ANGLO-SAXON GESITHS

 I decided to start with the Anglo-Saxon war bands, I believe I will be painting up two small bands, so about thirty men in all, 15 men in each band, I was excited about getting into the 'Dark Ages' so I got stuck into it real quick, painting up a group of six Gesiths to start proceedings, for those of you who dont know what a Anglo-Saxon Gesith is...  basically it is a term used to describe an Anglo-Saxon nobleman in the early part of the Dark Ages in England, these guys were land owners and usaully had peasants or Ceorls working the land for them, Gesith's often also served as retainers to a king or a Lord.

so while I am talking about Anglo Saxon classes I thought I might aswell include this small table which offers a simplistic break down of classes at that time, this will help you guys follow what I'm saying when I use the proper historical names for the different classes:

Slave            Thrall      I may use these in my games.
Peasant        Ceorl      will be used as militia / light infantry.
Nobleman     Gesith    will be used as med inf, well trained.
Lord              Lord       unit leaders, well armed and armoured.

There were more classes than this but this is what I will use within my skirmish games, just to keep it simple and fun, basically warbands led by local leaders with all there troops. 

'Form a shieldwall !'

So, as metioned before these are 15mm (18mm) miniatures from SLM, good sculpts, good detail, I had a few mold lines to remove, and a few rough spots in the wrong places to smooth, they could do with more variety in there poses but outside of that they were fun to paint, and I can recommend them to whoever wants to get into this period at this size, more Saxons to come soon, stay tuned fellas...