A very strange and unsettling graveyard

This is a project I started about 18 months ago, although I'd bought the various bits and pieces months before I started work on it. I finally completed it last week. Here is the overall piece, looking down from above;

 The model is around 40cm by 30cm, based on a sheet of MDF. The perimeter is made of Renedra railings and gate pieces and the pieces inside are all from Fenris Games with a couple of extra gravestones from Bad Squiddo. Below are some closer views of the graveyard, with Jon Hodgson backgrounds.

Now, this is clearly not your common or garden graveyard and who knows what kind of people, if people they are, might lie under the ground in such a place? Those gravestones seem to be slowly sinking into the ground and some of them a clearly very old indeed.

The various obelisks and columns hint at some very unusual religious practices and one really has to ask "Why is the water in the pool bubbling?". Of course, another relevant question might be "Who lies here and why are all the interments carried out at night under the baleful light of a gibbous moon?".

I'm really happy with how this piece has turned out. I think it is the perfect place to carry out some investigations into the practices of the locals and examine the sacred books kept under lock and key in the crypt of the local church.

17th century Pike and Shot (scroll down, lots to see)

Ages ago, fror Christmas 2022, I was given several packs of pikemen, musketeers and command groups from Bicorne Miniatures to augment my Bloody Miniatures figures and turn them into complete units. I finished off the musketeers back then but never finished the pikemen and leaders off. Basically, I got bored with painting 17th century stuff and set them aside. Finally I've got round to completing them. So, here are three blocks of pikemen and command figures. First, in green coats;

Next, in burgundy coats;

And finally in blue coats;

The flags are just simple generic ones, based upon banners used by anti-Imperialist troops in the Thirty Years' War. I cobbled them together on a spreadsheet and printed them off. I was happy with the green and yellow one, but the other two needed over-painting by hand to make them look different to one another. They aren't great, but they'll do for now. 

I had already painted musketeers in green and blue, but didn't have enough musketeers to complete the burgundy-coated unit, so I bought couple of extra packs from Bloody Miniatures (who now have a few nice unit builder packs), so here they are;

As you can see, I intend each of the three battalia to have a central block of pikes and officers etc on a 4 x 3 hole movement tray and two sleeves of six musketeers on a 3 x 2 tray.

I've taken pictures of each of these units, but sadly, they are two wide for my Jon Hodgson A4 backdrops book. Still, you get the general idea how they will look on the table.

I'm pretty happy with how these have turned out and I'm planning to use them for Never Mind The Matchlocks, which is a set of rules we have recently started playing at the club.

I have a few spare command types which is making me think about doing another pike and shot unit, but for the moment, I am switching my attention to mounted troops.

Anyway, here are the spare officers. Clearly, another set of bluecoats is in my future plans.

From 2024 into 2025

Well, this should have been a review of my achievements in 2024 and a list of my plans for 2025. However, as regular readers will know, I suffered as huge flare-up of arthritis in both hands last year, which pretty much threw all of my plans way off course. When I was able to paint again, I concentrated on some quick wins by painting stuff that I wanted to paint and not things that were long-term projects. So, really, my 2025 plans are pretty much based around a few of the things I was supposed to do in 2024 plus a couple of new ideas. I'm not going to bother listing anything. Just getting various stuff done will be a win as far as I'm concerned.

I will be trying to focus on Midgard, though. This is because I already have two or three armies that might easily be repurposed for Midgard without much effort. These are Principate Roman auxiliaries, a force that is almost complete but just needs some archers, a Dominate period Roman army that really just needs a couple of mounted leaders and maybe some skirmishing light cavalry and, thirdly, a fantasy Norse army based around my Bad Squiddo shieldmaidens and some jötnar and other mythical beings. 

I do have a fourth fantasy Midgard project, which will be a Warhammer Old World Empire army with human foot and horse and some ogres, all based around the Wargames Atlantic conquistador sets of foot and mounted troops plus the Landsknecht ogres. I think I'll need to find a suitable Battle Wizard from somewhere, too. 

I do have one small urgent addition to my 18th century Syldavian and Bordurian imagi-nations, too. I won't say what it is, because it will be required for Winter Wonderlard V at the beginning of February.

So, that is pretty much all I have to say about future plans.