Project Pict (1)

I've long had a fascination with the Picts. Inspired at least in part by an old Scottish folk tale in a book I was given by my grandmother that described the last of the Picts hurling themselves to their death rather than reveal the secret of their mysterious and much desired Heather Ale to the conquering Scottish king.

I wanted to do an army of them for WAB but never got started and the price of metal meant such a thought became rather too expensive. And then Gripping Beast bought out some plastics, and then Lord S. of GB had a birthday sale and so I ended up with a box.

I am, truth to be told, not a huge fan of the GB plastics - but at £16 for 25 I thought it to be worth a punt.

They are not the greatest models, but they're not terrible - the heads are oversized, but the poses are more dynamic than the Vikings and less compromised/weird than the Arab Spearmen.

So I stuck 'em together.

There are only five torsos and only eight heads, though three of those eight are suitably Pictish looking hoods. There's also some cloaks and a few (though not enough for the whole unit) square and H shaped Pictish shields. There's also no "command" as such - there's a sword arm and a couple of helmeted heads and you can use a spear as a flag, but no horn is a bit irritating.

I decided I wanted them all to have spears but there's not enough on the sprue to do that either, so I had to do a bit of fettling with left over Viking and Arab spears.

Then I started basing them on Renadra 20mm squares. I debated using 1 p coins, but I want to make anactual rank and flank "army" not just use them for skirmishing, so went with the squares in the end.

Next up I split the 24 into 4 groups of six. I've left one with a missing right arm for later while I try and source a horn. Then I sprayed them with three different brown colours and one batch with green. I'll mix them up in batches for painting and then when they all get mixed up on bases I should have a suitably disparate bunch.

I did much of the assembly while away on my hols. and decided to order up some research material to help maintain momentum. Which duly arrived this morning.

We'll see if my enthusiasm survives the painting. If so I can see myself getting another box or three (or possibly some of the other GB Dark Age boxes to mix and match a bit).

I may well also add some metals as command and heroes and the like. I can also see myself getting some additional Pictish shields in metal and possibly some of the Westwind separate heads to provide variety

Cavalry - the obvious (cheap) choice is the GB Dark age cavalry and use assorted Pictish heads and cloaks, but I do have rather a soft spot for the GB metal cavalry which are riding appropriately tiny, shaggy little ponies. But that's a decision for much later.