"Early Saxons - What figures to use (28mm)?" Topic

What would you guys use for early saxons (28mm)? The invading Briton, 5-6th century, Arthurian, or whatever you call them.

I have the Footsore figures. I seem to be lacking enough unarmored guys with helmets and shields to field the requisite number for Dux. I'd say the Footsore and West Wind head sizes are not very well matched.

These might be a good starting point:

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My own Saxon force has Westwind, Gripping Beast and Black Tree Designs figures, like these:

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They do have a US site as well (http://eoeorbis.com)

What about the Gripping Beast Plastic Dark Age Warriors. I think they're ideal for the lower class fighters. They tie in size wise too.

You've got loads of choice. Gripping Beast from their 'Arthurian Range' and their German Tribes range. You could use figures from the Britons as Saxons as well. Also their unarmoured plastics as mentioned above. Westwind,as mentioned above. Blacktree although they tend to mix different period helmets in the same packs for some reason. Footsore Miniatures, Curteys Miniatures – all of these wold mix well.

Foundry do a Saxon/Frankish range, and recently revived a 'Dark Age German' range which I hadn't seem before. These may be slightly smaller but would mix with Newline Design's early Saxons, which are a little slimmer than others.

For a beautiful range of well proportioned early Saxons, try Tanatus miniatures – unfortunately these are so naturally proportioned that they don't fit easily with most of the other 28mm metal ranges. Have fun!

Gripping Beast has a very good metal range of early Saxons.

As already said the generic plastic Dark Age warriors are a good start for lower class warriors. After all that would be the bulk of the Saxon armies. You might want to replace some the round shields with smaller bucklers.

Most of the unarmoured Goths from Footsore can be used as early Saxons too!
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Curteys has a good range of 'Arthurian' Saxons. I'd provide a link but somehow Firefox is reluctant to load this site decently.The figures are quite good though!

The Black Tree Saxons are nominally for a later period but most of the unarmoured spearmen, swordsmen and axemen are perfectly suited for an earlier period too.
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The Saxon miniatures Vikings are awesome figures. They have Saxons also:

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Anything with a tunic, shaggy hair and a round shield. ;)

List of options here…

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Use the links on the right-hand sidebar to access comparison photos.

@ Cerdic- amazing colldction of companies, many of which I had no idea existed!

The Curteys Miniatures figures can be found here.
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I rate the dynamtic figures Soapy did for Gripping Beast

When I bought my Early Saxons a couple of years ago, I looked around and the options and settled on the Gripping Beast Early Saxon range as the best looking range.

Fantastic figures, lots of variety, easy to paint well (even I managed to) and really pleased with how they turned out.

I did however include a few of the Musketeer/Footsore Miniatures characters in amongst them for a bit of variety.

Thanks everyone. I looked at all the suggestions again. There wasn't anything I have not seen in the past, but I did realize I missed one pack from Gripping Beast.

Specifically I was looking for guys with helmets for an early period to fulfill the figure suggestion in Dux which calls for unarmored Warriors with helmets and shields for the main body of the raiders (3/5 units roughly).

I recently read an article that suggested that some wargamers need their figures to be characteristic of a force/faction/tribe/nationality. I also read somewhere that Dark Age type Warriors in many ways were all pretty similar or we just don't know because the historical record is sparse. I am in the camp of the figures needing to reflect the force.

When I think invading Saxons and features I would like to see in figures I think of wild hair, beards, and fur. I know I could be completely wrong it's just my preference. Smaller shields as well.

I could also be wrong but I find many of the suggestions given as reflecting later Anglo-Saxon periods. I have many of them for my Saga Anglo-Saxons. Many suggestions did not include my requirement of helmets.

I have nearly all of the Patten sculpts for Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Romano Brits (whatever you call them), Early Saxon/Germanic tribes from both Saxon Miniatures and Gripping Beast. I rate them the best and strive to find figures to mix well with them. Thornhill's Footsore sculpts go well together and I have everything possible from them that would work.

I don't prefer the Soapy sculpts, I find them too bulky. I have a couple packs of Vikings I'm not planning to use if anyone wants to make an offer/trade.

I think at this point I have a couple options of which I may employ one or more of.

Use guys without helmets along with helmeted guys.
Do some head swaps.
Use green stuff to sculpt beards, helmets, furs.

I am going to get a single pack of Westwind Saxons and see if I can find heads that won't be too big. Without having to convert anything I think I am at 10 of 24 helmeted figures needed. I have 16 or more very nice Patten and Thornhill's sculpts that are Early Saxons sans helmets that I can use until I can find/convert figures.

I don't think the plastic Romans from GB are going to help but perhaps later releases will.

Thanks again everyone.

One last thought, Curtey's stuff looks great but I feel like I'd need to go completely that range for 2 factions to suit my preferences. I'm planning on buying their Dark Age buildings, they look very nice!

You are right – too few manufacturers do unarmoured dark age figures with helmets. The West Wind idea is a good possibility. They look pretty hairy. Tunics are rather short though.

This may have ben mentioned, but what about the GB plastic unarmoured dark age figures and West Wind separate head packs?

The west wind heads are pretty big. I may have to scrounge up some Saxon plastic heads from GB and see how that may work.

I took a look. The Viking heads would work better because they have beards where the Saxons have mustaches mainly. Some green stuff may still be in order. The braided hair really screams Viking to me.

Saxon Miniatures sneaked in a new release that pretty well takes care of what I need.

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Wow-last time I looked at this site there were only Saxon and Viking warlords! This must be the go to site for dark age Britain. Unfortunately I've got all the saxons and Vikings I'll ever need. Now if there were some Scots or Welsh…

Footsore have some very nice look early saxons.

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