Painting a viking army

[Stewart 46A]

Daniele
I really don't know
But how really cares
They look good and pick out the unit and army leaders

Stewart

[DorchesterBede]

Daniele

Wargames Designs do these sheets in a number of scales, I find the 10mm sheets work well for 15mm.

Chris

[John Watson]

From what I have read banners were common amongst Vikings, probably with the leaders as a rallying point for each battle group. Whether they looked like the ones in Stewart's picture is open to debate but if you look at examples of Viking art you will find that there are common themes, such as ravens.
I'm with Stewart that banners look good on the table.
John

[Daniele]

Daniele
I really don't know
But how really cares
They look good and pick out the unit and army leaders

Stewart

Stewart, I completely agree, I simply asked you because I like to try to paint historically, it's a part of my fun while painting and my idea is to paint vikings of the early period, i.e. before having too much influences by the contact with Anglo-Saxons or Franks. If you ever posted any pics of your vikings in the dedicated section of the forum I'd be glad to watch.

[Daniele]

Finally I'm just going to start to paint, I gave the primer just now...just a question for experts of the game. I thought to put a few archer miniatures on the basis supposed to be in the second rank (levy, unarmoured?), this to simulate archers firing from the rear of a shieldwall, considering that it seems that they weren't organized in special archers' units. I read the rules but I still never played a game and have a little confusion. Are there basis that, considering the mechanism of the game, are more likely to be deployed in the first rank (may be armoured or bersekers) to which not to assign archers?

[martin goddard]

Hello Daniele
You can put them as sprinkles within all the bases.
Using longships rules. Historically the vikings fought as "boats". This means that the crew of a boat all stand together. Hence why there were no units of specific troop types. No boat commander would send off some of his crew to another part of the battlefield. Instead, the toughest men would be at the front of his battle line column.Lesser me behind. Each boat contributes a column, thus giving an overall tough front rank for the army etc. The bowmen would be within each boat column.
Do remember that a 1000 men could constitute an army which would be very trivial in the great armies of the ancient world.

I have made abase just of bowmen for the option of "super shooting" that a unit might achieve through the pre game  scenario.

martin

[Sean Clark]

In the rules, I seem to recall all units can shoot. Therefore a sprinkling of archers might remind you of this fact because I ALWAYS forget 😄

[martin goddard]

Indeed Sean. All units shoot.
Less effective if they themselves are in shieldwall.
I often drop the shieldwall shoot once or twice if at distance the put the shields up again. Too risky if close to the enemy. You might not get the shields up again quick enough.

A good read for an overall Viking impression would be "the Viking art of War" by Paddy Griffiths.

martin