Footsore Anglo Danes

These little fellas popped through my letterbox the other day. They are Anglo Danish Huscarls by Footsore Miniatures and are beautifully sculpted by Matthew Bickley.  These are very lively action packed belligerent sculpts and they really do look the business.

The castings I received were very clean and crisp. There was minimal flash if any. They came with an assortment of round shields some of which had sculpted wooden planks on the front and back(!) of the shield; this is plainly not the sort of equipment a well armed Huscarl would have carried. Perhaps a lowly Ceorl who could not afford anything of quality but not an elite warrior. A shield made purely of lindenwood ("Lindenwood" is the wood of the linden tree) would not have lasted more than a minute in combat. Quality shields of the period were lued together with a glue made out of cheese(!) but what really have the shield its strength and durability was the convex construction and the leather stretched and glued over the lindenwood. Also, by this period it is most likely that a large proportion of the high status Northern European warrior class would be using the classic French (and Norman) kite shield as this shape offered added protection to the lower limbs. The kite shield was not just a mounted warriors piece of kit. In fact, it is not beyond the bounds of reason that the army Harald Hardrada arrived with in 1066 would have a had a proportion of their elite warriors carrying kite shields. After all, keeping up with the best battlefield kit was a warriors best chance of staying alive on any given battlefield.

So then, it would have been nice to get a few kits shields with these excellent models and that is something I am going to remedy by adding some kite shields from Crusader Miniatures and Gripping Beast. I was going to order some from Footsore but they don't seem to have the early variety available at present. To make up the numbers in the Huscarl units I'm going to be adding mini's from various other ranges as well. The one's in the pictures are from Gripping Beast and Saxon Miniatures, great sculpts that as well as making up the numbers will add more drama to the bases. Cloaks and straps will be added where applicable with ProCreate and Greenstuff.

A Closer Look: