Knights and Vikings - Back from the middle ages into the dark ages...

After an exciting and entertaining weekend I returned to work and workbench on monday. But besides worries monday ended with a nice session of volleyball. Finally after the long summer holiday the school gym where we play is available again.

But afterwards I turned my eye to the dark ages and started to build up some plastic vikings from Gripping Beast's excellent viking hirdmen box.They shall become the base for a SAGA warband and present the hearthguard and maybe some warriors. To make them stand out a bit I planned to make cloake for the hearthguard. Just a humble sculpting job but I'm rather satisfied.

Last week some of you asked me to present some pictures of the LARP event we visited last weekend. Actually I don't want to wander too much from wargaming but here are some impressions of the things I do besides painting miniatures:

A shot of my lovely wife and me last weekend.

Our daughter with dress, gugel and coat.

Please note that it's LARP what we do. So it's not seriuous reenactment.

That means for example that our coats of arms are rather fantastic than historically correct in any regard.

This time it was a really small convention with familiar atmosphere. We met the people we have used to play with for years and celebrated a bit. Two nice evenings with friends, wine, mead, good food and a interesting story about a knight who was replaced by a doppelgänger. Although LARP stepped to the background among my hobbies I love it to visit this special event with my dear wife each year. Meanwhile there some couples who bring their kids along so we took Viktoria with us this year and she had a lot of fun with her friend Birk.

But sometimes we are obliged to pitch a tent somewhere. In this case at a tournament we helt this spring:

Our camp... Fortunately a knightly brother of mine granted me shelter in his tent...

Although they have become rare meanwhile I had some wilder days in LARP. Some years before I visited rather action oriented events more or less regularly. By now I leave this to the younger players mostly and concentrate on events which I could share with my wife and daughter but sometime the old habits come up and we hit the road to save the world:

"Leave all that can be spared behind. We travel light. Let's hunt some Orc."

Well then... I hope you enjoyed this little trip. Besides wargaming and ice hockey LARP has been my favourite hobby for years. Actually it was the "summer hobby" while wargaming was the "winter hobby" which started to turn with our daughter's birth. Since then wargaming is the all-year hobby and LARP kind of special thing for special occasions.

Anyway for the next weeks wargaming will be in the focus again. Painting the vikings, preparing Crisis and waiting for Pegasus bridge will keep me rather busy. Perfect for autumnal evenings with tea and lead. And by the way finally the German ice hockey leage started the new season last week and the NHL will follow in october. I love the winter half year!