The Beginnings of Barbarism

DH-228 Viking swinging Two-handed Sword.

I uncovered this fellow in a box I had hidden.  Ah! treasure of the forgotten times! (the 1980's)

While not the first figure I painted, he's arguably the longest surviving figure in my collection. I had originally painted him up for D&D to portray 'Starek the Destroyer' the viking-esque fighter I played back in the early 80's. I have pretty fond memories of ol' Starek.  Fought a whole tribe of Minotaurs and won, survived the Village of Homlett and was done-in in swamp by a troll or something...

Y'see kids (wheeeze), back the days, we used historical miniatures to act as our player characters and fight the monsters. Heck, most of the orcs we used were Romans with green painted faces. Not that you really needed them, big squares and hex sheets were yet to infest the realm of role playing. But they did look cool on the kitchen table with all our see-through state of the art gem dice.

The figure is a classic from Ral Partha (which I'm sure a discerning few of you knew already) and is one of the (IMHO) signature Tom Meier sculpts of period. Look at the movement implied by his pose and his tunic. Glorious.  Oh, I know, somewhere one of you is saying 'but, but, but, excuse me, Early Medieval Scandinavians did not wear horns on their helmet, nor is there any suggestion that Norse warriors employed a two handed grip on a sword that is clearly 12C at best...'

And y'know, I just want to give you a hug and tell you you're gonna be OK.
Because this is singularly the  

Finest Viking Miniature Ever Made

Ever.

The cool bit is you can still get this guy