THE SHIELDMAIDENS COMETH!

Original post 8/7/15

So yesterday I received my much anticipated package from Annie/Bad Squiddo Games/ The Dice Bag lady!  Annie runs a really cool business that includes selling a line of "realistic" female miniatures, aka women dressed as they would have been for combat or the time period, and not in some fantasy outfit.  She has a huge selection at http://thedicebaglady.net/female-miniatures/ but I was lucky enough to spot her post on the "Saga: The Dark Age skirmish game" Facebook page advertising the shieldmaidens she gets specially made.  Once I saw them I had to immediately order them, because everyone has to admit that one of the coolest parts of the Vikings TV show is Lagertha and the the other shieldmaidens kicking ass and taking names!

Unfortunately, yesterday I was feeling pretty poor, so it was with much anticipation I opened them today!  Of course, Annie did a wonderful job carefully packaging them.  Despite being plastic miniatures, they were still wrapped in bubble wrap, which gave me something fun to pop while I wrote this...

Pretty fun to get a package shipped by Royal Mail.

All the info for the famous Dice Bag Lady.

Here they are!

 Each shieldmaiden is individually packaged with three other pieces: their weapon, shield, and a base.  The poses are fantastic and while the four feel uniform enough to use as a single unit, they are all quite distinctive.  Cleanup of the models is a breeze.  There is a little flash to scrap away but none of those hated mold lines.  This made me quite happy because I truly have an unnatural hate for mold lines and have spent hours filing them away off my other models.  I was also pleased to see that the minis were not made to fit into a slotted base as I planned to place them on my ultra thin magnetic 20mm squares.  I am not assembling them today but here are pictures of the "bodies" of the figures.

The individual packages are nice for fast assembly.

Borghild: The newest to the shield maiden line and also my favorite.

Hervor has a very "warlord" pose.

Freydis is posed to fit front and center in the shield-wall.

The famous Lagertha.  The sculpting on the face is so nice that my camera picked it up with facial recognition!

On her website Annie writes, "Don't get duped into thinking they can only be special character or warlords, why not slot them in with your regular troops?"  While it's tempting to run a warband led by Lager... I mean Earl Ingstad, I decided to take Annie's advice.  I think the shieldmaidens will look fantastic mixed in with my other hearthguard, and should definitely help my Viking warband stand out from all the others.  Of course my painting skills would never do these fantastic models justice, so I was able to bribe my friend Danny to paint them for me.  Overall, I would definitely recommend these miniatures, and based on her excellent customer service, the Dice Bag Lady's other products.  The set of four shieldmaidens was quite reasonably priced and only cost about $23 including shipping from the UK.  I would normally try to end with something semi-humorous, but instead I'll spare you and close with this terrific picture of all four of the shieldmaidens painted up that Annie shared today on Facebook.

Painted by Paul Cubbin