Viking Project Update: Whiplash

Well, no lousy pictures this week. I didn't get much done on my Vikings. There are two big reasons for this. For one, I'm totally addicted to Titan Quest. I played it all summer, and then lost my progress when my hard disk fell prey to a virus. So I've been playing again. Addictive as all hell and I can't get anything else done!

But more importantly, I've developed some strange neck strain. That's why this I'm calling this update "whiplash." I woke up Thursday morning with the left side of my neck swollen and sore. I figured I had slept on it wrong. But today is Sunday and it feels even worse! In fact, the original area of soreness is gone and a new part of my neck is hurting. I can't do anything without pain, except lie down. But it's especially painful to look down or look up. If I squeeze my shoulder blades together I want to cry. What the hell is this?

I've done nothing that I can think of to injure myself like this. But today, the fourth day like this, I am even worse than before. I have to go lie down about every hour or so to relieve my neck. As lame as it seems, I'm going to have to go see a doctor about this. I haven't felt this bad since I hurt my back last Christmas. But that was due to a reason I could identify. This, as far as I can tell, is a sleep injury!

Well, I put together 8 Viking Bondi last night and then I couldn't take any more. I'll have to wait for this to pass before I can get any more completed. Hopefully, I'll be able to show the completely modeled army very soon. I'm getting pretty close!

Viking Project Update: Hirdmen

So, after about a week or so of one type of disaster or another, I've finally been able to get back to my viking army project. As you can see from the picture above, I've completed three of my six units. They are all Hirdmen, armed with spears that I made from brass rods. I even have a movement tray for one all ready to go! Now I will just have to magnetize the bases and prepare the remainder of the trays. Then I can paint!

Originally I was very ambitious about getting this army table-ready for September. Well, the month is half way over and I'm only half way done. So, I've had to readjust my expectations. I'll shoot for the end of October to have them ready.

This should still be a challenge to meet, yet something that I can achieve. Recently I haven't had a lot of motivation to get anything done with my miniatures. I just wish I was at a place where I could buy a figure or two and just paint it for pleasure. But I have so much piled up, I can't do it. Fortunately, I'm pretty excited about the historical stuff. So that is keeping me going.

So, the next group to tackle are all my Bondi units. These guys are the farmers who don't do this for a living. So they'll be easier to model in that they don't all have to be uniform with spear and shields -- just enough so that other players realize that the units have spears and shields. I'm thinking that the best way to make these guys stand out from the other, better equipped Hirdmen might be in the way I paint them. They'd probably have pretty drab and faded clothing. The Hirdmen might have better stuff and look a little sharper. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself right now. I've got to get them modeled first!

Vikings! A New Project

The best cure for laziness is activity. So, building a new Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) army is just the thing. I've been seduced into this Games Workshop game by a few evil people who are tempting me with ever more interesting miniature games. In fact, I've always wanted to play WAB, and then just founds some people who are doing it. So I jumped into it.

Seeing how I'm writing (struggling to write, more like it) a novel set in Viking age Norway, a WAB Viking army is just the thing. Unlike other GW games, you don't buy miniatures from them. So, this game is a lot cheaper. I paid out less than half of what it would cost to do a comparable army with GW product. I've bags and bags of lead Viking models, more than I'll need, to build my army. They are all from Old Glory. The figures themselves are not exactly the best I've seen. Many a Viking has only half a face or some other casting problem in the model. But they are pretty good. They're true 25mm; so they're smaller than what I'm accustomed to.

My only complaint is that I had to make spears for my spearmen. I guess this is not all that bad, as lead spears would just bend and snap off anyway. I'd have to replace them with brass rod eventually. But I've got a lot of spearmen, and need to make lots of spears. In the pictures below, you can see piles of "brass toothpicks" that I'm using for spears. I've clipped down rods to size and then used my Dremmel tool to grind out points. The points are freakin' sharp and I've already stuck myself a few times! Damn Vikings! I'm also going to have to convert a few standard bears for this too. I'm not good at conversions. So we'll see how that goes.

I'm excited about this. I've got quite a challenge ahead to get these guys modeled and painted before the next meeting of the WAB group next month. I plan to dip these guys to speed up the painting process. We'll see how that goes. For now, here are pictures of the men in their bags and laid out on my work table. Pretty rag-tag, even for Vikings!