Northern European armies are not my favorite to paint. They all look the same: round shield, round helmet, mail shirt, beard. It's much easier to mistake a Welshman for a Saxon than it is to mistake a Roman for a Greek or a Persian for an Egyptian. But this ambiguity can also be a virtue, since I can field these guys as anything from north of the Rhine. Plus, if you're going to play Saga, you've got to have some heavily armed white people. So here they are.
Welsh dragon on this guy's shield makes more sense since I do play the Welsh in Saga.
Action pose! These guys are Wargames Factory Saxon Thanes, which are just about the cheapest plastics you can get. I have heard people hating on these little fellows, saying that they're ungainly, but I think you've just got to position those limbs in a convincing and exciting way. 
There are actually a good number of touchstones you could use to distinguish between different factions, if you wanted to, in the same way that you could hand-wave a Persian and Egyptian figures as "middle-eastern" if you don't know any better. I've sussed out a couple while assembling my Saga warband(s).
ReplyDelete- Mail - Only the wealthy or great warriors are going to be able to buy (or take) mail
- Crosses - Pagans aren't going to be wearing them. Christians likely will be
- Facial Hair - Saxons did mustaches. Scandinavians did the full beard.
- Patterns - Apparently, Irish are big into stripes Scots, unsurprisingly, do the plaid thing.
The difference between hairy dudes murdering each other in Britain is different enough from hairy dudes murdering each other in Russia, combined with the lack of plastic minis for hairy Russian dudes, is why I don't think I'll ever be able to pull together a Rus warband.
The convention Casey used (and I picked up for my Normans and Anglo-Danes, but will likely not leverage for my GHOSTLY FUCKING ROMANS, Irish, or Steppe Tribes) is that Hearthguard have mail (because they're favored by the warlord) and shields, Warriors don't get mail but do get shields (they've got a decent armor after all), and Levies just get their pointed stick or missile weapon and a short time on this Earth.