Håkon is guarded by a crazed berserker who is fiercely loyal to him. No one knows what has earned such strong loyalty. But he never leaves Håkon's side except to slay those who get too close. 


Back in December, Gripping Beast ran a promotion where they were selling a mixed lot of models from a given period and they were throwing in a limited edition model with the purchase. Generally, I have a love/hate relationship with their models. I really like some of them and really hate the others. But, I also want to be fair minded and I though that would be a good way to maybe see some of their models in person that I might never otherwise see IRL. The limited edition model they sent me was this Viking Berserker.

I was really happy with him for a few reasons. First, he scales well with my Foundry vikings. Gripping Beast models tend to be on the tall side, but I think because he's hunched over, he doesn't look out of place in the least. He also has a mask covering his face, which I liked. One of the things about Gripping Beast models I tend to not like is the flatness of their faces. That's no worry with him because of the helmet and mask.


The flatness of Gripping Beast models carried an extra advantage. It made it much easier to practice getting strong contrast in his flesh tones. You can see some parts where I didn't get the blending just right, but overall, I'm pretty happy with it. For the flesh, I used the old GW Tallarn Flesh (I'm am so going to miss that paint when I run out, there doesn't seem to be any modern equivalent!) For the highlights, I mixed in P3 Menoth White Highlight and went pretty much all the way to that over several thin coats.

For the pants, I based them around GW Hoeth Blue, adding white for the base for the white stripes and adding GW Kantor Blue for the blue stripes.

Håkon's champion rushes to meet the foolish Saxon fyrd