CoE SB Irish Bonnaughts

Dark Age Irish Bonnachts

For the release of the Age of Ravens source book for Clash of Empires Stu has been working on a massive Northumbrian Anglo-Danish army with various allied contingents.  In the long term this will spawn a Scots army.  

I have completed a large Anglo-Danish army - 150 figures - and decided I would build it further with allied contingents.  I will eventually have two Scots, two Irish and a Viking unit, plus sub-commanders added to the force.  Of course, I cannot use all of these allies in normal games but this will provide the basis of a Scots army.  So, for the rest of February I planned to finish a unit of 32 Bonnachts.  Figures are from Crusader with a few First Corps command added. I started by undercoating black then Army Painter Leather Brown.  The plan was to do these pretty quickly!

I did a basecoat of brown with spray paint then I did a quick bit of highlighting.  For this unit I am working in batches of 8 figures; often I will do more but it depends on the project.  Not too much highlighting is required 'cos the shading step will really bring out the detail.  I mainly use Vallejo paints and for the clothing I used German Grey, Flat Brown and Game Colour Earth.  Just a quick highlight or two, nothing too exacting because this is about getting a unit finished quickly to a good gaming standard.

The skin was a quick slop of Vallejo Medium Fleshtone straight over the brown undercoat.  I gave the flesh two quick highlights and painted the hair.  For the brown I just painted a thinned coat of Vallejo Charred Brown. The blond is GW's Snakebite Leather then a highlight mixed with white.  In my painting plan excel sheet I have a list of 8 or 9 hair colours that I use - various shades of brown, blond and red.

I use Vallejo Natural Steel (mixed with some black) and Brass for the metal and Flat Earth for the wood.  If I want a greyer steel, I will add a bit of white.  Shield designs are from LBM Studios.  Following that was a heavy wash of Vallejo Umber Shade (the same as GW Devlan Mud) mixed with a bit of black.

All that remained was basing.  I do a 3-stage drybrush - Burnt Umber, Iraqi Sand, then Iraqi Sand again - before a couple of sprays of Testor's Dull Cote.  A generous amount of static grass, silflor tufts and leaves finishes the job.