Skutagaard Northmen Saga by Artisan Guild: Norse Viking Miniatures for Your Tabletop

Few fantasy themes reward a paint-and-play afternoon quite like a longship full of warriors, and Artisan Guild's Norse miniatures in the Skutagaard Northmen Saga hand you a whole frostbitten clan to muster. Released across two monthly waves back in 2023, the saga pulls thanes, huscarls, shieldmaidens, a druid, a bear and a fire-breathing linnorm into one cohesive Viking-flavoured setting. We stock both waves and every squad carved out of them, so you can field the lot or pick out just the few models your table actually needs.

A Norse saga told in two waves

Skutagaard is Artisan Guild's frozen northern realm, and the Northmen Saga is its founding story. The first Skutagaard Northmen Saga full set (£119.99) landed in August 2023 with the clan's mortal heroes. The follow-up Skutagaard Northmen Saga II (£129.99) arrived the next month and brought the monsters and the magic. A full set is the cheapest route to every sculpt in a wave, but the real flexibility lives in the smaller squads pulled out of each, which we will come to below.

Like the rest of the studio's catalogue, these are pre-supported 32mm heroic-scale models built on Artisan Guild's ball-joint modular system, so arms, heads and weapons swap freely between kits. For a warband that is worth a lot: no two berserkers need look alike, and a spare axe arm from one box can rescue a pose you were never happy with on another.

The heroes of the first wave

The founding set is all flesh-and-blood Northmen. Gunnar the Norse King on Svadilfari (£9.99) leads from the saddle of an eight-legged steed lifted straight from the Odin myths, and he earns his place at the head of any collection. The Norse Barbarian Thane (£8.99) and the shieldmaiden Astrid Trollskadi (£6.49) both make characterful party leaders or named champions for a roleplaying campaign.

For the rank and file, the Norseman Huskarl squad supplies the spear-and-shield bodies a clan is built on, and the Skutagaard Warhorse small set (£9.99) mounts them up for a raid. A Norseman Shrine (£15.99) finishes the wave with a piece of scenery worth fighting over, the kind of objective that turns a flat table into a story.

Saga II: bigger monsters, wilder magic

If the first wave is the clan, the second is everything that haunts the fells around it. The centrepiece is Eldormr the Fire Linnorm (£25.99), a serpentine dragon-wyrm that drops straight into a campaign as a genuine boss monster. Alongside it prowls the bear Gauldurbjorn (£12.99) and the seer-druid Wodan the Allseer (£6.99), who brings the spellcasting the first wave deliberately held back.

The fury comes from two squads. The Northmen Berserkers and the shapeshifting Beastman Berserker Skinchangers (£6.49 each) give you the wild edge of the saga, the second blurring the line between warrior and wolf. The ranger Skadi Ulfhedinn (£6.99) scouts ahead and ties the two waves together as someone who could have stepped out of either.

Building your own Norse miniatures warband

The small-set approach is where this all pays off, because you do not need a shelf of dragons to begin. A handful of huscarls, a thane to lead them and a berserker squad will field a credible raiding party for well under £40, and you can grow it monster by monster as the campaign demands. The shared ball joints mean a head from one kit and a weapon from another build a champion that is entirely your own, and the bare grey resin takes paint cleanly once it is primed.

These Norse miniatures suit any D&D or Pathfinder game set in a cold-climate corner of the map, but they also proxy neatly for skirmish wargames after a historical-fantasy Viking look, from Saga-style clashes to homebrew frostpunk settings. Painters get an easy win too: fur, leather and weathered steel with one warm spot-colour on a cloak or shield will carry the whole warband, and the linnorm leaves you a single show-off centrepiece to push your blending on.

Where to start

Browse the full Artisan Guild collection to see both Skutagaard waves sitting alongside the studio's other guild sagas, or read more about the sculptor's modular approach over at Artisan Guild on MyMiniFactory. Whether you want the whole clan in one delivery or just a thane and a few huscarls to get a campaign moving, we print every model to order and can have it on its way to you.