Friday 23 December 2022

Merry Christmas

Well, we have finally got here after all the trials and tribulations of 2022. It would be nice to think that 2023 won't be as bad, although you never can tell, but here's hoping.




If you have gaming-related gifts on your wishlist, let's hope that your wishes will be realised.

Monday 12 December 2022

A review of what I have achieved in 2022

"Why are you waving that sword, Hans?" "I'm keeping the unpainted stuff away so we can pretend it doesn't exist!"

At the end of December last year, I wrote a post about my plans for the coming 12 months. As I have pretty much stopped painting for the rest of 2022, it thought that I'd see what I actually managed to knock off my To Do list. I've crossed out the things I finished.

15mm WW2 Soviets for Chain of Command (these need to be a priority in January).
28mm Soviet Women, also for Chain of Command (from the Bad Squiddo Kickstarter)
28mm Austrians for Napoleonic Sharp Practice 
28mm Bloody Miniatures 17th century troopers28mm 
17th century Bicorne Miniatures Pikemen and Musketeers for Pikeman's Lament and maybe Donnybrook too (these will augment my existing Bloody Miniatures figures)
28mm Perry plastic Longbows and Bills for Never Mind The Billhooks, Lion Rampant etc
28mm Pulp figures for all sorts of things (I have too many of these in my leadpile)
28mm Spanish for Sharp Practice (I haven't bought anything for this yet)
Silver Bayonet
Stargrave
Building up my scenic collection in 15mm and 28mm
1/285 scale 8th Army and DAK for O Group
A couple of 15mm Sci Fi armies for Alien Squad Leader
15mm 18th century heavy cavalry for my imaginations, also some grenadiers and additional Freikorps stuff
28mm Late Roman skirmishing and armoured cavalry, and cataphracts too.
15mm Romano-British "Arthurian" army for Sword and Spear Fantasy

Regarding the rest, well what can I say?

Well, the 18th century cavalry turned into a much bigger project that resulted in a pretty large SYW 15mm army for Honours of War, so I am treating that as another win, a major one, in fact.

The Pulp figures plan turned into a Black Ops project, so I am going to claim that as a win too. I've still got more pulp guys to paint though.

The 28mm Spanish haven't even been undercoated yet, but I did buy them, so that is a start. Let's call that 25% complete!

There were other things that jumped onto the paint table ahead of the planned stuff. 

I did two British and Indian platoons in 15mm for the early Far Eastern conflict in WW2.

I added more foot men-at-arms, crossbowmen and handgunners to my 28mm Condottiere collection (these got painted in tandem with the Bills, Halberds and Bows).

I had a small fantasy diversion into Skellies, Mummies, Vampires, Wizards and Apprentices, hence the picture at the top of this post.

I finished off a Zanzibari Arab project that had been languishing in a box since 2018.

Looking at what didn't get done, I doubt that I'll do any more Alien Squad Leader armies, so that will fall off the list completely which leaves the Napoleonic Spanish, the 28mm Soviet Women, the 28mm 17th century Pikemen and Musketeers, the Stargrave and Silver Bayonet minis (neither of which have even been thought about yet), the 1/285 scale 8th Army and DAK for O Group (I did get as far as buying suitable bases for this) and the two Late Roman/Romano-British entries.

All of the above will have to get added on to my 2023 plan.

I'll have a bit of a think about what I want to achieve in 2023 and do a post about that before the end of the year, but I am pretty sure that it will include some extra 15mm WW2 odds and ends, a lot of Wild West stuff and a fair amount of Sci Fi, plus various other stuff from the metal, plastic and resin mountain range. I've also got two more sets of Bloody Miniatures figures prepped for painting in January. Oh, yes, I also want to do a US WW2 infantry project for Crossfire. I bought some 15mm PSC Americans years ago which will be perfect for this.

Overall, though, I think that I did pretty well in 2022.