A Recent Painting and GOT Thoughts

 I finished putting paint on a Hordes Trollkin yesterday. I've got a few of them and look forward to fielding an warband of them in KOW Vanguard one of these days. This guy is just a wonderfully characterful model that had to be included. It was one of those minis that was primed and got one or two colors then just sat for a few months. This week I had the urge to get him finished. 

Very militaristic and fancy. It's a big model, on a 40mm base. I'm happy to have another member of the Trollkin warband wrapped up. I've taken a picture of him with his new brothers in arms. They were finished in a much different manner, making them quite dark and grim compared to Gunna.

An imposing lot for sure! I scored a sweet deal on another group of models which will give me enough Trolls to fill out the collection and then some. Mode on that later.

In other news, my wife and I finally got around to watching Game of Thrones in the last couple of months. We finished it last evening. That's been a major contributor to my lack of painting production. My thoughts on GOT

1) Excellent show and I'm glad we spent the time on it.

2) I'm so happy we could binge-watch it instead of drawing it out over eight years. There is a lot to be said for wrapping one's head around the season-to-season continuity when there's no real-world gap between the end of one and the start of another.

3) We didn't hate the last season(s). I was quite aware of the popular opinion of the series ending. We though it was very much on-point with the rest of the show from a theme and tone standpoint. 

Spoliers ahead if you haven't watched it but might....

There are precious few situations in the show where "good guys" win. Our "good guy" characters are all killers with their priorities all over the place. Brandon is the only character that comes to mind who ends the show with a clean slate in my opinion. Sansa is too arrogant, Jon and Grey Worm are too honor-bound to make the correct decision. I didn't hate Jamie and Cersei's death. They got what they needed. Jamie got to die at her side and she was crushed to death being too stubborn and arrogant to leave. Daenerys was so wrapped up in her mental version of what's "right" that she was too blind to appreciate the bigger picture. Her heel turn landed OK on us. It brought her "my way or the highway" personality into laser focus Maybe overly dramatic for some but the series had to end eventually and her logical outcomes were 1) death or 2) dictatorship.

"Heroic" characters that are obvious favorites are Arya for starters. A weird fate to be sure, but she's a cold-hearted killer and to remain in Westeros would mean that she'd likely become a full-time assassin. Tyrion got to end the series doing something he genuinely enjoyed. 

The only deaths I really didn't care for was Varys the spymaster. It felt like he was the only one who really had an interest in the people of the realm. Perhaps selfish motivations much of the time, but I think we can all agree his actions were consistent in the interest of "the realm" over the course of the show. Daeny had already started tipping heavily at that point so it kept with the GOT-yness. Missandei's death was also quick and brutal, but unexpected and on-point with the GOT product. Every bit as shocking as Ned and the Red Wedding. 

I could go on for ages... be well!