Lion Rampant - Taxman scenario at Canberra Regional Wargamers club

 

Here are my 1/72 Orion Vikings currently in my painting assembly line...it's been a few weeks of slowly dabbing away at these. Work has been insane lately and once I'm at home I've been finding myself too cooked to be able to muster up the energy to do anything more.

They are great, action-packed figures with only a few of the superfluous or 'novelty' figures usually peppered throughout these plastic sets. Almost all of the figures in this set are aggressive, combat ready. True to viking form, I suppose. 

Extra figures usually get left on the sprue in my house if I'm perfectly honest. 

I've got a few donkeys and barge-train riders, ski troops etc etc in my bits & bobs box, simply because I can't really see a useful gaming purpose for them. In the case of Italian ski troops from my Alpini set, the figures are actually lovely...but where am I going to use two lone skiers in an Eastern Front company sized action? There's not enough time to paint the figures I'm actually going to use, let alone ones like those.

In this Orion set, there are the two cowering monks, about to be gutted...very cool, but not necessarily useful for the gaming table....but still, the poses are too good to ignore. Perhaps I can use them as some kind of 'rescue' scenario?

On this set I've used a Vallejo Dunkelgelb as a primer/base coat. Probably not the greatest choice, but I'm happy with the ease in which the other colours adhere to the figures. Usually in my stinginess, I use cheap white primer from Bunnings, but on my last batch of figures I wasn't happy with the results...With these guys I'm taking a bit more care than usual. I've been sticking with the more muted variations of olive/green/grey/brown etc for the figures. I've plenty of these colours in my collection from painting vast hordes of Russians and Germans over the years.

The shields are new concept for me. They're a bit annoying to paint, but not as much as painting all the beards & hair on these guys. When I do say annoying, I simply mean that it takes a bit more mental energy to conceptualise what is actually going on the shield. 

I've just been googling shield designs and sort of making my own up, with a view to livening up the colours with reds, blues, whites, greens, yellows etc etc. I'm not 100% convinced with this approach, but as it was pointed out to me on a hobby forum, the Orion Vikings are more of a 'fantasy viking' set.  I'll be most likely using these as an opposing force for Dragon Rampant, so no harm done I say.