Not a Shipwreck After All

I'm finally about ready to play. I rather liked my idea of a shipwreck followed by a prisoner rescue mission or a daring escape followed by an Anabasis but, once I realized that the game would be taking place while the Eastern Roman Empire still controlled the eastern Mediterranean including Palestine, Egypt and most of Anatolia, it got harder to come up with a storyline I could buy into even if I shifted the scene to the Black Sea. Rather than beat my head against the wall, I've decided to make it a Roman expedition across the Persian frontier for some purpose (tbd) and the Prince, might or might not tag along or make a cameo appearance.

Introducing the Persian "knights".

Along similar lines, I have struggled with my Persian knights. I had been wondering what to do with a number of medieval knights with barrel helms, big triangular shields and couched lances, not exactly typical Late Roman/Dark Age/Early Medieval stuff but the Persians had fully armoured lancers and some of them wore face masks, so I figured that this was going to be the easiest conversion to a Prince Valiant level of authenticity. I decided that removing the shield was more work than it was worth so I drilled a hole in one corner and rounded the bottom to look vaguely Eastern-ish, wrapped a scarf around the helmet, added a plume and then painted the front of the helm as a bronze facemask. 

Well, they are done, just not as well done as I had hoped. Partly this was a matter of needing to spend some money on new paints as several of my old dependable, no longer available,  colours finally came to the end of their  long life this summer and none of the replacements I've bought are satisfactory. But it was partly because I was a bit distracted and kept doing things like squishing the epoxy putty helmet plumes and scarves, which one can only do so often before you have to live with it or cut it all off and start again.

Much of this distraction was a side effect of why I've suddenly found hobby time in the middle of my busiest "get outside work done before the weather gets cold then snowy" season. In short, for about 3 weeks I have been suffering from what has now been diagnosed as a "Baker's Cyst" (nothing to do with flour, its named after the doctor who first diagnosed it ).   From the patient's POV this is a rather painful growth, the knee is one of the most  common sites so I went with that, which eventually bursts making the whole leg swell and hurt like...  I managed to hobble about aided by a walking stick and look after our pack of hounds but I admit that I was greatly relieved when my wife got back from her first week of dog shows since COVID and drove me into town to get a professional diagnosis. Didn't really need it by then since three of her friends read the symptoms she listed and all said that it sounded just like the Baker's Cyst they had had but it was good to get a professional opinion once the worst was over and much better than a potentially lethal blood clot.  So, I am slowly on the mend without intervention being needed......       

Now, back to the border between the East Roman and Persian Empires, patrols clash and then..........

Well, not a big force but I can add some more Huns and at least there is room for some more Persian conversions if it goes well.

Stay tuned!