First look - Pendraken 10mm Picts

As my prize from this year's Pendraken painting competition, I ordered some of the new 10mm Picts to flesh out my two Dux Bellorum armies (nether of whom are Picts I might add).

Over the weekend I was able to slap a bit of paint on the new chaps and take a few grainy pictures.

These are the Pictish cavalry. There are only two sculpts, which is quite a shame, as these are very versatile generic hairy cavalry types. The model with the spear/javelin is really quite splendid, although I'm not a huge fan of the horse for the other sculpt. Both figures wear trousers, long sleeved tunics and cloaks. The sword waving chap has a simple helmet and both obviously carry small-medium sized round shields.

I've painted mine up to be riders - non-noble cavalary - for my Romano-British army. Here they are alongside a unit of noble riders (Pendraken Late Roman armoured cavalry). The Picts are quite a bit slighter than the Romans but this is more noticeable in the horses than the riders themselves. I have no problems using them in the same army, and the photo shows that, once painted, there's not a huge difference in size. I'm not sure I'd put them on the same bases though.

On this base I have a mix of Pictish skirmishers with javelins (square shields) and Pendraken Welsh spearmen (round shields). The Picts come in a pack together with early crossbowmen which is fine, but a bit odd in my opinion. Perhaps some rules sets call for mixed units? Regardless, what it means is that there is only one sculpt for javelineers and one sculpt for crossbowmen. In order to make up a unit of skirmishers with javelins, The Pict javelineers are dressed in long tunics and cloaks and carry the square shields that are so often used as a short hand to designate 'Picts'. I mixed in some of the spare Welsh. Again, the Welsh are slightly heftier than the Picts, but that is not really noticeable, even on the same base.

I painted my skirmishers up to support my Irish army, but used duller tones on the tunics than I have used on the noble warrior bases to represent the skirmishers lower status. Somewhere - and I wish I could remember where - I have seen an early Medieval representation of Irish warriors with square shields. I think it was on a carved high cross, but I've completely gone blank as to where it was. Anyway, it was enough justification for me to mix a couple of square shields in with my skirmishers.