Another 40ish models to add to my existing dark age Irish! It was interesting to revisit this Wargames Atlantic kit years later. I originally painted my Irish years ago and had a very high opinion of this kit. My opinion now is a little less so. It’s a good kit with decent options. They’re easy to put together but have a fair amount of mold lines. Look closely and you’ll see I missed them on the legs here and there. The arm joints also don’t quite work. Look at the shirtless men and you’ll notice the connection pretty easily.

They’re not a bad kit at all and very cost effective. This is great for bulking out forces and with a little effort you can create a few solid custom miniatures to give your force some flavor. They’re a touch repetitive but not too bad.

They were also super easy to paint. One thing Wargames Atlantic gets right is the level of detail: just enough to be interesting but not so much it bogs you down.

The heroes here are from Footsore Miniatures. They’re metal one or two-piece models. For the most part I liked them but a few had me gluing hands onto wrists, which I always hate.

I do like their character and I think they lend the force a character it otherwise lacked with the Wargames Atlantic kits.

The tartan patterns are nothing fancy but they sure did take me a while! I considered doing some on the infantry but the heroes dissuaded me of doing so rather quickly. Again, it helps these models to stand out. You’ll also notice one is a Viking–that’s because at the Battle of Clontarf the Irish actually had Viking mercenaries on their side!

The last note here is the time taken. I tried a new technique in which I started by priming black, then dry brushing up through the skin tones of the models. Brown to light brown to skin tone to light skin tone. This allowed me to skip painting the skin tones altogether and I found this saved a lot more time than I expected. I knocked out 40 models inside a work week without even touching the weekend.

I’m happy with this update to my Irish. I’ll put them on parade once I have the group basing done and see how well they fit with my past models. Given they’re from the same company and also very colorful, I think it’ll work out just fine.

That’s one set for Clontarf done. Now it’s a-Viking we go!