Catching Up
It has been a while since I last posted a blog on the progress of my Viking army. It was a busy period at the office and I had some other things that needed my attention. Such as writing a review on The Wargaming Compendium which you can check out in the latest issue of WS&S, going to the Re-enactors Fair in Minden, and of course playing the new Batman and Assassins Creed games on my Xbox. Nevertheless, last weekend I got sucked into wargaming again when the WS&S team was present at Crisis in Antwerp, and it seemed like a good time to catch up!
When I posted the last blog the sun was still scorching the Dutch countryside and I was working on the last of my Viking Hirdmen. In the time that followed I painted the occasional figure, but it was just too darn warm to do anything. However, for my birthday in August my sweet girlfriend bought me the latest addition to my Viking army: awesome Viking archer levies. I really like the dynamic poses of these archers (rather than the oft-seen standing stiffly with bows drawn). It really gives them the appearance of skirmish troops. As a present to myself I ordered some Army Painter basing materials which I immediately put to good use. I really like the sand, which is pre-painted, so you can just glue it on and give it a wash or a dry-brushing. Here are some results I got from messing around with the materials.
The latest miniature that I have almost finished is the Warlord for my army. It still needs some final touch ups and some extra basing elements. I wanted to add a broken shield, some gore, and a severed head; this chap is a raging berserker after all! Nevertheless, I have to say I am very pleased with these basing materials, they are easy to use and you get a nice effect very quickly.
As I said before, the WS&S team attended Crisis in Antwerp. It was a long and tiring day, but we all really enjoyed ourselves. Together with Guy, Arvid, and Josho, I was assigned to demo game duty, something that I thoroughly enjoyed. We ran our Wrath of Heaven game, which you can read more about in WS&S 67, with great succes (if we say so ourselves). In between games, I managed to play my first game of SAGA with none other than Darren from Gripping Beast. It was great fun! Darren taught me that it is true what they advertise, you get the basics of the game in a matter of minutes! Of course, I did some shopping as well and was also given some review samples too, the main prize being the Judge Dredd miniature game rulebook. So expect some review-style articles in the coming blogs. Before that happens, however, I have some painting and reading to do!
