Over the last couple of weeks I have been test printing and painting models that are going to feature in Iain Lovecraft’s Viking Saga which launches on Tuesday 13th September. If you’d like to be notified on launch, click here. Last weekend the first Viking ship was ready for testing. Iain has pulled out all the stops, liaising with a Viking museum in Sweden to make these models the most accurate models available. I’ve been gaming, modelling and painting for the last 40 years and I cant remember seeing this level of detail on wargames models. I was particularly impressed by the covers that swing down over the oar ports when they are not in use.

I decided that I wanted to add a small amount of ‘wargames rigging’ to give a flavour of a rigged ship. I don’t like to look at a model ship and wonder what’s keeping the mast standing up! I also wanted to be able to remove the yard, so that I could swap between a yard with a sail bent on to represent a ship making way and an empty yard to rest on the ‘yard supports’ to represent a ship alongside. To facilitate the removable yard, I drilled a small hole with a hand held drill in both the mast and the yard and then superglued a small length of brass rod in place that the yard could be secured onto.

To enable the placement of fore and aft stays and shrouds I needed to make some small staples to place in the ship and the top of the mast. I made these from the metal from paper-slides using a pair of round nose pliers to shape them and some snips to cut them to length.

A pair of holes were drilled fore, aft and amidships port and starboard. The staples were glued in with superglue.

Four staples were also fixed to the top of the mast. I use 1.5mm black elastic cord for standing rigging on 28mm ships and boats. The stretch in the elastic is very useful as it means that the rigging is kept taught as more is added because it is always under slight tension. This provides an easy self balancing effect. It also means that there is enough ‘give’ that if you do not glue the mast in place you can lift it out and lay it alongside for easier storage. The elastic cord is tied of at each staple, and permanently secured with a drop of superglue before the ends are trimmed with a sharp knife.

The sail is an 18cm square of paper, printed double sided. It is far to clean!!! The sail is attached to the yard with thread.

Here we have two ships moored alongside the pier outside the Viking village. It appears that the Vikings favoured stern to moorings rather than coming alongside. An anchor would be dropped and the ship manoeuvred back, pulling it taught before it’s stern was tied up to the jetty.

These five Viking characters are some of the miniatures included in Iain Lovecraft’s Viking Saga Kickstarter. They will also be available after the campaign as 28mm metal castings from Sally 4th.

Click here to take a look at previous hobby blog about Viking village and buildings.

Click here to be notified when Iain’s campaign launches. Scheduled launch 13th September