Tales from the Home Office
Not the Home Office overseen by Vampirella, I hasten to say, but the Office at Home that Chez Maudlin has turned in to.
Fairly typically, whilst providing a good deal of time at home, the Lockdown has not (yet) seen a great deal of hobby activity. With the household size increasing again, due to my sons' college shutting, and all of us trying to "work from home", every available surface seems to be covered in computers and files, many of them evacuees from my place of work. Consequently the Wargames I had planned for the Easter break are on hold, pending a return to "normality". I still have my little painting table, however, and have at least spent a while daubing paint inexpertly on to some figures, whilst "working from home".
I've also found myself thinking a lot about Projects Past, or rather the many Projects that I spend ages thinking about but that never see the light of day. One such is that old perennial, Hyboria...
Hyborian Sojourn
The first time I read the following passage from Donald Featherstone's The Wargame, I clearly remember looking at my box of Airfix Ancient Britons, Romans and Robin Hood figures and thinking "I could do that!"
Imaginary countries populated by figures of various ages and types, formed up in the style of my choosing seemed perfect to me (and still does). Some attempt was made to start the campaign; I remember "converting" Plains Indians by chopping off their rifles and sticking drawing pins on them for shields, thus creating some cavalry for my "barbarian" army. As I had at the time no knowledge of Hyboria, other than Featherstone's short description, all my ideas came from books like the following, and early play with Britains Trojan Wars figures! Shortly after this, Minifigs started producing their Mythical Earth range and Hyboria was forgotten.
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| Early inspiration |
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| Early figures |
During my teens I read many Science fiction and fantasy books, among them Robert Howard's Conan books, and the pull of Hyboria was felt again. Howard's description of the Hyborian Age (that can be found here) was responsible for more day-dreaming about huge armies on vast tabletops, none of which, sadly, were to appear.
In later life I've read Tony Bath's Setting Up a Wargame Campaign, and the articles he published in Battle and Military Modelling, and come to realize the sheer scale of his gaming of Hyboria is beyond me, though it hasn't stopped small scale ideas!
One such idea came to me some years ago when Neil Thomas published One Hour Wargames (OHW). What about making some small armies of the Hyborian Kingdoms and fighting OHW games with them? A box of Irregular Miniatures 20mm "Biblical" range of figures was purchased to start with, and it has sat on my painting table ever since!
So, as I finally grind my way to the point of this post, a Lockdown Challenge to myself was get those bl**dy figures out of the box and paint them!
Here then is the first (and possibly last?) army of the Hyborian Age - The Army of Corinthia under their General Ilossmykies.
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| Finally out of the box |
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| Kingdom of Corinthia |
Hopefully these figures will see a battle, if I can paint up an enemy force, and ever find a space to set up a game.
Please stay at home and healthy everyone!
