"My 15mm HotT "Old Saxhund" Army" Topic

A terrible baying in the fog-shrouded morn heralds the coming of- the Saxhunds!

A few weeks ago, I finished the core elements of my 15mm HotT "Old Saxhund" army: two blade (one the general), eight warband, and two shooter (that I am plan to use as psiloi "at home"). All elements are "paired", so that they might best work with the squared basing requirements of Fantasy Rules! , and those Ganesha mass-combat rules that I may yet live to see.

I am grateful for DBx officially loosening the neck-stock regarding proscribed basing, because I always felt that 15mm warbands should have always had a 20mm depth. So, now I can have that irregular's staggered line like I want, without fear of OCD basing backlash.

This army stated out as a dozen or so figures mounted to very small washers, with the notion that they might be used for skirmishing (primarily Song of Blades & Heroes), and be sabot-based for Mighty Armies. I even made a few recessed magnetic bases, and I thought they looked darn good. But then, I decided I wanted them to work for DBx-equivalent rules, whose 40mm-wide bases wouldn't accommodate even their tiny washers. Unless I was OK with three grunt troops per base, which I wasn't. So the whole project languished for around six years, at which point I said, screw it, I'll just pop off the washers and mount them on DBx bases. So, in about a month, which is truly miraculous for me, I had a 24 point Hordes of the Things army. I plan to add a few additional, less "mundane" troop types (I am missing a few bits for my "dogre" behemoth element), but I needed to take a breather to work on other stuff.
The eight warband elements are mostly 15mmUK dogmen, with some Saxon-types from Black Hat and one from Essex, and one Rebel/Mongoose wild elf thrown in. Irritatingly, only a few of the 15mmUK minis had shields, and then, only very small hex-shaped ones. So most of the shields are stolen from Essex minis, cut down from 25mm shields, or made from collar buttons and bits of sprue. All but one had their weapons cut away and drilled out, to be replaced with the last of scads of surplus 25mm Essex spears I have been working off of for ages (courtesy of my first historical army!). They are fairly chunky for 15's, but I like the look. The shaft offcuts were fashioned into tails for my doggies. Yes, I gave all of them tails (well, except for the former elf, whose cloak would have hidden it anyway).

Three of the archers were left washer-mounted so that I didn't mess up their footies, the forth was boosted to match. So, they are a bit taller than everyone else- +1 height advantage for shooting? While their sealant I used on these is hardly Dullcoat, the camera flash made them look really glossy.

Three of the archers were left washer-mounted so that I didn't mess up their footies, the forth was boosted to match. So, they are a bit taller than everyone else- +1 height advantage for shooting? While their sealant I used on these is hardly Dullcoat, the camera flash made them look really glossy.

Fun Fact 1: The Splintered Light "Beowulf" mini is noticeably-but not obviously-bigger than all their other Old Saxons. I thought that was neat. I made him a German Shepard and called him "Beowoof".

Thanks for looking! ~Mike

Fantastic looking army! How fun and love the conversions. I thought I recognized some of the body types with the armored fellows. :)

David
splinteredlightminis.com

Those look really good – the photography also. Where did you shoot them? At any rate, thanks!

Ron

Well crap, I was having technical difficulties and in a big hurry to leave the house, and I messed up the cut and paste text, and left out your shout-out, David! That second-to-last paragraph was supposed to be:

The two Blades elements are comprised of Splintered Light and Black Hat figures, with "the big dog" body originally being a 15mmUK minotaur (sent as an order freebie, not currently in their catalog?). His head, feet and tail are green stuff- my first foray into sculpting something other than belts, hands, and adjoining fur/hair. I'm pretty happy with the results. I have a pack of 28mm Mega Minis dogs I had always planned to make extensive use of on this project, but only ever used one. As with the archers, I sculpted doggie feet on the armored nobles to make them look more…doggy. One has a helmet because I just scooped out the mini's face and slipped in the front of a dog head, with the ears attached only at the cheeks. It's a quicker-than-it-sounds process that I have conducted several times while working on yet another dogman army I have begun. Hopefully that one will get it out of my system.
The banner is made from a Googled image- I had intended to work up my own to better match the theme, but when all else was go, I hadn't come up with anything. I didn't want that to hold up completion, so I'm using this one in the meantime. It didn't come out well enough for me to "just settle on it" long term.
Many thanks to our own Mr. McBride at Splinted Light for hastily filling my small, special order. The minis are wonderful- I won't lop all the heads off the next batch!

-Haste, and poor tech skills, makes waste!

Those look really good – the photography also. Where did you shoot them? At any rate, thanks!

Thank you. You KNOW who did the photography.

I just laid some hills and such on a flocked terrain mat on the bar area. I hadn't realized the hill's and mat's flock don't match well at all, so I sprinkled some loose flock on the join to kind of blend it. You can see it stuck to all of the bases, and I'll probably be drinking minute bits of it in my coffee for the next month. Stuff's worse than glitter, "the herpes of craft medium".

Absolutely love this army! Not only is the conversion work superb, but the paint work is equally excellent! I tip my hat to you and hope we see more of your work and this armies adventures.

Terry

THAT is one of the BEST armies I've seen to date. Very clever!