Dug up and dusted down

 Rain lashed down on the hunched figures as a flash of lightning crashed across the dark night sky, the ground sodden, now turned into a quagmire of mud and filth. somewhere in the distance a lone wolf howled half heartedly, almost awhere of the horror trope it was playing into. If you listened with great care you would swear you could hear ominous organ music being carried on the wind...

The figures toiled, each man waist deep in an open grave digging with poorly maintained shovels, oblivious to the sheets of rain intent on filling the hole they were standing in. a single lantern stood on the edge of the grave, pathetically attempting to push back the nights darkness. The hunched figures grunted as they worked. Suddenly they heard a dull 'clunk' as spade hit wood, they glanced at each other with trepidation, had they reached what they were looking for?. As water ran down their faces each man scraped away the dirt from the lid of the coffin. The larger of the two moved over to the edge of the hole to fetch a rusted crowbar. With the deliberate movements of a true evil henchman he found the rim of the coffin lid and began to work it loose. Both men stood back and covered their mouths and noses with stained filthy hankercheifs as another crack of lightning split the sky. The lid was thrown back, the putrid stench of death filling the air.  'Shit' exclaimed the larger man in frustration, 'wrong one'.  

 And thus the blog was reborn... well dug up and left to limp about the place banging into stuff while bits of it fall off needing to be stapled back on but still I reckon it counts!.

 As you are no doubt awhere the above is a poor attempt to resurrect this once dead den of gaming related bollocks once more, maybe it never really died, who can tell?. I do know I have regained some kind of  motivation and focus to get back on the (stinking and flogged half to death) scabby horse that is this blog. my last post was a staggering seven months ago (I have been piddling about over here off and on) and it feels like high time I got to doing some other game related stuff.

 So, what have I been up to in all the time I have not been blogging?, well, I have been doing alot of reading, mostly getting stuck into a lot of Osprey historical titles mostly focusing on the late medieval period and Italian wars although I have been also skirting around the Dark ages too. This has been rather good (if not rather too grown up) and has given me a desire to do some more historical based gaming (shock horror!!). Now most of you know I tend to only very loosly touch on history on this blog with most of my previous projects being fantasy based,,,and a bit stupid. So why the change?, Well in a word...dunno. 

 I have been planning and working towards some projects based on my current facination with historical stuff, namely some 'after 1066' Norman and Saxon forces I intend to use for some skirmishy games based just after the conquest focusing on William trying to consoladate his hold on his new lands. I think it would be a good backdrop for some localised rebellions and uprisings and other similar stuff. I have been using some 15mm minis from forged in battle to represent the forces which I have really enjoyed painting.

Normans

Saxons

 I decided to experiment with my painting style by only using base coats (so no highlighting or shading). This was partly to improve my speed and brushwork forcing me to be more tidy as I had no wash to hide my normal slap happy methods!. Also I was attempting to create a sort of 'toy soldier' style, crisp bright colours to make the troops look kind of cartoony and unrealistic just to see what I would get. I have to say I have been a little untidy in places but for the most part  am quite pleased with them. Heres a closer look at the Normans:

Norman Horse

Norman foot

Lowly Norman archers

Norman Leaders

A bunch of saxons loyal (willing or otherwise) to the Norman overlords.

And heres the Saxon forces:

Saxon Huscarles

The Fyrd ready for some fyrding!

The Saxon leadership.

Saxon archers

Extra Huscarles? I had loads in this pose so may use them as the leaders bodyguard depending on the rules im using.

 One reason I decided to base them individually is because I realised I actually dont have any full forces based this way, everything else is multibased so these will let me use a bunch of other rules such as the Rampants and Oathmark and such.

 On top of these I also have a hankering to play some other larger scale games and became quite interested in the Swiss vs Burgundian wars of the 15th century so have decided to put together the opposing forces to do some battles using either

 

or

Whichever way I go the basing will work for both so no problem either way!. To this end I have ordered a metric fu*ktonne of 10mm troops to represent the armies from the always great pendraken which turned up this morning!

A fu*ktonne of yay!!.

I have also painted a few Swiss pike to get a feel for what I want to do with all this, heres what I have so far:

They are pretty tiny but as always with Pendraken they are really nice to paint. I will be using 40 man pike units so still some way to go before i base my first unit!.

  Hopefully I will have more of an update to err... update you all with soon. 

'till next time....