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Please Note: This blog contains poorly painted toy soldiers that may offend those of an aesthetically sensitive disposition.

Monday 13 April 2020

A Lockdown Update

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.

Early inspiration
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.

Finally out of the box
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!

28 comments:

  1. Now that's a great idea for a project based on some wonderful source material. I have always liked the hyboria setting and 20mm is perfect for it (so many metal and plastic historical minis to choose from). The first force looks ace.

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  2. Always good to see long-term plans rejuvenated, even if your scope is limited by circumstance atm.
    Tony Bath's book inspired me to realise that campaigns were the only way forward in my own wargaming (a view I still hold) and I've never contemplayed playing games with "points", something that is alien and incomprehensible to me.

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  3. Cheers Mr Sprinks! 20mm / 1/72nd (the scale of Kings) does provide a vast scope for this project.

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  4. Thanks Joe. Yes it's very satisfying to get an old project a step forward!

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  5. Superb - love the Hyborian setting.
    All of the old articles have recently been put up here by the way:
    https://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/

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    1. Cheers Duc
      Indeed Phil Dutre is doing a great service to anyone who has not read these wonderful articles

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    2. 'I loss my keys' ...I geddit now :))

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  6. Hopefully you can get another army together and start a campaign. I wish I knew of the Hyborian wargame when I was a child. Your army reminds me of my Atlantic Greek and Trojan armies from my childhood. I played a narrative campaign, using my own primative rules.

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    1. Thanks John. Do you still have your old rules?

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  7. Good to see your lockdown challenge came to fruition. Good luck with your next army and progressing with the campaign.

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    1. Thanks Peter. It's good to get something done even if it's just a small thing!

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  8. A good idea and an excellent start! Zamora would make a good starting match, ( no heraldry...)

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    1. Cheers Ross. I've been looking at the figures I have available and have a few ideas!

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  9. Sounds like a great idea. Even if the project does not make it to fruition, it will provide many opportunities for thought, research, and planning during our present self-isolating situation.

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    1. You have hit the nail on the head Jonathan - I've been rooting around in the Toybox looking for "Ancients" and found all sorts of stuff (not Ancients!) I'd forgotten about!

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  10. I want to hear more of these 20mm biblical figures. An enemy for Corintha would be great to see and the game too.

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    1. A great challenge to set yourself btw.

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    2. Thanks Tradgardmastare - the Irregular Minis 20mm "Biblical" range is quite small, Egyptians, Assyrians, Myceneans and Sea Peoples pretty much. I rather liked the Myceneans as they reminded me of the Britains Herald Trojan War figures - I haven't bought any of the others. They fit quite well in size with plastic 20mm / 1/72nd scale figures. I do intend to try and finish a few little painting projects so that hopefully some games can be played once normality returns...

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  11. The figures look great. Like you, I have not really had gaming benefit from needing to spend more time attempting to 'work from home' - indeed for pretty much the same reasons. I love the hyboria background and have two opposing armies in 15mm. Basically classical Greeks and Assryians, but painted in uniform colours. They come out periodically, bit I play Tony Bath's Chessboard War quite frequently. One of my ongoing aspirations to is build a specific collection for this game.

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    1. Thanks Jon. 15mm Ancients is very well catered for so I can imagine some great Hyborian games being played

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  12. I hope you find a suitable enemy force for your Ancients Hyborian campaign and show us what else you've found in your toybox.

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    1. Hi Mark! I have found some more ancients so will be starting to paint them as opposition.
      Spoiler: In the next post I plan to show another project I've been messing about with!

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  13. Hi Maudlin! A very good project, I hope to be able to start one like that myself. I'm not a big fan of Howard's novels, but this guy could imagine fascinating worlds that are worth representing with figures.

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    1. Cheers Philotep! Howard's work was of its time and certainly not politically correct but as you say he had a great imagination

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  14. A nice idea and some beautiful figures here!

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  15. That's a wonderful army and a great project. Stay safe! Cheers, Karl

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