Vikings. Also thoughts and plans.

 Hi all,

Been a busy month or so in Monkeyland.  End of term, the onset of winter, and escalating plague numbers have meant that while some hobby's been accomplished, probably less than I'd hoped, and there's been little motivation for blogging.  That said, my grades are in, I've made at least a start on Christmas baking, and I've had a chance to take some pics and think about the coming season.

First of the Victrix vikings.  Good variety of poses, great variety of heads and arms.

I have it on reliable authority that Santa will be bringing me the makings of a 100 Years War French force, by way of a box of Perry Agincourt French Infantry, and Mounted Cavalry.  This will likely be my new project for the new year, and I'm fairly stoked.  I'm fond of the period (via the usual books and movies), and am keen to do up some French (which seem woefully under-represented on the table; everyone does the English, can't imaging why?).

Little dark, my apologies.  Sculpting is clean, nice details, not a lot of flash or lines.

Prospects of a new project have me going through the usual mental gymnastics of thinking about rules and basing.  There was an interesting podcast from the Plastic Crack boys the other day, where in the process of discuss "ancients" (which also seemed to include medievals), they made the point that rules preferences are very much driven by a couple factors; the kind of game you like, and the kind of game you can get local players to play with you.  While that's a bit of a truism, it hit home pretty hard for me, and I think solidified some of my thinking on the project.

Loving the Santa hat head.  Definitely going to play with the set to make a proper Santa.

Anyone who's followed my meanderings over the last several years (we're in year twelve, for those counting), knows that I've played around with ideas for a "big" ancients project for a while.  I picked up some Victrix carthaginians a while back, eyeball their successors line on a regular basis, and have repeatedly made plans for huge, sprawling projects in a range of scales.  But they never seem to get off the ground.

Decent mix of armoured and unarmoured bods.  I made a mess of regular dudes with helm, shield, and either axe or spear.  Saved the swords for hearthguard types.

The problem is, I think, that those huge games require years of dedication to pull off.  I'm a hobby magpie, usually have multiple projects on the go, and even when I do manage to amass a large collection of something, struggle to find opponents with comparable collections, and time and space for a massive game.  Case in point, the Cub and I are planning a BIG 40k game for the holidays, but realistically, this is a once, maybe twice a year undertaking, and the armies involved have taken more than 5 years to amass.  The thing is, however, that I've been able to play with them along the way.  This is less possible with a lot of the historical armies I'm interested in.  Small unit pike actions just don't make a lot of sense, and if I'm doing Carthage or Antigonids, I'm aiming for big battles anyways.

Also gave the elites the bigger shields.  Some really dynamic poses with these guys.

With medievals, however, there's a sweet spot.  The same troops show up in small actions as big battles, and so collections can be gamed as they grow.  I've noticed this with my vikings (which I've been picking away in in between other projects), and think it will also apply to the French.  When I start them, I don't need to aim for anything huge.  Two or three dozen foot, and a dozen or so  mounted figures, are enough for a game of Lion Rampant, and I can add units as I go.  Moreover, even if I can't find someone with another medieval force, painting up opposition isn't that hard, because of the numbers involved.  This has worked out pretty well with the ECW stuff I've been messing with for the last year or so, and I think is the way to do for me in the future.

Kept the mail dark, but might break down and brighten it.

The big question that remains, is the perennial one of basing.  When I did the ECW stuff, I went with square, Warlord style basing, with the assumption that it would be compatible with Pikeman's Lament, but suitable for larger games in the future.  I think with the 100 Years War project, I'll invert that logic; I'll base for Lion Rampant, and deal with "big battle" compatibility if and when that possibility arises.

Berzerkers mandatory.  For Khorne! . . . oops, wrong game.

There was a fellow on the Lion Rampant Facebook page who recently posted his War of the Roses stuff, based on rounds, in a style inspired by Dalauppror.  Infantry based 1, 2, or 3 to a base, and cavalry generally 1 or 2.  It looked really good, and I think works for medievals in a way it might not for more coherently linear periods.  Cavalry on rounds is something I'm used to from Lord of the Rings, and always thought it looked well.  I'm going to try the "multi-figure on rounds" basing for the next batch of vikings I put together, and see how I like it, but I think it'll be the way to go.

Probably should add a little more depth of color to the furs.

There's been some other stuff finished up, both historical and fantasy/sf, and no doubt I'll be able to claw out some time to get caught up on posting.  Hopefully, the plague won't cancel Christmas, as I'm really looking forward to it.  We won't have the Cub Christmas day (he's at his mom's), but he's supposed to join us Boxing day (aka St. Stephen's), and Puddin' will thus have Christmas morning to herself.  I'm staring down a week of power baking, and then hopefully a few days to relax.  If I do this right, I'll have enough leftovers that I can simple point the hungry towards the fridge for several days following . . . .

FMB