Vikings...Sheriff of Nottingham / King Arthur ...classical fantasy...sword & sorcery..whatever.

The show Vikings lost its lustre for me a few seasons ago. 

After Ragnar was killed off, the show runners and script writers managed to keep me engaged for a good season or two, somewhat surprisingly, because Travis Kimmel had such gravitas and I along with my wife expected the show to bomb. 

For a season or four I still binged. I really loved that show, the eye candy delicious, the violence astonishing and shocking, without being gratuitous. Even the spiritual/mystical/mythological aspects were explored interestingly. The bit players were great as well. 

I even hipped my old man on to it with a boxed set I bought him for Christmas. He still loves it.

For me, well, my enthusiasm started to wane. I could see the quality drop off...things started to seem bit rushed or disjointed...scenes seemed tacked together in amateurish fashion. The sets and costumes started to give off that el-cheapo, Doctor-Who-in-the-70s appearance. Even worse, the dialogue became less nuanced and more melodramatic. It got to the point where I tried to watch a particular episode in which two characters sort of bungee/hang-glided across the steppes of Russia...or something. That's when I tapped out.

I'm old enough to remember what happened to the Fonz.

Nevertheless, in the heyday of Ragnar & Lagertha I got a bit jazzed at the prospect of gaming vikings vs. the world. I started looking around.

I acquired a large ziplock bag of mixed figures that I never really had time to look at. The figures looked like vikings/middle ages kind of figures. They were cheap, cheerful and best of all 1/72. My goldilocks zone. I think I paid about 15 bucks on facebook marketplace.

When I received them...yeah I'll admit it, I lost enthusiasm straight away. I knew nothing about the figures  or how to paint them. There weren't any guides, and there wasn't even a box. Just a ziplock kitchen bag. mix of grey and tan arms, legs, sword, shields, spears all knotted together. When I looked closely, even though the figures were great...I could tell straight away, that they were from different places, maybe even different eras. It was all a bit too difficult, plus I had heaps of cool Second World War troops to paint grey, green and khaki.

I left them in a box for 5 or 6 years. It's probably the same old story for a lot of hobbyists. A sudden burst of excitement, a sense of deluded optimism followed by some kind of buyers remorse.

Lately though, my daughter has been pestering me to learn to paint soldiers, and given that we were isolated to the Territory this school holidays, I thought we'd give it a crack. She has helped with a lot of the base coats, and still occasionally totters by and picks up a brush. We've shared a really nice time dabbling and seeing the results.

Here are some of the foot soldiers from what I discovered on Lead Adventure Forum as figures from the 'Sheriff of Nottingham' set, by Airfix. Thanks to a bunch of friendly and enthusiastic people on that site, I had something to go on, enough to motivate us to have a crack and get painting. We've still got about a dozen or so foot figures to go, and another half a dozen knights on horseback.