More Barbarians to Rage With

 A new line of fantasy barbarians came out from Mace Face Miniatures. It is their Hornblower shield maidens. I am not sure why they are called hornblower. You do get a lot of horn blowers in the command pack. 

This is a sample from the mixed weapons, archers, and command packs

I suppose that shield maidens is a good description. They have a nordic vibe to them as they are dress for cold weather. They appear to be ever so slightly smaller than Copplestone's barbarians. They are very well sculpted with a lot of detail. I have no idea who sculpted them, but they do resemble the style of the Copplestone barbarians. My only issue with them is they have a lot of flash or the little bits and squiggles of metal attached to them. I spent a hour or so last night cleaning up some of the figures. 

Other news

Ion of Archduke Piccolo put out some neat, easy to use rules for WWII naval battles. Ion's rules and the ships that he made triggered a major sense of nostalgia. Back in my high school days, my best friend Mark and I would have these epic naval battles using slightly modified rules from Avalon Hill's Midway game. Mark even built fleets of very simple but effective ship models out of mostly balsa wood and cardboard. Using the various paper ships that I have made, I might have me a battle using these rules. I may even get back into the ship building business. 

Finally

A picture of an imperial knight from Ral Partha Europe (DemonWorld)

Updates

Time has passed since the last post. 

First, no International Naval Wargaming Day game happened. Wow, be surprise coming from me. There was actually a good reason why, but over a month has passed and with it the reason. I'm sure it was a good reason though. 

Second, I have been mostly painting of 15mm fantasy/medieval for Dragon/Lion Rampant gaming. Robert over at Shogun Miniatures has been very busy with my orders. A great guy to do business with and his prices are pretty reasonable. If you need custom-made metal bases, suggest you check him out. On the other hand, I had some big issues with another vendor of 15mm fantasy figures who shall remain nameless. I know that with the exception of some huge corporate entities like Games Workshop, most businesses we deal with are "mom & pop" affairs. Still, I should not have to sick the credit card company on them after three months and repeated ignored emails. I liked there minis but they are "dead to me" as they say in organized crime movies.

I've also done some work building structures for 3mm-1/600 gaming. For some reason, I cannot seem to get the scale right. The buildings always seem to fit better with 1/300 miniatures. 

Much of what has been occupying my time is all my son's extracurricular activities. We won't go there, but my wife is not very involved in much of my son's activities except for tennis. Even there, I am the one who does most of the driving to and from lessons. Between tennis, Boy Scouts (sorry now known as just Scouts), and church youth group activities, I don't have a lot of time for my self except late at night. Even then, I am grading exams or papers, or going over the next day's lectures. Man, I miss the days long ago when I worked 9 to 5 at some relatively mindless job and then had the rest of ,my day free!

The last thing I want to mention is my current state of being. I live in northeastern Tennessee right on the border with southwest Virginia. Its is about an hour drive from the North Carolina border. Other than a day's power outage and a few days of no cell or internet service, my town survived Hurricane Helene intact. No so in other towns nearby, especially those that are nestled in mountain valleys. So far, 227 people are dead and a number are still missing. A lot of stories of people I know suffered from this. My wife, son, and I have done volunteer work to help out, but it is still devastating on the psyche. And to add to this, like everything else now in the USA, its become politicized. It is hard to focus on hobby things when events like this hit close to home. 

Shalom.