Little Bites

In an effort to keep posting despite being addicted to long, rambling blog posts, I'm trying to add a few brief updates about various goings on that I might omit altogether or wait until I get a big postful of content to bury it in. So, rather than a big blog meal, here are a few little bites, nibbles, if you will:

After many days...

As it says in Ecclesiastes 11:1, "Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days." Some time last year (August maybe) I cast my bread upon the waters and ordered some of the Tékumel Club's figures. I had just finished M.A.R. Barker's The Man of Gold and was eager to get a few Tékumel figures to paint.

Some of the figures I ordered were still in progress and imminently to be released; others were available right then. I opted to wait until everything was ready before having any of it sent, but production problems meant that the imminent release was less imminent than was thought. The figures needed to be re-sculpted and re-cast. Tékumel Club is a small, one-man operation, so things can take time. Production for the ones in progress appears to be still ongoing, but Howard Fielding (Mr. Tékumel Club himself) sent me the others separately. Quite by surprise, I found them on my doorstep one day, like little foundlings.

The figures that came were two war bands of the Aridáni Legion of Lady Mríssa. (Pix below are from the Tékumel Project blog.)

The Lady Mríssa herself

They're very nice figures. Tall-ish 28s, but on the slender side—though to be fair, these are winsome women warriors and not likely to be hulking.

Trooper standing with hand open for spear

The detail is very well executed and I'm looking forward to get started on them this weekend.

Officer with Sword

I also found a good guide to painting them online, although it differs a bit from the official painting guide published by M.A.R. Barker in the 80s. I'll go with this because it's visual.

What to do with them? I don't see myself painting armies of Tékumel. I do see, maybe, another Lion Rampant variant...

First Blossoms

I ordered some Front Rank Wars of the Roses foot men at arms last year without really knowing what to do with them. (I do that often, which is why I have so much unpainted lead and orphaned projects.)

I bought them before Lion Rampant was released, so now I'm working towards painting them for that. I'll probably do a retinue for The Earl of Northumberland (Percy), a Lancastrian.

Anyway, I completed the first Lion Rampant unit of six foot men at arms this week!

They turned out to my liking, except for the eyes. I swore I wouldn't paint eyes for any figure smaller then 40mm, but I can't help myself. Even wee figures look like moles if you don't do something for the eyes.

Who turned out the lights?

But my feeble attempt to do eyes always results in the Marty Feldman effect.

I still only have foot men at arms on hand. I have to order more figures to get the archers, billmen, and what-not to complete the retinue. In the meantime, I have plenty of Old Glory medievals primed and ready to roll to complete a retinue for Lion Rampant. I'm probably going to make them Flemish in honor of the brave men of Courtrai.

Somebody Stop Me

I was innocently blundering through the aisles of my local Safeway store last week (that's typically how I shop) when I fell upon a box of frozen microwaveable White Castle cheeseburgers. Having lived in Chicago, I knew White Castle from of old. Gourmet, they are not. However, they are an addictive taste sensation.

I picked up a box of 16. They come like Twinkies in a two-pack. Zapped for 1 minute in the microwave, they come out hot and melty with a soft wee bun. At a White Castle, you buy 'em by the bag and you can easily down half a dozen in one sitting. I ate them four at a time and the box was empty in two days.

I just picked up another box today and ate six of my 16 while writing this post. (The cats were locked out of the room lest they try to get at them.) I had hoped so much for starting better eating habits, but I hadn't counted on this...