, at least to our 21st century observer.

Welsh – no pants, big difference.

Facial hair is similar to all of the nations, as well as colors of clothing. Bearded Welsh would be rare, they preferred long mastages.

Also, Welsh preferred long spear and small shields or big bows. Anglo-Saxons-Danes-Vikings – large shields and shorter spears. Axes of various sizes were used by all sides, professional Viking and Saxon warriors used large axes. Looks like that Saxons became Christianised earlier, so more crosses on their shields, depending on century.

Helmets and armor was similar, poorer Welsh society had less of that.

It's useful to remember that renegades from various factions might fight on opposite sides. A good example is Harold Godwinson's brother Earl Tostig in 1066. He and his own household troops joined Harald Hardrada's Vikings for their invasion of Northumbria. Other similar cases exist for the battle of Clontarf (Irish with Norse allies vs Norse with Irish allies) and Brunaburgh where Danes from the Danelaw joined the Anglo-Saxons against Scots with Norwegian Vikings. The Dark Ages were a bit anarchic, but just a bit.

Wow.Makes you wonder how they avoided friendly fire! Thanks everyone. Especially for the SAGA link!

I was just looking at the SAGA link. The 'factions' didn't even have distinct shield themes? Nothing like one group had crosses or anything akin to that?

No, just my dudes are here and enemy dudes are opposite of as, facing us. Shieldwall against shieldwall. Most battles lasted minutes or just champions dueled each other. Sagas days of battle were just that – sagas. In really big battles, like Hastings, they even took refreshment brakes.

Here's the blog that was referred to: link

Very little green and NONE in the likely color palette for Anglo-Saxons AD 450 – AD 1066.

Some of them look green (OK quite a dingy green) to me:

It's quite a big subject, but the main thing to bear in mind is that we're not actually looking at the visual differences between Dark Age warriors…

…we're looking at the differences between modern Dark Age miniatures.

That means that different manufacturers will have different 'takes' on what the forces looked like, some will do more research than others, and that older ranges will reflect the prevailing opinion of older research.

Quick crib on visual differences:

Saxons: predominantly moustached, but not bearded.
The peasantry might include some gnarly, bearded types, but as a rule-of-thumb, the nobility would be moustachioed rather than bearded.
The phrygian cap was common among the Anglo-Saxons.
The Anglo-Saxons were christianised earlier than the viking nations, so crosses, icthus symbols, chi-ro's, etc are appropriate for their shields.
(And crosses worn as amulets, as featured in the GB plastics.)
The helmets of the Anglo-Saxon nobility could feature face-plates (such as the Sutton Hoo helmet) or cheek-plates (such as the Coppergate helmet.)
We don't know how common these designs actually were, but looking at miniature ranges, you can see that miniature manufacturers have adopted them as 'typical' Anglo-Saxon items.

Things to look out for _ plumed helmets, dished shields, and small round shields feature in some manufacturer's ranges. These are features of earlier, "migration era" Saxon warriors, and would be out of place in an Anglo-Saxon force.

Danes: Predominantly bearded. Danish men of the time were said to be vain about their long hair.
Plaited hair and braided beards might be seen among Danes, but becomes rarer as the period progresses.
It's more a feature of the early Dark Ages, and heavy-metal album covers.

Their helmets were predominantly open-faced or 'nasal' type spangelhelms.
The viking 'spectacled' helm features heavily in some mfr.s ranges – because it looks very cool – but it was from early in the period, and described as 'old-fashioned' in the 10th c.
Nevertheless, if a figure is wearing one, he's a viking.

The vikings commonly wore a cloth headband, called the 'hlad', which doesn't seem to have been common practice among other races at the time.

They might also wear baggy trousers, gathered tight from the knee down. This fashion originated in the Rus Viking settlements of Novgorod and Kiev, and would be rare among Danish & Norse vikings in Britain.

Mjolnir – 'Thor's Hammer' amulets were common, and some mfr.s have pretty much all of their viking figures wearing one.

Single-edged longswords and bearded axes (axes with an extended lower edge coming to a squared-off point) are common viking weapons from early in the period, but quickly fall out of use.

Basically, if you have a viking or saxon figure WITHOUT any of those 'signature' features, then he'll do just as well for either faction.

The Welsh: As Igwarg points out, the big difference is that the Dark Age Welsh did not wear trousers. This seems to have been a cultural thing, as even the nobility favoured long tunics and bare legs.

Armour should be very rare – none at all among the common rank-and-file.

Figures sold as Pict, or Pictish Scots, would probably do just as well for Welsh, increasing your variety, as long as you avoided 'signature' Pictish features like square shields, crossbows, and nekkid fanatic types.

As a Celtic nation, check-patterned 'proto-tartan' clothing is ascribed to the Welsh.

As far as colours go: bright coloured dyes weren't a problem. As you can see from the pics above, it was possible to have a wide variety of bright colours.
The problem was the mordants – the stuff that 'fixes' the dye in the cloth and makes it colourfast.
So brightly-coloured clothing wouldn't actually stay bright.

So a good way to pick out your leader figures would be to paint them with bright colours, whereas the rank and file would be in the muted shades of older clothing.

I usually just 'take things down a notch'.
Where I would use red, I use rust or brick-red, mustard or sand instead of yellow, grey-blue rather than blue, and military camo greens.

Hope that helps!

@Norman D Landings
would you mind if I copy your post onto the Saga forum, as it will help a lot of newcomers to the hobby

I'll make sure it is linked back to here so everyone knows it's your text and give you full praise for coming up with a lot of excellent info

More than welcome, mi amigo.

Might pop over meself and have a butcher's.

Thanks mate, have posted your reply here

studiotomahawk.freeforums.org/post13711.html

and you will made most welcome if you want to join up

In regards to shields, were there common designs paitned on shields that would be found in different armies? Or were shields usually a solid color in this time period?

What are peoples typical methods (patterns, colors) for paiting shields?

Any advice would be helpful.

It's hard to say for certain.

Depictions of shields from this era usually show simple patterns of straight or curved lines.

This could mean those patterns were painted on – but there is a school of thought which says that these lines just show the seams of the shield's leather covering.

The Viking Sagas do mention coloured shields, and there are archeological examples which show traces of paint – yellow and black on shields from the Gokstad longship site, and red, black and white on a painted leather shield-covering from the Isle of Man.

Here you go: link

There were certain symbols and designs which were particular to certain ethnic groups, and would mark the bearer as belonging to that group.

The most obvious examples would be religious symbols – the Hammer, symbol of Thor, and the Raven, a symbol of Odin.
They would only be carried by a worshipper of those gods.

Similarly, the Valknut (three interlocked triangles) three interlocked drinking-horns, and Futhark runes were traditional Norse symbols.

We don't know that they were painted on shields.
But they do feature prominently in Norse and Danish artwork in general.

We do know that Christianized peoples painted religious symbols on their shields prior to the so-called 'viking era'. It seems likely they continued to do so.

Anglo-Saxon artwork tended to feature dense patterns of knotwork in various styles.

Pictish themes seen in metalwork and stonecarving feature geometric symbols such as 'Z' shapes and circles, and the simplified outlines of animals.
If they painted their shields, these are the symbols they would most likely have used.

Thing to remember – shields were not permanent. They got gashed and smashed, had to be repaired and replaced regularly.

There's no reason why a warband, setting out on a new campaign, couldn't spend the winter months painting their Jarl's favoured symbol on their clean, newly-covered shields.

(Certainly, the shields from the Gokstad Longship are all the same colours. The viking sagas mention warbands with all-red shields, and Irish legends mention all-black shields, a theme which was adopted by Bernard Cornwell in his Arthurian novels.)

But a few weeks into the campaigning season, those same men would carry a mixture of captured enemy shields (with any objectionable religious symbols scrubbed off or daubed over)
hastily-repaired shields with unpainted leather covers, or simple personal decoration.

Another thing to remember about shields is social status.

His lordship might well have a nicely-painted shield. He has craftsmen to do it for him.
And he might want his hearthguard to look impressive.
But his peasant fyrdmen would have plain, hide-covered shields.
It's a convenient way to show the different quality of the figures on the tabletop.

What I do for Dark Age shields varies a lot depending on how much of a hurry I'm in.
Usually, I use simple geometric patterns in subdued colours. I tend to have a limited palette of a few colours for each warband, and that makes them look fairly similar.

When I take more care, I like to give them racially-appropriate patterns or symbols, again in a limited palette of colours so that they all have a vaguely similar look.

I also like to gash up the shields a bit to simulate damage – gouge a rough cut in the shield's surface, paint the base of the gouge bare wood, and the 'lips' of the gouge buff or off-white for hide.
I leave a thin, dark outline between wood, hide, and outer painted surface, otherwise it looks too vague and messy.

Hope that helps!

I tend to use brighter or stronger shades of colors for the "richer" troops and the muddier for the poorer.

Some similar colors by warband make sense due to regional dying and weaving producing somewhat similar though not identical appearance.

Flashman 14

It looks like there are loads of European plants you can make green from link
Your green unit looks safe