When I pre-ordered my copy of Midgard Heroic Battles, my plan was to convert my Dux Britanniarum Arthurian and Scotti warbands into Midgard armies. The Scotti were pretty straightforward; I just didn't have enough infantry to make the five heavy infantry units I needed. I still had a few Wargames Atlantic Irish warriors tucked away and I bought a couple of extra sprues from Wargames Imporium and set about painting the required figures. With the Arthurians, I needed to perform a few head swaps, weapon swaps and shield swaps on a few figures, but I reached the point where I could only make thirteen of the sixteen figures needed for two units of Combrogi, the term I use for those socially superior to the Pagenses, who would be expected to turn up at the muster with sword, spear, large shield and a helmet of some kind. Wargames Imporium again supplied a sprue, this time Victrix Late Roman infantry and I set about building those final three figures. The last of the three was given a cloak, even though I'd intended to do the absolute minimum to get them equipped for the shield wall. Little did I know that that cloak would, quite literally, be my downfall! I was blocking out colour on the trousers, tunic and that cloak on all three figures (I normally paint individually), leaving the cloak until last. Vallejo Terracotta was the chosen colour for the cloak and when I tried to put a drop onto the palette, it came out far too runny to be useful. As I had other jobs to do, I tipped the Vallejo bottle upside down to get the pigment settling in the dropper, intending to return in ten minutes or so and try again. Before I could get back to complete the job, I stupidly managed to slip off the bottom step of our staircase and got whisked off to A&E in an ambulance! Knee surgery followed a week later and several months of rehabilitation lie ahead. My unfinished warrior was tidied away until, eighteen days later, we managed to set up an ad hoc painting station on my knee and cloak painting was able to resume!
My son, Dan, who is by trade a sports therapist, told me that if I was one of the players in the football team he looks after, he'd be telling me that my season was over! It took me quite a long time to get it into my head that this ridiculous accident was going to take some considerable time to recover from, but once it sank in, I started to set myself little short term goals and this plastic warrior with his terracotta cloak embedded himself firmly into my brain almost to the point of obsession. You don't name non-heroic figures in Midgard, but this member of the Combrogi will always be known as Ailetglin, which, very crudely, translates from Brythonic as something like "Broken Knee" and, when the dice roll and the casualties need to be removed, I suspect that he will be the last to be hoisted from his movement tray and placed amongst the pile of battlefield victims.
And the completed warrior in the terracotta cloak...
