SAGA - Starting a Norman warband

For a couple of months I was pondering about painting some miniatures to start a Norman warband for SAGA. After I read Curt's bonus themes for this year's painting challenge I decided that the second round "Mount(s) and Rider(s)" is the perfect moment to do so.

These seven Normans are the start for my Norman warband for Saga. The guy on the large round base shall serve as my warlord while the other six knights will be his loyal hearthguard.

The miniatures:
There are a lot of nice miniatures for the dark ages in general and suitable Normans specifically. But since I’m a great fan of the Perrys’ style of sculpting and their slender figures I decided to use their early crusaders for my warband. The warlord on the rearing horse is from the character pack while the knights are from two of their mounted crusaders packs.
As for the quality of the figures I wasn’t disappointed at all. They are exelently sculpted and cast. There was little flash to clean away and the usual mold line. Especially the shields are very nice because Alan and Michael made three different shape so you can mix them a bit to avoid a too uniform look.

The colours:
As usual I employed Vallejo Model Colours to paint the tiny fellows. Most of them is covered with chainmail which was done rather easily and quickly. For the other parts I tried to use different not too bold colours. For the shields I used transfers from Stephen Hales’ awesome Little Big Men Studios range.

Basing:
Actually nothing special, only my usual mix of sand, gravel, static grass and modelling flowers. I chose the warlord’s base larger than the usual 25mm x 50mm because I wanted to have him stand out. Thus he is occupying a 50mm circular base.