Arthurian Adventures!

Having watched the rather excellent film 'Excalibur' for the hundredth time the other week I was intrigued to do some reading about what separates myth and reality in the Arthurian story. To this end I was thrilled to find that author Daniel Mersey (creator of my favourite Wargaming rules 'Lion Rampant') had written a book on the subject. After ordering "Arthur: King of the Britons" from Amazon I pretty much bedded down on my week off from work and got stuck into it.

I'd also ordered John Morris' work "The Age of Arthur" which is a slightly heavier academic book, but one that had been highly recommended. The Dan Mersey book in my opinion is an ideal place to start as it draws some excellent distinctions between the Arthurian story's development at the hands of those who were happy to place mythology foremost, and what can feasibly be considered a closer reality. All of this is done without sneering or putting down those such as the Medieval storytellers (and those since) who have all contributed to a fascinating icon.

Naturally for me (as my interest in history and wargaming always seem to inspire one another) my next step was to order some very lovely Arthurian figures from Footsore Miniatures https://footsoreminiatures.co.uk/ . My friend Lorenzo had pointed me in their direction and from the moment I saw them on the website I knew these were ideal for the purpose. The character models are especially good and I just had to get painting the Mordred figure and his bannerman. The miniatures don't come with hand weapons but I decided on a battle axe for him that was left over from some Gripping Beast models. I imagined him stalking the battlefield in his intimidating and elaborate closed helm looking to defeat Arthur in close combat.