Meanwhile in Rohan 9: The Muster of the Shieldwomen

Good evening friends:

As readers of this blog will know, the world of JRR Tolkien is an abiding gaming interest of mine, and the Rohirrim are by far my favourite army of that mythology.   Some years back I purchased several sets of Dark Ages women warriors from Bad Squiddo Games, thinking they would do nicely to augment my Rohan figures (who are, not surprisingly, all male).  It makes sense that in the existential threat that a raid on a village or fortress would pose, there would be women who would take up arms and even know how to use them (the subplot with Eowyn in LOTR and the novelty of her bearing arms betrays Tolkien as being a product of his generation, I think).

Anyway, Annie at Bad Squiddo does a nice range of female warriors that seemed suitable and I am using this pandemic time to finish old lots of figures from the lead mountain, so here are the ten I purchased some years back.

 

These two figures are lovely sculpts from Alan Marsh.  The banner is from a set of Saxon flags from Little Big Men Studios.

 

The remainder of these figures no longer appear on the Bad Squiddo website.  They are sculpts by Phil Hynes, who doesn’t appear to work for Annie any more - at least, his name doesn’t appear on her site.  The shields are done freehand, a lot of inspiration from my friend James, and I’m happy with these two in particular, even if the eyes on the one on the right are lopsided!

Anyway they are good sculpts, some better than others in terms of quality.   I enjoyed the fact that they aren’t all young supple warriors - these two are grannies that are just not having any Uruk-Hai crap, and as I creep towards my sixties, I’m ok with that.

 

 

There are tons of new Dark Ages sculpts in Annie’s shop that would be suitable for Rohirrim (including riders!) since my last visit there, as well as lots of interesting scatter terrain, so I am sure I shall be a returning customer.

Thanks for looking, and blessings to your brushes!

MP+

Some Women Of Valour

These 28mm igures arrived over Christmas and are now primed and on the painting table.  They are from Bad Squiddo Games, founded by Annie Norman (the Dice Bag Lady) to promote a more realistic kind of female figure and body type for war gamers.  These Dark Ages warriors seemed to me to be useful for my Lord of the Rings Project, where they will serve as Rohirrim.   No doubt a village will be attacked by raiders while the menfolk are away with their lord of the Riddermark, and so these shield wives and maidens will turn out to defend their homes and children

I am hoping to get them painted as an entry for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge and maybe even attract the attention of the lovely Sarah for her choice of the best female figure of the contest.  A lofty goal, but I have my hopes.

These figures are generally well cast.  The two leaders, the lady with the banner and her companion blowing the horn, are exceptional.  The rest are good to fair. with the worst being the left most one in the bottom row.  I think they’ll paint up well.  They are on the average for 25 to 28mm figures, and should mix well with the primarily GW figures in my LOTR collection.

 Here’s another Woman of Valour.  On Thursday Madame Padre went in for her second chemo treatment, and sported a very appropriate Tshirt from the Canadian Soldier On charity for wounded warriors.   She is indeed a warrior, who has never uttered a word of self-pity and is determined to maintain a positive attitude.   I am very proud of her.   

Blessings to you and those you love, be there for them.

MP+