A quick Bondi seshion

Just a quick post of a few pics of the underclasses, these aren't from completed units but Ive finished these few off so I can take some pictures of the scenery, which will be relocating to Pete's house now that He's finished the new board.
This is the command stand from the Bondi spears, there is another stand that butts up alongside to form a shieldwall, more of which later.

A converted hornblower

And lastly a couple of Thralls. All the figures are Foundry, and hopefully I will finish off some Picts for them to do battle with soon.

Mead, Huggery and the Seax (nothing camp about 10th century pirates!)

Another Jorvik festival has come and gone and a rambunctous romp it was too. Spectacular displays, battles and pageantry were the norm, many an old friend was reunited and the mead flowed like the Ouse. Crois du Nord(C.D.N, thats us, Norman name, dont get me started) had a good one this year, newby Dave had his first show and loved it, Ted, Dave and Pete got to pose in mail and hit people, and I faught my first big battle with a seax as apose to a 2 handed spear, which was much more fun.

A personal belief of mine is that digital cameras and battle reenactments dont mix so the images I use are borrowed from Facebook(I dont think this is going to get me into trouble...) and to be honest non of us would bother anyway, so unfortunately there aren't any pics of us as a group in action yet
The previous pic shows the march through York centre leading up to the night fight (below).
Which was triumphantly concluded with a ship burning and firework display.

All in all a great day, the enduring memory was being part of a hundred strong Saxon army, dancing to eighties pop and the prodigy(this was part of a display by some fire jugglers) prior to going into battle. Sunday was a general mooch around York including a visit to the viking market where I picked up a new Seax. This is to replace my last one which broke in battle, fortunately because of a fault in the mettle and not through irresponsible use on my part.

An added bonus is that the new blade fits my old scabbard, which I intend to tart up in the near future.

Got wood (bless you Edgar Wright)

As the start of the Regia season draws near with York on the 20th I thaught I should swap the paintbrush for some tools, the result being an unholy mess in the lounge which fortunately my flatmates didnt castrate me for.

The plus side to this is a new single handed spear, which thanks to a woefull ineptitude on my behalf during practice will not be seen in public for a good while, however its a usefull toy to have around and I can allready see its advantages. A side benefit of this carpentry found its use at dinner time, when I cooked one of the finest meals known to man, the flame grilled steak. I Heaped up the left over shavings into an old roasting tray and grilled my steak(ribeye, marinaded in olive oil and rosemary) for a couple of minuets. The results were juicy and deliceouse, particularly as the shavings infuse an added smoky flavour.
As well as highlighting my lack of finesse with the new spear saturdays training session also saw me purchasing a new knife hand crafted by Ted, Regia warlord, training officer and all round Dark age guru.
This is quite a spectacular creation as the pic shows and instantly overcame any reservations I had about saving money for York and the fact that I allready have several knives, and learning that the design was found in Dublin only increased its appeal, not only because of my own interest in the Hiberno Norse but also because of the image that some of us in the group are trying to cultivate.

While I had the camera out I couldnt resist taking a quick snap of the view out of the window, this is over Lancaster and the Bay into the Lakedistrict.

Arrival from Cybertron (damn you Michael Bay!)

Ive been kicking around the idea of doing a blog for a year or so but one thing or another and all that shy*te, anyway Ive defined conventional wisdom and found a plus point to the recession, namely loosing my job has freed me up for more 'creative' persuits. The idea behind doing this is firstly to impose some discipline onto my shoddy approach towards my hobbies, and also we seem to have far too much fun for seriouse grown men and it seems only fair to share this.

The first pics are from the only finished unit in my wargaming army (as I said, shoddy), a unit of Viking Hirdmen from the Wargames Foundry. These are part of my Hiberno Norse posse for Warhammer ancient battles and have been kicking around for the last three years or so, almost from the time I started playing.
The army itself is over 2000pts but so far this is the only completed unit, the rest are painted to a gaming standard but nothing worth displaying, hovever now I have the means to do so this is the ideal incentive to complete the job( hmm).
The first character is a conversion of two Foundry figures and came about as a result of needing an additional hand weapon, and also finding a home for the ridiculous big beardy bondi head, which was lying around after I picked up a large joblot of Foundry stuff off ebay.Anyway enough about me heres the shinies.

On the workdesk at the moment is a second Hirdmen unit, this time from Gripping beast. The core of this troop is from the Beast's characterfull Hiberno Norse figures (at the back of the shot) and to complement these Im converting some of thier Pictich nobles, giving them spectacled helms and daneaxes. These were part of my christmas loot and will be covered in detail in a future post
cheers