2023 in review

FoG II Medieval: Rise of the Swiss

In the first half of the year I managed to play a few games of Xenos Rampant and Blucher and produced the Blucher low-relief scenery. 

Towards the close of the year I filled some hours of insomnia by playing through the 100YW English, Burgundian, Swiss, Timurid and Matthias Corvinus campaigns in Field of Glory II Medieval. I've always found computer games to be a good way of easing myself back into tabletop gaming.

Finally, I pulled my finger out to write the last four posts for this blog before year end. Occasionally I find time to read and comment on other wargaming blogs.

Dum vivimus vivamus!

Current reading focus: Late Antiquity

A happy new year to one and all! I can only hope that 2022 will see an end to the epidemic of fear. We need to live, not just be alive, and Covid is just another risk we have to manage rationally. 

As regards wargaming, my new year’s resolution was to make no resolutions. I certainly won't be formulating any grandiose plans and I hesitate even to mention current interests in case of raising expectations...but that's the point of this blog so I will.

My immediate activity is to continue reorganising my 15mm Ancient and Medieval armies in anticipation of playing To the Strongest! and in learning the rules. As ever, my wargaming interests run parallel to historical reading (when I get the time) and I am currently focusing on Late Antiquity.

The combination of 80mm frontages and a 4" grid (which I have chosen for TtS!) works so well for me that it has also set me thinking about rebasing my 25mm Renaissance armies on 80mm wide bases.

I intend to continue work on the 28mm Russian Civil War armies for The Men Who Would Be Kings as these will be easier to complete than many of my other, more colour-complex, 28mm armies.

Other than that I should move myself to finish the 6mm armies for Tilly's Very Bad Day as they are not far from completion.

28mm figures on 80mm bases from the collection of
Norm (Battlefields & Warriors blog). Great dynamism
in posing the figures and a true inspiration. More
pictures here.

I should not of course be starting  anything new but there are some significant historical gaps in my collection and it is hard to resist nice figures. One such gap is the Hundred Years War and the figures which draw me are the 28mm ranges from Claymore Castings and Antediluvian Miniatures. This would be for the Anglo-Scottish Wars (e.g. Otterburn 1388) rather than the Continental theatre.

In recent years I settled on using relatively small numbers of individually based 28mm figures for Rampant skirmish games and smaller scales for multibased mass armies. This project would be multibased 28mm figures, thus breaking what has been a very sensible policy. So, to keep things under control, I am again looking at 80mm wide units for use on a compact table. Quite a few gamers have gone down this path and I am particularly inspired by the Wars of the Roses figures (pictured above) belonging to Norm of the very content-rich Battlefields & Warriors blog. This is just the look I am after.

I have to admit that if using TtS! (which seems likely even though I haven't yet played it), the armies and the game would be little different from using my 15mm Feudal English and Scots. I guess it's all in the aesthetics.

"No rules were broken"

Osprey's Undaunted: Normandy

I can give a categorical assurance that no wargame rules were broken during the last twelve months because very few games were attempted. I didn't fancy wargaming in a mask at my local club and I only managed two games at home (apart from computer games).

Although I could have played more games at home, my heart wasn't in it. The ennui that many wargamers reported quite early during the Lockdowns finally got to me.

The games I did play at home were of the Osprey board wargame, Undaunted: Normandy, with my good friend Ian.  The game is simple but subtle. The score was one all.

My 'meta-wargaming' was also modest:

1. I accumulated quite a lot of military books, particularly from Osprey and Helion, but didn't get much time to read them. I try to buy only slim books these days. I don't have time to read or room to store any more fat books.

2. I finished collecting, cleaned/constructed and based the 28mm Russian Civil War figures for The Men Who Would Be Kings, and clarified the minimal adaptions I would be using for extending the rules into the 20th Century.

3. I developed an interest in To the Strongest! and have started to reorganise my 15mm Ancient and Medieval armies. I’ve even bought some extra (painted) figures to fill gaps, but my main activity has been arranging figures into units on sabot bases.

4. Inspired by the simplicity but effectiveness of Undaunted: Normandy I made another attempt at writing my own WW2 fastplay rules but then lost interest in them again.

Overall this has been another depressing year. At this point I should probably say something optimistic but I can't think of anything.

2020 - the year that was cancelled

Bought yesterday - the bristles are for
6mm Thirty Years War pikes.

Although I'd expected to get a lot of painting done during the Plague Year, things didn't turn out that way because of other distractions and circumstances. In the first half of the year I did make considerable progress with painting my 6mm Thirty Years War armies for Tilly's Very Bad Day and I also made some progress with my all too numerous 28mm Rampant armies which I wanted to bring to a level where I could put any of them on the table even though they would not be 'fully painted'.

This essentially meant basing, adding filler to the bases, undercoating and adding an initial wash in the dominant costume colour. They would not be pretty, but they would be identifiable and distinguishable. I will reiterate yet again that I am committed to further painting before any given army is brought out again. I should also stress that some of my Rampant armies are already painted.

Well, I did get all the relevant armies sorted, cleaned-up and based, and I applied filler to the vast majority of those requiring it. That’s as far as I got but it was some sort of achievement. Before everything went pear-shaped I also managed 4 games - one of Lion Rampant and three of Rebels & Patriots.

I wasn't initially affected by the ennui that other wargame bloggers reported but I'm beginning to feel rather demoralised since they closed the coffee shops, pubs and restaurants even though there was no evidence they were spreading infection. They provided a little relief in a year when social and hobby activity has been closed down. Endless walks are fine in spring, summer and autumn but less attractive in the bleak midwinter.

Reflection No 1: Getting in Sync

I may yet have some 'rants' to deliver, but the idea of a rant is too  aggressive for many of my thoughts, so I'm pitching this as a 'reflection'.

Like most wargamers, I'm a serial obsessionalist. I'm happiest when concentrating on one thing and totally submerging myself in it, but then I'm also easily bored and likely to flit to something else! Finding the right balance is a perpetual challenge.

This year I've planned for a limited set of areas and a close integration between what I'm painting and what I'm playing. As I'm basing-before-painting and using-while-painting I'm well placed to do this. (I'm committed to adding more paint before an army is used again so I have to slip the figures on and off painting bases, but that's no great burden.)

I typically play two games a month so the idea is to spend the preceding fortnight working on the armies I intend to use in my next game. Devotion to theme doesn't stop at modelling or swatting up on rules, but may extend to what I read or watch or listen to.This will not only 'feel right' but give me a big incentive actually to do some painting. At the moment I'm focusing on my 1798 figures and the strategy is working.

This approach is much better than the one that involves months of painting before you can play a game with the inevitable loss of interest before an army is finished. I have the semi-painted lead mountain to prove it.

It's a little unusual to write about process rather than models or games, but it's actually fundamental to the whole pursuit.

2019 Roundup

I'll keep it brief and to the point. I set out to do more painting and gaming this year. I didn't achieve as much as I hoped, but I did add substantially to my collection of armies and most of these are either fully-painted purchases from eBay or at least based and undercoated (or soon will be) and thus close to being usable according to my own heretical ethos of what is acceptable.

Most-played game of 2019

I played 20 games in 2019 - 9 Rampant games (4 The Men Who Would be Kings, 3 Rebels and Patriots, 1 Lion Rampant and 1 Dragon Rampant), 2 Dux Bellorum, 1 Hammerin' Iron, 1 Black Seas, 4 Commands and Colors and 3 other board games.

Since my six-monthly review in July I've added the following forces:

• 28mm Halfling army for Dragon Rampant.
• 28mm Nordic Bronze Age army for Dragon/Lion Rampant.
• 28mm Aegean Bronze Age army for Dragon/Lion Rampant.

These have been organised, cleaned up, assembled and based. Other new armies, in various stages of completion, include:

• 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion figures for Rebels and Patriots. These have been accumulating gradually.  I recently received the last batch so these will be cleaned up, assembled and based early in the new year.
• 28mm Buccaneer and Spanish figures for The Pikeman’s Lament. I need some reinforcements for the Spanish and some supernumeries but the collecting phase is in sight of completion.
• 6mm Thirty Years War armies for Tilly’s Very Bad Day. These are based and are currently being painted.
• 1/700 Black Seas (Napoleonic naval) starter set. These are still in the box and very much on the back-burner.
• Commands and Colors Medieval. Stickered and used.

One thing that's helped me stay productive is keeping a very brief diary of what I do. At the end of each month I tot up the days when I did at least something. This gives me a sense of achievement and highlights any lapses without feeling oppressive.

Although it’s not been an outstanding year for gaming and painting I made over 60 posts to this blog, partly as a result of illness and post-op indisposition. I'm now much recovered.

Rant No 1: "Eye Candy"

Eye Candy on a B-17

It's time to vent some thoughts about some more general aspects of wargaming...

In the context  of wargame rule reviews reference to "Eye Candy" is most likely to be pejorative. Eye Candy is the seductive luxury of big-business wargaming represented by Games Workshop and Warlord Games as opposed to the honest typescript of those old WRG rules...

The deployment of Eye Candy, so the usage implies, is at best irrelevant and at worst a deceptive indulgence, rendering a ruleset nothing but a painted hussy of a ruleset and masking essential worthlessness.

But hold on. Before we endorse that streak of Cromwellian puritanism, aren't  the toys we play with Eye Candy too?

You don't need them. You can use counters. But they are part of the appeal, even the main basis of the appeal. And seeing Eye Candy in a rule set is part of the pleasure of wargaming...and inspiring!

Please discuss.

2019 - 6 monthly review

A recent 'cut-down' game of Hammerin' Iron kindly
organised by my friend Ian using his ships. Photo
shows my very bad handling of the CSS Virginia. Ouch.

Of the games I wanted to play this year, I have played:

• The Men Who Would Be Kings.
• Lion Rampant.
• Dux Bellorum.
• Hammerin' Iron.

I have not played:

• Dragon Rampant
• L'Art de la Guerre.

As regards planned projects:

• Worked on the 28mm Border Reivers for The Pikeman's Lament.
• Continued collecting 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion companies for Rebels and Patriots.
• Got some 28mm AWI Continentals to partner the British for Rebels and Patriots.
• Made some progress with reorganising, rebasing and supplementing my old 15mm Ancient and Mediaeval armies for L'Art de La Guerre.

Most of my collectong/modelling/painting time has, however, been focused on unexpected and unscheduled (!) activity:

• Fantasy armies for Dragon Rampant.
• Buccaneers and Spanish for The Pikeman's Lament.

It's in the nature of a wargamer's life to flit from one thing to another. I'll just have to sell off more books to make room for even more figure-filled RUBs.

My priorities for the rest of the year are:

• To play more Rampant games of all types.
• To play some more games of Hammerin' Iron.
• To base and at least undercoat all Dragon Rampant warbands so they can be tabled.

I haven't spent a great deal of time on the hobby, but I have attended most club game nights and chipped away at a whole load of projects.

I keep a very basic diary of jobs done. It shifts the focus from contemplating an unscaleable lead mountain to enjoying little steps actually taken, and it's a great source of satisfaction and encouragement.

Organising playing aids

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I’m pleased to publish a guest article by Simon Jones, a reader of this blog who has a very systematic scheme for organising playing aids.

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This is the kind of thing I make up for games we play regularly. I just grab the box and go - they are all labelled.

I complete unit info in Excel and can amend and add info to make new unit sheets easily. I laminate these, and QRFs etc. I can then reuse them with water soluble pens.

The bag contains dice, tokens etc. The box has tape measures (cheap in B&Q, but any other brand will do), other gaming bits and pens.

If I can every now and then I find a cheap extra copy of the rules. It helps when people sit in on games.

You can find extra bits like unit cards on the Internet. I laminate and make up this kind of stuff as well. I have started adding movement bases to boxes as well now.

For Poseidon's Warriors I even have the ships included in my rules box.

So I have boxes for:

• Congo
• 7TV first (DVD size box) and second editions
• TMWWBK (Rebels & Patriots will probably share this box)
• The Pikeman’s Lament
• Dragon and Lion Rampant (although I do not play LR)
• One Hour Wargames and The Lamps are Going Out early WW1 Rules
• Poseidon's Warriors
• Just started a box for One Hour Skirmish Games and What a Tanker

You can obviously reuse boxes etc when no longer needed. To be honest the cost is not great. I know I have everything to play easily to hand and portable.

2019 Interests

GAMES
I didn't actually get to play many games last year, so this year I need to be more proactive. Games I'm keen to play are:

• The Men Who Would Be Kings using my Pathans and Egyptians.
• Lion Rampant using my Late Medievals. 
  
• Dragon Rampant.
• Dux Bellorum using my 25mm Vikings and Anglo-Danes. 
  
• Hammerin' Iron.
• L'Art de la Guerre.

PROJECTS
I've learnt not to over-face myself with too long a to-do list, so while I have a lot of unfinished and potential projects, I'm only going to list (1) major projects which are (2) currently underway and (3) which I seriously intend to progress during the year:

 Timeline Miniatures Border Reivers from Hoka
Hey Wargaming (not my painting!).

• 28mm Border Reivers for The Pikeman's Lament. This is my main painting project for 2019. As soon as they have a basic coat of paint I intend to start using them and will then finish painting them over time.

• 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion for Rebels and Patriots. I'll continue gradually to collect these. If I complete my Border Reiver project, acquisition might speed up.

• 28mm American War of Indepenence for Rebels and Patriots. I recently bought an ideal collection of well-painted Perry plastic British and am now looking out for a matching force of Continentals. This project will either be realised suddenly or not at all.

• 15mm armies for L'Art de La Guerre. I'm currently reorganising, rebasing and supplementing some of my old 15mm Ancient and Mediaeval armies in order to create paired opponents for ADLG. My areas of interest are the Late Roman period, the Dark Ages and Europe 1250-1300. Rebasing figures and buying painted ones doesn't involve too much time or effort.

So there you have it: a modest range of rules systems (mostly closely related) and a firm committment to working on only one major painting project.

2018 Scoreboard

In a year l did little, I at least did something, and while the middle of the year was a near total wargaming blank, the year opened and closed on a note of wargaming interest, activity and optimism. There were a lot of little achievements (noted on my Workbench page) but here I'll just revisit the headline interests I outlined back in January together with the usual tally of games played and a note on the readership of this little blog.

The Men Who Would Be Kings

I didn't get into the Boshin War but I did accumulate Pathans and Egyptians and reinforced my Zulu War armies.

Rommel

Rommel has been put on ice indefinitely owing to lack of local enthusiasm. Life is too short to flog dead horses.

Chain of Command

I remain interested in Chain of Command but never got round to it and probably won't pursue it in the near future unless another local gamer emerges to champion it.

Thirty Ýears War

This came a little closer with the publication of Twilight of Divine Right, and I've been giving it some thought.

Games played

This has been the year of Rampant/Dan Mersey games which accounted for no less than 7 of the 10 games played:

Dragon Rampant 2
Dux Bellorum 1
Lion Rampant 1
The Men Who Would Be Kings 2
Pikeman’s Lament 1

The other games were:

Art de la Guerre 1
Command & Colours Great War 1
Corvus 1

Blogging

Lastly, this blog's audience has maintained an overall upward trend despite the five month gap in publication.

That's enough looking back. I'm now looking forward to outlining my 2019 interests which I'll do in my first post in the New Year.

Border Reivers?

Something to whet the apetite? 28mm Border Reivers
from Timeline Miniatures.

From Easter until at least the end of August, wargaming takes a backseat due to other interests and commitments. I try to play a few games if I can piggyback on the efforts of others, but it’s not a time for being proactive. This year has been particularly busy and I've not got back into wargaming at all, hence the lack of posts to this blog.

In the first quarter, however, I did make some progress. I now have British, Zulu, Pathan and Egyptian forces for The Men Who Would Be Kings. The Pathans and Egyptians haven’t yet been used, but I’ve staged two Zulu War games and have now added a unit of Natal Native Contingent. For Lion Rampant I not only have the Dark Age and Late Medieval armies but have also begun to collect figures for a Medieval Anglo-Irish project.

I haven’t posted anything about Dragon Rampant but I had some ideas for armies and have played a couple of games kindly set up by my friend Ian. I started to write some posts but they are months old now so I don't know if I'll return to them.

I also added to my collection of 1/600 ACW ironclads for Hammerin’ Iron, a long-term intention which had been awaiting the appearance of ready-painted models on eBay.

On the home front I hit and overcame (for now) a storage crisis by disposing of unused figures and scenery, with a lot more heading for eBay when I can find the time to organise it. I also came to terms with my lead mountain by reducing my to-do list to current interests only. Anything not on the list may also become a candidate for disposal.

Buying second-hand, ready-painted armies overcame my lack of painting time but is in danger of bringing me back to the brink on the storage front. Buying is easier than selling but I will have to find the time and energy to ensure that accumulation is balanced by disposal.

As and when my interest in wargaming rekindles, it would be sensible to use some of my existing armies or even to paint some of the figures from the lead mountain, but where's the fun in that? This is wargaming. I need a new project in order to rekindle my interest! I've been looking at a couple of options.

First up was the French and Indian War using 28mm figures and the forthcoming Rebels and Patriots rules, another set from the Rampant stable, but as Ian was inspired to take the initiative on that one I've now moved on to the idea of a skirmish game using 28mm Border Reivers. Because of the typically (though not exclusively) small scale of Reiver activity, this would be a 'true' skirmish game in which figures operated individually rather than in units, and would therefore be played with a relatively limited number of figures. As such the project is potentially more realiseable than one requiring mass armies.

I'm currently looking at rules and will be trying them out with tokens or substitutes in order to make sure they have enough player appeal, and to avoid the debacle that I had with Rommel which failed to gain local traction.

Goodbye to the Lead Mountain Blues

The Workbench list: now of digestible proportions.

Besides my storage crisis (now eased) another burden was the long list of unfinished projects on this blog's Workbench page. Owing to what I suspect is some bug in Blogger, this page got overwritten and had to be recreated.

This apparent catastrophe was highly fortuitous as it gave me an opportunity to rethink and to relist only the projects currently being pursued or immediately in prospect.  The rest may potentially exist but out of sight is out of mind. The shame of the lead mountain is hidden, and I feel I can return to painting etc with some prospect of progress. So much so that I have  actually added  a new project! That may sound totally mad, but it's inevitable that new projects will leapfrog old ones, and that's perfectly manageable as long as something else is dropped off the list to compensate.

Fastest to table

Lancers. 2mm is now my way to go for mass armies.

I might have written something like this before but no matter as it is a topic that demands revisiting. I often wonder what miniature wargames I would do if I was starting from scratch now. Obviously I would do games that appealed to me historically, but, more generally, I would do games that could be brought to table as quickly as possible. This is partly because I lack time to paint but also because I'd like the fruits of my labour to end up on the table rather than in the lead mountain.

At one end of the spectrum I would focus on skirmish games like Dan Mersey's Rampant series for which 28mm figures have the most appeal. Somewhere in the middle are games that are 'compact' or otherwise economical on figures like Crossfire, Irregular Wars or DBA. For these I would use 15mm, 10mm or 6mm, and these scales would satisfy the aesthetic appeal of playing with toy soldiers.

Any games featuring mass armies, however, would have to be base-orientated so I could use 2mm or 3mm models, and thìs end of the spectrum would satisfy my desire to play large historical battles. I think this is the way I will now go with Bloody Big Battles! if and when I get round to it. The other advantage of these small scales is of course that they put less pressure on storage and carrying.

This  is not an entirely futile speculation as it should also help me to regulate what to do in future. I feel sure I've written that before as well. The difficulty is remembering it.

2017 Scoreboard

A bloody denouement in the corral

My gaming, painting and blogging activity contracted further in 2017 but this was due mainly to other pressures rather than loss of interest.

My penultimate game of the year was a cowboy skirmish game kindly staged by my friend Ian using Games Workshop's old but solid Legends of the Old West. The bad guys (me) were holed up in in a livery stable. Given equal points I was expecting to blow away the lawmen as they approached over open ground, but this was not to be. At one point I decided to come out, guns blazing, but I failed to hit anything and then got well and truly gunned down.

Now for the overall tally. I played 2 games of Command & Colors Ancients, 2 games of X-Wing,  1 game of Battles of Napoleon, 1 game of Crossfire (early Great War), several 'training' games for Great War Spearhead, 4 games of Test of Honour, 1 exploratory run-through of Rommel, and 1 game of Legends of the Old West.

On the modelling front I started a couple of 3mm armies for Rommel and accumulated some 28mm Anglo-Zulu War figures for The Men Who Would Be Kings which I am currently rebasing.

Blog posts declined from 42 in 2016 to 27 (including this one).

My next post will be in the new year and will outline my likely pursuits in 2018.

A strategy for wargaming

Owing to competition from another diversion I'm likely to have even less time this year for wargaming, so I need to optimise use of time I do have. In the past I've tended to flit from one game to another, which makes absorbing rules very difficult. A considerable proportion of gaming time is spent looking things up. Then you don't return to that game for weeks or months and the whole process starts all over again.

This year I'm aiming to become a serial gamer, playing the same games several times before moving on to another one. My current obsession is Command & Colors: Ancients. I've so far played two games and the strategy is certainly working.

Command & Colors: Ancients - Zama. At this point the Carthaginians (near side) were trailing badly.

The first game was the Battle of Akragas 406 BC. I got the Syracusans while my club comrade Chris took the Carthaginians. C&C:A scenarios are not necessarily balanced so the aim is to improve on the historical outcome. The Syracusans should have won but I lost. My ultimate defeat was entirely my own fault when I failed to retire an exposed general.

Chris had not played the game before and I had played it very little some time ago, so a great deal of the game was spent reading rather than playing and I'm not entirely certain we got everything completely right.

The second game was the Battle of Zama 202 BC.  This time I did a little preparation. In particular I studied the elephant rules and planned to counter the beasts with ranged fire from light infantry. In the event I got the Carthaginians (the historical losers) while Chris commanded the Romans!

Having also noted the effect of elephants on cavalry (to be expected), I began to move the elephants to the flanks where Chris had a predominance in cavalry. This was not a bad idea but Chris's light infantry soon closed in on them and took them out in close combat.

The problem with the Carthaginians in this game is that once the elephants are gone you are outnumbered in both cavalry and infantry. Despite this I managed to achieve some good local successes and the balance of Victory Banners (which you win for destroying units and sometimes for occupying objectives) was running at 7:7. It was a very close-run thing but Chris eventually got the eighth and final kill.

What I like about C&C:A is that it allows you to fight historical battles with a minimum of complication. By only the second game of this series, I had absorbed most of the rules and factors, and much less time was spent looking things up.

2017 Plans and resolutions

Crossfire: due for revival

I hope to reverse the downward trend in 2017 by getting more painting done and by playing more games. I'm unlikely to have more time, but I'm going to try to make better use of the time I do have.

My painting/modelling priorities are to :

1. Complete the Sci-Fi armies for Gruntz 15mm.
2. Paint the 10mm Chinese Warlord armies for Red Actions.
3. Undertake some trial painting of the 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures for Bloody Big Battles!

My gaming ambitions are to play games of:

1. Bloody Big Battles!
2. Command & Colours Ancients.
3. Crossfire.
4. Galleys & Galleons.
5. Gruntz 15mm.
6. Hammerin' Iron II.
7. Irregular Wars.
8. Maurice.
9. Red Actions.

Following the wise words in response to my last post from Norm of the Battlefields and Warriors blog about valuing engagement with all aspects of the wargaming hobby I should also add a few words about my plans for research, collecting and blogging.

I've largely completed the research for my  current projects, though some background reading and 'mood setting' would be good if I get the time. As for collecting, I would like to get some more painted 1/600 ACW ironclads if the opportunity arises, and I might photo some of my existing armies/navies that have not previously been featured on the blog in any detail. Blogging will continue as now.

Another aspect of the hobby which should also get a specific mention is 'planning'. Although it doesn't always have an actual output in terms of a wargaming project, I probably spend more time planning/dreaming about new armies than anything else. My current interest in that area is centred on possible approaches to and armies for Bloody Big World War Two Battles and The Men Who Would Be Kings. More anon no doubt.

2016 Scoreboard

The film spin-off skirmish game, Terminator Genisys, was
my last game of the year. It's well designed and was
fun to play. I did just scrape a win even though all 
my surviving Terminators had been reduced to
Crawlers.

Owing to other commitments and distractions my painting and gaming achievements continued to decline during 2016. I completed the armies for only one game - 15mm Portuguese / Dutch / Spanish armies for Irregular Wars. I did, however, create usable if unpainted 10mm Seven Years War armies for Maurice.

I also started 15mm Sci-Fi armies for Gruntz 15mm, collected 15mm Japanese armies for Irregular Wars, collected 10mm Chinese Warlord armies for Red Actions, and bought a first batch of 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures for Bloody Big Battles!

Perhaps that doesn't sound too bad, but my gaming total was very poor. This year I managed only 17 games. These were:

Bloody Big Battles! 3
Irregular Wars 3
C&C Battlecry 3
Might & Reason 2
Gorechosen 2
C&C Napoleonics 1
C&C Great War 1
Terminator Genisys 1
Other 1

The 'other' was a gangster skirmish game devised by a fellow club member, Bernard, and based on a set of cowboy rules possibly called Fistful of Aces. The games in bold are my own.

This is not a great total but all these games were enjoyable and worthwhile, which is the important thing.

Perhaps I should also mention that this is the forty-second post to the blog this year, the highest ever. Some may suspect that blogging is detracting from painting and gaming. Perhaps so. Nonetheless, I have had some very helpful feedback as a result of floating ideas here first so it's not a complete distraction.

My next post will be in the new year and will outline my plans and resolutions for 2017.

Games and painting 2015/2016

In 2015 I played 23 games which is sadly somewhat less than the year before. These were three games of Galleys & Galleons, two each of Maurice, Hammerin' Iron 2, Sword & Spear and Impetus, and one each of Command & Colours Napoleonics, Crossfire, Popular Front (SCW boardgame), Red Actions, Lasalle, The Crescent and the Cross, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Bloody Big Battles! and Micro-Armour. I also played three games using rules homespun by fellow club members.

I additionally 'facilitated' quite a few games, but I've given that up because it's taxing and I miss the chance to play myself. Quite a bit of the facilitation centred on the preparation of the 'Crossfiregrad' public participation game.

Games and painting 2014

Irregular Wars playtest with counters

My painting to-do list was becoming oppressive, so last year I decided to note what I managed to do rather than what I planned to do. It didn't increase my productivity but it made me feel better. For the first time, I also recorded the games I played.

In first place was Irregular Wars with 14 games. These were all playtest games and consumed most of my wargaming attention for the year. They were played with counters as I still haven't completed any IW armies.

Second place went to Crossfire with 5 games - one Spanish Civil War, one Normandy and three played on my 'Crossfiregrad' (Stalingrad-esque) cityscape.

Now for the runners-up. I played two games each of Command and Colours Ancients, Dux Bellorum, Galleys & Galleons (playtest) and my friend Ian's developmental ancient rules, and one game each of Impetus, Maurice, WWII Micro Armour, Corvus II, Flanders Fields, Warmaster Ancients,  and my friend Ian's developmental WWI game.

10mm ACW Confederates

As for painting/modelling, I finally completed my 10mm American Civil War armies. I haven't yet played a proper game with them, though they did take to the table in connection with playtesting some hex based Nineteenth Century rules that I'm developing. I also added the finishing touches to the 'Crossfiregrad' cityscape.

Finally, I 'progressed' the 15mm Portuguese/Dutch/Spanish and some scenery for Irregular Wars, the 1/450 pirate ships and scenery for Galleys & Galleons and some 10mm ACW buildings. I aim to finish all these ASAP in 2015.