When I look at these, I feel like I owe Tom Meier an apology. Where is all that gorgeous facial detail now buried under a layer of poorly applied acrylic paints? Well, they are not quite done. Leonardo Da Vinci said art is not finished but abandoned. Though not art, it applies here. There is a point where you give up, where you have chased things far enough.

I have always wondered about the motivation for creating this line. It was certainly poorly represented at the time. Even now, the 15th century mercenaries and the wars they fought remain like some remote thing seldom mentioned. When I bought my first packs, I purchased arquebusiers thinking that anyone carrying a gun would hold a significant place in battle. Oops.

Meier had urged Ral Partha refocus on fantasy figures. The market for fantasy was considerable compared to the rather limited number of people who might even have heard of landsknects let alone were eager to buy a package of them. The Condottieri Range was never easy to find in the dark ages when there was no Internet. The Ral Partha booth at Historicon had an enormous box of them for $1 a piece at the time.

Sadly, the range was never expanded though it certainly cried out for a greater variety. Grenadiers in marching order might be indistinguishable as individuals but landsknects were much more varied.

Now, I look at the large group of figures and see it as a sign of misspent youth. Lots of figures but not enough. Lots of painting but hardly adequate. In fact, the figures remain unused while a set of Hinchliffe English Civil War figures purchased at roughly the same time have seen routine use with additions from Old Glory and Wargames Foundry. In some ways, the incredible detail and the limited variety has kept me away. Now, I am looking again and can hopefully offer something to showcase Meier’s brilliant achievement.

I think I understand why people play golf when they retire, not that it seems anymore meaningful to me but I like to think I understand, the way I think I understand why the blue head wrasse produces a super male. It is not relevant to my life but nice to know why people make these choices.

I reach retirement age shortly and, after years of avoiding staff reductions and hanging on through half a dozen, I will finally be set out to graze. Not that I can look back on a lifetime of work with considerable satisfaction.

My best moments are odd ones and few related to work. I recall an intense period of on-call overtime working through a charity event featuring Nell Carter. I went down to the abandoned service trays of food at 5 in the morning and ate what I pleased. It was not good but satisfying. Not much else stands out in my mind except a long history of working for people who wanted to make programmers superfluous. Moving IT centers to India seemed to be the next best thing.

But of course this is neither here nor there. People get what they expect to get. At one company, a programmer found a discarded printout showing all raises and ratings everyone was to receive at the end of the year. Somehow, we always lived up to their limited expectations.

Ok, so I will retire but I am not going to play golf.