Hyboria and Lion Rampant.

More Bishop of Durham goodness for Lion Rampant. These chaps are the foot knights. I bought a large batch of unpainted plastic from E Bay. They were glued up and ready based. It seemed a shame to get rid of the bases, especially as they were ready gritted. 

Its probably a coincidence but Black and amber/yellow are the traditional colours of my local football team who have always competed in the Northern League, which was formed by the Bishop of Durham in an effort to divert the young men of County Durham away from fighting and the demon drink. It seemed a good idea although given some of the encounters over the years it didn't work out too well. If anyone pops into the town of Bishop Auckland there is now a great history of the Northern League exhibition at the lovely town hall. If you like 'real' football then I recommend a visit. Oh and there's a rather good museum exhibiting Dali's picture of Christ on the cross. 

[I threw that in just to counter any arguments that I'm a philistine]

County Durham after the Norman Conquest wasn't ruled by the crown, but 'given' to the Prince Bishop of Durham who raised taxes, made the law and also raised and led troops to counter the threat of rebellion and the dastardly Scots, and the Bishop was allowed to hunt deer, usually a royal prerogative.

After the genocidal Rising of the North, William the Conqueror and Bishop Odo had no more trouble from the region having killed virtually everyone. Allegedly on his deathbed, William confessed he had been 'too hard' on the North. A bit of an understatement. 

I think the later Bishop had a better idea by forming a football league. 

Still different times, so one shouldn't judge the over reaction too much and start a campaign for reparations from France, although it would get that dwarf Macron in a bit of a spin.. 

My foot sergeants for the same contingent, I like to give them a mix of spears and weapons, so they can form a shieldwall.

I've always been fascinated by the Hyboria campaign hosted by the late, great Tony Bath. I still enjoy re-reading the old articles he wrote regarding the campaign, and Im currently re-reading Royal Armies of The Hyborean Age by Lin Carter and Scott Bizar which is also interesting, well it is for me.

This book and wargames rules is very American so contains army lists and other ephemera but is a good source of information regarding each nation of Hyboria, providing their racial type and colours.

Its perfect for anyone who wanted to create a series of contingents to fight Lion Rampant or even Dragon Rampant, given the magic aspect to the books.

 Tony Bath when writing a review of the book was pretty enthusiastic except for Lin Carter's introduction of woolly mammoths into the lists. On that point, he was very indignant insisting that they were only in one of the Conan story's. Given Tony Bath's love of elephant troops I can only assume he didn't have access to woolly mammoth models and couldnt face'making' some from banana oil and molten plastic. Nowadays Im certain they will be readily available. Wargamers eh? 

Anyway, to any readers out there, have a good Christmas and hopefully Santa will bring more stuff to add to that mountain.