Saxon Huscarls and Thegns

Saxon Huscarls on the right

This article describes the painting and basing of someBlack Tree Design 28 mm miniatures forhistorical wargames battles.Ultimately, the figures will be usedwith Games Workshop'sWarhammer Historical Battles,but since they are based singly, thefigures can be used for any sort of skirmishgame or person-to-person combat.My 1000 point army will consist of these figures plus about 64 lower class unarmored ceorlsplus about 16 unarmored skirmishing geburs.

Here are the Saxon huscarls battling from the right.Huscarls are upper class Saxons who formthe personal body guard of the king or ealdorman (earl).They all have swords, axes, shields and mail armor.Most of the shields are decals fromLittle Big Men Studios.The ealdorman on horseback is the Arthurian Kay figure fromWargames FoundryALR 31 King Arthur and His Knights.He looks rather Saxon to me.

Saxon Thegns on the left

Here are the Saxon Thegns battling from the left.Thegns are upper class Saxons who owned land and wererequired to support the Saxon army (fyrd) duringtimes of war.Most Saxons provided their own weaponry, so the upperclass brought nice weapons and mail armor, whilethe middle and lower class ceorls and gebur hadmore crude weapons and little or no armor.The Black Tree thegns are very similarto the huscarls, but with spears insteadof bladed weapons.The mounted figure is also from Foundry,but with his arm modified to holdthe dragon standard.

To simulate a Dark Ages Saxon battle from this page,click on the large panoramic image above.Size your browser window such that it is abouthalf the wide of the panoramic photograph.Now grab the horizontal scroll bar with your mouseand shake the image violently from side to side.This will recreate an amazing battle withmuch to and fro.Pause the battle to insert commanding dialogue ofthe main characters in the battle.

I hope you enjoyed reading the details of the paintingand photographing of a bunch of Saxon Huscarls and Thegns.More miniatures-related articles are atDan Becker's Miniatures and Models site.Thanks for stopping by and reading about my miniatures.