The Dogs - Spring Clean Challenge 2026

The largest regiment left were the Brigands.  24 archers on two big bases to make Formed Archers.  The reason for doing that rather than having them as skirmishers is that in Midgard the only effective shooting comes from Formed Archers.  Skirmishers don’t do any significant damage so can’t be much more than a speed bump.

The basis minis are kitbashed from some random sprues of Frostgrave soldiers and barbarians that came with something from North Star, probably the first Cultist Nickstarter.  I ordered the Forset Outlaws conversion kit to get a few more bow arms and some useful stuff like the horns.  The concept was Robin Hood and his outlaws so I wanted a leader and main characters that channeled that. I already had a Friar Tuck – unusually I don’t recognise who made him.  Please comment below if you know.  I was 3 miniatures short and needed Robin and Little John miniatures.  I knew Crooked Dice did some nice ones and whilst there I saw a Much the Miller’s Son and that was everything needed.  I had to wait for them to arrive so they fell down the painting queue a bit.

I started painting a couple of weeks ago.  I like having a point of difference and was taken with the idea of them being brown rather than green. I always see these type of models in green and brown is just as effective for camouflage in woodland.  However, I got cold feet and then ran out of steam when I tried to figure out how many shades of brown I’d need.  There are so many gribbly bits on these guys – the “benefit” of more modern plastic sculpts than the older metals of the rest of the force.  In the end I decided to just start and there are six main shades of brown in Speedpaints; (Noble Skin, Dark Wood, Dusk Red, Burnished Red, Ruddy Fur, Fire Drake).  The two reds are quite similar reddish-brown shades.  That leaves Hardened Leather and  Satchel Brown for the leather and belt gubbins which should provide enough difference if I add a canvas colour for some of the larger fodder bags.

Once decided  I got through them in a few days and this is what I’ve got:

The difficulty in deciding on the paint scheme and becoming ‘stuck’ is something I’ve experienced before.  It can happen with a big project.  I’m used to being able to push through most projects in a maximum of a month and anything that drags on further than that I often experience a dip in energy or creativeness.  That’s okay and I resolve it by going and doing something else in the hobby for a bit.  Eventually I’ll be able to sit down and get on with it again.

Having finished the brown scheme I was interested to see how it looks in an actual woodland.  Time to go outside again 🙂

I think they look pretty convincing.  Now I’m working on a decent name for the fulff.  I think I’m going with German so these guys are the Herbstwald (Autumn Wood) Brigands.