Saxon Huscarls and Thegns

Saxon Huscarls on the right

This article describes the painting and basing of some Black Tree Design 28 mm miniatures for historical wargames battles. Ultimately, the figures will be used with Games Workshop's Warhammer Historical Battles, but since they are based singly, the figures can be used for any sort of skirmish game or person-to-person combat. My 1000 point army will consist of these figures plus about 64 lower class unarmored ceorls plus about 16 unarmored skirmishing geburs.

Here are the Saxon huscarls battling from the right. Huscarls are upper class Saxons who form the personal body guard of the king or ealdorman (earl). They all have swords, axes, shields and mail armor. Most of the shields are decals from Little Big Men Studios. The ealdorman on horseback is the Arthurian Kay figure from Wargames Foundry ALR 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 were required to support the Saxon army (fyrd) during times of war. Most Saxons provided their own weaponry, so the upper class brought nice weapons and mail armor, while the middle and lower class ceorls and gebur had more crude weapons and little or no armor. The Black Tree thegns are very similar to the huscarls, but with spears instead of bladed weapons. The mounted figure is also from Foundry, but with his arm modified to hold the 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 about half the wide of the panoramic photograph. Now grab the horizontal scroll bar with your mouse and shake the image violently from side to side. This will recreate an amazing battle with much to and fro. Pause the battle to insert commanding dialogue of the main characters in the battle.

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