Emhar Saxons

Yesterday I took delivery of a box of Emhar Saxons for playing Blood Eagle in 1/72 scale. They were about £8 for a box of 50, so they work out at 16 pence each. Once I've based them on a penny, that goes up to 17p!

Rather good box art

The two linked sprues that come in the box

A close-up view of the detail

Size comparison with an Airfix German, and an old Space Marine

Emhar have their own formula of plastic which they boast is easier to glue and paint than regular 1:72 stuff. That may be true, but it seemed very much like Airfix stuff in the hand- a little bit bendy with that familiar greasy surface, so I gave my test figure the treatment that Henry Hyde advises in his Wargaming Compendium- I washed him with washing-up liquid and painted him with a decent coat of PVA glue before painting as normal. As I'm going for the 'toy-soldier' look,  I just gave him a bright and clean basecoat and a coat of Humbrol Glosscote. In the photos the varnish hasn't even begun to dry, so he looks even more shiny and gloopy than he will do.

Lovely figures- I shall probably get some of the Emhar Vikings as well soon.

Usborne Viking paper house and axonometric paper

Although work has been busy, I've had time to make one of the houses in the book I mentioned yesterday. It went together very easily and I think it looks the business. Forgive the anachronistic Airfix British Infantry- they're there to give an idea of scale. As you can see, the house is on the compact side, but not I think jarringly so. As it is designed to be glued directly to a provided illustrated layout card, I added a rectangle of grey millboard (the stuff that reinforces A4 refill pads at the back) to give it some strength and a couple of millimetres of extra height.

I also jotted down a few ideas for a simple modular castle, made from wood and either card or lasercut MDF for the battlements, partly inspired by this post on Bob Cordery's superb 'Wargaming Miscellany' blog, and partly by the one in 'Wargaming on a Budget' by Iain Dickie. The task of planning on paper was made considerably easier by the use of axonometric graph paper. An architect friend told me about this, and how it is used. It allows you to draw a floorplan (or whatever) as a square or rectangle, without worrying about perspective, but also depict height as well. You can download it to your own specifications at the excellent Incompetech website.

Usborne Viking Settlement and Blood Eagle

A few years ago I bought In Her Majesty's Name, and despite really enjoying it and even collecting and painting some miniatures with IHMN in mind, I still haven't got round to playing it. This past weekend I picked up the authors' newest book, Blood Eagle, based on the same 'engine' as IHMN, and am once again enthused- hopefully this time I'll actually get some games in!

As luck would have it, I also picked up another book in the last few days: an old but pristine copy of Usborne's 'Make this Viking Settlement' (still in print) for a few quid from a charity shop. This beautifully presented and produced book should allow me to make a small table's worth of Viking houses and whatnot in OO/HO scale, which should be a reasonable match for some 1/72 Vikings and Saxons from Emhar I've had my eye on for a while.

In the last year or so my tastes in wargaming have veered toward the simple, the toylike, the inexpensive and the 'old school', so this way of playing Blood Eagle should tick a few of those boxes!