2016 In Review

TL/DR

- I played a lot of games

- Ran a Weekend Frostgrave Campaign in February

- Finished an Imperial Guard Company for Warhammer 40K

- Decided to go ahead with the Vimy Project in 2017

- Went on Vacation

- Was awarded a Treasure Token by Joseph McCullough

- Built some trench terrain

- Took the family to ToonCon

- Ran my REGINA TRENCH! game at ToonCon

- Counted up all my toys, painted and unpainted.

- Celebrated 10 YEARS of blogging

Well… that pretty much sums it up… do I really need to expand on any of that…?

Should I bother looking back on the Game Plan 2016 and see what I actually accomplished compared to what I had initially planned…?

Why not. Seems like the thing to do…

First off…

The Game Weekend

I did run a weekend miniature skirmish campaign… but it ended up being Frostgrave instead of Song of Blades and Heroes, as originally planned. It turned out okay. Everyone seemed to have fun. I even played a couple games. Had my initial warband WIPED OUT if the first game on Friday night (like Wizard and Apprentice killed… dead…). Started Saturday with a whole new warband… because I can do that sort of thing… Anyway, you can check it all out here:

Quest for the Skull Sword

Gaming Our Way Through History

We did finish off the final volume of the Story of the World and played most of the board games I’d lined up… I never did finish up the posts about the games we played for Volume Three and Four – like I did for Volume One: The Ancient World and Volume Two: The Middle Ages. I suppose I still could.

We never really did get to doing any miniature games to go along with it… Which was kind of a shame. Everything got a little rushed at the end.

We’ll revisit parts over the next few years and replay some of the games we played and hopefully get a few more games in that we missed along the way.

Saturday Game Afternoons

I did manage to host a number of longer games on Saturday afternoons throughout the year. There was a fairly regular group of about 3 or 4 that came out to many of them. We played a few of the games that were on the list (Firefly, Game of Thrones, Arkham Horror). Most of the others on the list (Soldier Kings, Soldier Emperor, Forbidden Stars, Axis & Allies (1914, 1942, 1940 Europe, 1940 Pacific, Ikusa, Empires Age of Discovery, Joan of Arc, Wallenstein) we totally didn’t get to… but we played other games instead… (Power Grid Deluxe, Railways of the World, Sky Traders,

Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean, Agricola, Age of Conan, etc)

ToonCon

I did take the family to ToonCon and everyone had a pretty good time. I also ran a game there (REGINA TRENCH!), which went over pretty well, I think.

Other Miniature Gaming

This is where I kind of dropped the ball… While I did play a lot of board games, I didn’t really play all that many Miniature Wargames.

I did play a few games of Frostgrave early in the year, but after the Weekend Frostgrave Campaign in February that died off completely. I’ve picked up all the books that have come out this year (Into the Breeding Pits and Forgotten Pacts), but other than a quick skim through them, haven’t really given them much thought…

Later in the year  I was awarded a Treasure Token by Joseph McCullough (author of Frostgrave) – which was super nice, but then I felt guilty because I hadn’t actually PLAYED Frostgrave in ages.

I did play a few games of 40K with the kids and a friend and his sons. Not my favourite game. After actually playing it my kids completely lost interest. They’d still play any of the 40K RPGs from FFG or use the miniatures for other games. But having been raised playing games like Savage Worlds and Song of Blades and Heroes – with balanced forces and strong, thematic, designed scenarios… the idea of showing up at a table with the miniatures they’d lovingly spent hundreds of hours painting only to have them utterly slaughtered by a gloaty-smack-talking-10-year-old who they felt really only won because he had bought better toys... well… it was discouraging… I might go so far as to say they thought it anathema.

I had started the year very excited about En Garde!… painted up a few warbands for it (Swashbucklers!, More Swashbucklers!, Still More Swashbucklers!)… never got around to playing it!?

I had mentioned Flying Lead and Song of Drums and Tomahawks… didn’t get in a single game… (though I did play one game of Fear and Faith!)

Though I painted a fair bit for Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant, I only got in two games – and one wasn’t even with my own toys!?

I also got very excited about The Men Who Would Be Kings when it was finally released. Even painted up a few more Zulus to finish a force to play it… didn’t get to playing it.

I did get in a few games of Star Wars: X-Wing, if that counts… and maybe a game of Super Dungeon Explore!. Oh and Wings of Glory and Broken Legions

Including the likes of Xwing and Wings of Glory I think I played a total of about 13 miniature games all year… far cry from previous years where I was playing at least one game a week... 

Role-Playing Games

We finally finished up the Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu/Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign my friend Bruce was running in the spring. In the fall he started a new D&D 5E Primeval Thule campaign.

The Boy did run a game of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire for us and The Girl ran a quick scenario of Shadowrun. 

I never got around to running anything myself… though I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’d really like to get a Cthulhu game going –using Fear and Faith - with a bit of a skill system bolted on…

Other Boardgames

As mentioned, I did played a lot of games. The most played boardgaems this year were:

1. Loonacy/Retro Loonacy – 26 games (it takes 5 minutes and my mom can play it, so….)

2. Race for the Galaxy – 25 games (it was really out Go To game when we had an hour to kill for more of the year)

3. Dominion – 14 games

4. 7 Wonders  - 13 games (9 with the  Leaders expansion) (our secondary Go To game…)

5. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game – 13 games

6. Lords of Waterdeep - 7 games (4 with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion)

7. Nations – 7 games

9. Star Realms – 6 games

10. A Study in Emerald (second edition) - 6 games

11. Timeline: Historical Events - 6 games

12. Monty Python Fluxx - 5 games

13. Pandemic - 5 games

14. Railways of the World - 5 games

15. Dixit – 4 games

16. Firefly: The Game – 4 games

17. The Grizzled – 4 games

18. Pax Porfiriana – 4 games

19. Ra – 4 games

20. Samarkand: Routes to Riches – 4 games

21. Sentinels of the Multiverse – 4 games

22. Smash Up – 4 games

23. Agricola – 3 games

24. Carcassonne – 3 games

25. The Hanging Gardens - 3 games

26. Star Trek: Five-Year Mission - 3 games

27. Linkage: A DNA Card Game - 3 games

28. The Red Dragon Inn - 3 games

29. Rumpelstiltskin - 3 games

30. Angola - 2 games

plus lots of others that I played once or twice - too many to list.

Anyway, that's a brief round up of what I got up to last year - now on with the next one! 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Game Plan 2017?

An Update on the Vimy Project?

12 Days of Gaming (or “How I Spent my Winter Holidaze…”)?

Stocktaking 2016

As I alluded to in the previous post, I spent a good chunk of my hobby time last week taking stock of things – well… taking stock of my 28mm figures, to be precise. As with any large project, I start to drift partway through and have been dreaming about new projects lately and so part of this was to sort of shame or guilt myself into sticking to it. It’s a large part of how I keep my self-motivated on big projects and I’m sure it’s a pretty flawed coping mechanism… but it’s how we get things done around here… (Strangely it doesn’t work at all when others try to shame me into doing things… probably because I know that game all too well – can’t pull that crap on me, I’M the only one that can pull that crap on me… I digress…).

The last time I did this was just over seven years ago. AT that time I had just over 8000 28mm foot figures and just under half of them were done. I also had about 500 mounted, 15 guns, and 41 vehicles – considerable less than half of those were done. Overall about 47% off the total collection was complete – painted and based and ready for tabletop action (because playing with unpainted figures is JUST WRONG! – in my little kingdom, at least!). For a more detailed breakdown of what I had then click on the hypertextified-linky-words at the beginning of this paragraph. 

As with the previous count, I only bothered to count the 28mm figures. I do have a few 15mm forces remaining (3 old Flames of War companies that I was last using at battalions or brigades in Blitzkrieg Commander), and quite a few 20mm Moderns (though I did get rid of all my 20mm WW2 stuff – thanks Bob!), and I have a bit of Micro (6mm) SciFi stuff – like Battletech and 40K Epic stuff. Oh and some homemade Wee Ships and Spacecraft… but they are relatively small collections, comparatively.

So over all I ended up counting 18908 28mm foot figures, 1011 mounted, 63 guns or other artillery (catapults and the like), and 175 vehicles or big beasties. And overall about 51% was painted (In calculating percent complete I weighted cavalry as being worth two foot and vehicles being worth 5) – breaking that down it was 10221 painted 28mm foot (54% complete), 381 mounted (38%), 32 guns (51%), and 48 vehicles (27%). Apparenlty I don’t like painting vehicles or mounted as much as I like painting foot figures (or perhaps I don’t find them as useful in games…?). I would guess this to be accurate within +/- 2% (it was easy enough to count all the stuff that’s actually IN the regular storage drawers, but I also have little boxes of this and that squirreled away all over the place and while I tried my best to dig them out and count them, I am sure there are some I missed – or it is possible I missed one or two when I started going cross-eyed after counting for three or four hours in the wee hours of the morning. In fact as I’m typing this I just realized I didn’t count all the old Blood Bowl stuff – which has been ingloriously dumped in the game box and had sat on the bottom shelf in the corner of the games room for over a decade and I can’t be bothered to run downstairs and count then now (in fact that is why it’s 2% - I originally typed 1%... but there’s probably 100 of them which could bring my error over 1% – most of which are painted, I’ll point out… and looking back at the previous post, I apparently forgot to count them last time as well…)

I didn’t break things down as neatly as I did last time. I tabulated things by mostly drawer rather than by force or collection, but then I moved stuff around in the spread sheet to get some generally breakdowns.

The most complete collection seems to be the Modern (post 1945 stuff), which includes Vietnam (Americans, Anzacs, People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front), Afghans (for the war with Russia and more recent conflicts), Germans, French, Americans (Army and Marines), Cold War Soviets, Modern Russians, Cold War British (with FNs), Modern British (with SA-80s), Some generic forces for the Middle East, South/Central America, and Africa, and PILES of civilians and police forces and such… about 85% of the collection is complete - over 1500 of nearly 1800 figures – including a fair few vehicles.

(please note that not ALL of the figures painted are posted in the linked galleries – something I have to rectify at some point….)

The World War Two collection is also one of those closer to completion – about 70% complete – includes Soviets, Canadians, Germans (Heer, SS, Falschirmjagers, DAK, etc), Japanese, SAS/LRDG, British Commandos, Americans (army infantry, Paratroopers, and Marines), Early War French, Mid-war French Foreign Legion, British/Canadian Paras, and assorted partisans and generic-mid-20^th-century armed civilians.

The Great War era stuff is also nearing completion – thanks largely to the Vimy Project… about 75% complete (1775 out of 2291 foot, and 109 our of 163 mounted). This includes the Canadians, Germans (early and later war), Early War British, Early War French, Turks and ANZACs for the Middle East, Germans and British in East Africa, Warlord Chinese and Bolsheviks.

Colonial/Victorian Ear

l projects are lagging a bit further behind – only about 40% complete (775 of 1956 foot, 25 of 97 mounted) – largely due to great number of unpainted British and Zulus … These include British and Zulus (and other Africans), as well as assorted Victorian Horror and SF characters and forces, Martians, Boers, French Foreign Legion, American and German Marines, Old West, and Canadians and Metis for the Riel Rebellion.

I have a few Napoleonic Era figures, it is one of the least complete collections – though, once I counted, was higher than I’d anticipated… I’ve completed about 19% of the collection (176 of 934 foot and 5 of 29 mounted). Most of the unpainted ones are boxes of Hät plastics I picked up dirt cheap – like $5-7 for a box of 30-40 figures – how could I pass that up?! I may never get to them, but they’re there – should the mood ever strike!

18th Century subjects are about half done (54%) – including Seven Years War British and French, as well as Jacobites, Pirates and other assorted swashbuckling types.

17th Century - largely English Civil War – are 64% complete (342 of 534 foot and 38 or 60 mounted) largely due to some significant headway I made earlier this year.

The Medieval & Medieval Fantasy collection has expanded rapidly in the last year or so – largely due to Lion Rampant,  Dragon Rampant, Frostgrave, and A Song of Blades and Heroes - my painting has not, however, kept apace with the purchasing however. In 2009 I had about 70% of the collection complete, today only about 45% (1091 out of 2302 foot and 73 of 215 mounted!). I have THREE European Medieval retinues for Lion Rampant as well as a generic middle eastern Muslim one (Seljuks, mostly), and multiple DBA armies and Dragon Rampant warbands for Elves and Orcs and Dwarves, LOTR Rohan and Isengard forces, Rats, Undead, Halflings, Dark Elves, a half dozen adventuring parties for Frostgrave, and piles not formed into units that could be used for A Song of Blades and Heroes or assorted role-playing games (playing a bit of D&D 5E these days! And John has been threatening to run WFRP). These will see some loving when I’m done with the Vimy Project…

The “Dark  Ages” collection mostly consists of DBA Armies for Norde Irish, pre-feudal Scots, Vikings, Normans, Anglo-Danish, West Franks, Welsh, and Anglo-Saxons. A fair bit of these are done (about 80%) due to the 2012 Dark Ages DBA Campaign I ran.

Likewise, a lot fewer of the Feudal and Fantastical Japanese (I really need to get some pictures in that gallery!) were it not for the Ronin Campaign I ran for the 2014 Wargaming Birthday Bash Weekend. The collection includes HOTT/DBA armies and individual figures for Ronin – Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai and Role-playing games. In addition to historical Feudal Japanese the collection includes a great deal many fantastical figures from the Legends of the Five rings. Actually only 45% are done – but it’s be a lot lower if it hadn’t been for Ronin – I went a little overboard picking up the L5R stuff a few years back I have nearly 1000 figures in this collection but over 400 are done, so…

I was a little surprised to find that half of the Ancient and Mythical Greece collection was complete – considering I have five complete Hoplite DBA armies (or 12 elements of spear, 7-8 figures per element) of which I have hardly put any paint on. But all the individually based heroes and monsters and assorted ancient civilians I included added up to quite a few.

I didn’t bother separating out the Romans in the tallies… it would likely be similar to the Greeks – I have one complete DBA army, but enough unpainted figures for three or four more, but I also have a LOT of individually based figures Roman army, Gladiators, and Civilians (which are all mixed in with all the other assorted ancient civilians – which I counted as part of the Greeks)

The collection that is the least complete is the DBA Successors armies. I have about 450 figures for five successor armies (as well as Thracians, Skythians, and Classic Indians) of which 6 foot and one elephant are complete… about 1%.

And what have I concluded from all this…? Well I probably don’t need to be buying much new stuff anytime soon… I have PLENTY to paint. I did a bit of planning and organizeing as I went through – for example I have two groups of Fantasy dwarves – regular ol’ “Mountain Dwarves” as I’ve called them in my little world to differentiate them from the “Highland Dwarves”. I had originally planned to do bot Hordes of the Things armies for both – as well as having a bunch of extras for skirmishing and role-paying and whatnot – and, more recently, using with Dragon Rampant. As I went through I realized I’d need another SIX elements of Highland Dwarves to finish the HOTT army… at 6 figures per element – another 36 figures…. I am loathe to buy more figures at this point – especially for a game I haven’t played for a few years (though I would definitely like to again…at some point…) so I decided to rebase the ones I have painted as well as the ones I had on painting bases that were destined for that force – and now I have enough for a complete Dragon Rampant Warband of them… well… almost… I’d need less to complete a Dragon Rampant Warband that I would to complete a full HOTT army of them – and a Dragon Rampant warband is likely to see more use in the foreseeable future than another HOTT army…

Of course then I spent an evening re-basing figures instead of painting more Great War Canadians… So this thing I did to ease my mind about future projects and prevent distractions, ended up being a bit of a distraction in and of itself… but I kind of expected that, and I feel, in the long term, it will prove to be more help than hindrance.

I think after the Vimy Game is over I’ll move onto other things for a bit. I had though of getting some terrain done for a Passchendaele game in the fall – since I’ll have all the figures for it! And I may still do that… but I also need to do some other things – to keep me sane and loving the hobby. I’d like to work on the colonial projects for The Men Who Would Be Kings and finish up some units for Lion Rampant retinues and Dragon Rampant warbands… maybe play some more Frostgrave and/or A Song of Blades and Heroes…? I also would like to finish up a few more 17^th Century figures to play En Garde! and The Pikeman’s Lament.

I’d also like to get back to work on some Ancient and Mythical stuff and play some more Song of Shadows and Dust and try out Faustus Furious (which I picked up a month or so ago and finally got to reading a few weeks ago) and Of Gods and Mortals (which, strangely, introduced me to Andrea Sfiligoi’s rules, but I have yet to actually play!? I’d really like to revisit the idea of running Song of Shadows and Dust  as a wargame weekend campaign – with some Faustus Furious-chariot-street-racing mixed in for fun!!

More on all this in a month or so when I look back at 2016 and plan for 2017…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Some Dwarves – a minor distraction brought about by all this stocktaking an plannificating… Then back to the Great War Canadians… hopefully… 

More Vimy Project Planning

As I mentioned in the previous post I am back to working on the Vimy Project. Little has changed since I set out a plan to get it done two years ago (the last time I thought about getting this project going again) – except now I’m going to squish everything I’d planned to do in three years into one.

No problem.

Actually taking stock of things yesterday I figured out I have about 40 battalions of stuff to paint up – There are four in the 3rd Division, eight in the 1^st Division, and all twelve of the 2^nd Division. There are four more in the 4^th that I never finished up because they weren’t involved in the actual attack on Vimy (as they were being held in reserve for an attack on “The Pimple” the following day), which I may or may not finish for April. There are also, I think two British battalions on loan from 5^th British Division that were operating in the 2^nd Canadian Division’s sector that I need to paint up. On the German side I have four German Regiments that I need to cast and paint up toys for (3 battalions each, for a total of 12).

I have 48 weeks to go, so I don’t see all the painting as insurmountable. Painting a battalion (or two) of 15 figures in a week would be no problem for me. Mind you, there are some Brigade/Divisional staff and guns and crews and such to paint as well… Still ONE battalion, plus some guns and stuff each week…. still very doable.

Then there is the terrain…. That will be a LOT of work, but I should be able to set aside a good chunk of the summer to get most of that done.

I think the trick is to not try to do too much all at once – especially right now! May and the first few weeks of June are just batsh!t cRaZy. We have so much going on with the skewl year wrapping up; rehearsals, recitals, finishing up projects before our yearend portfolio review… it would be mad to take on much right now, and it would probably end up discouraging me and setting me further back. So for now I am committing to get one battalion (plus some other stuff) done each week for the next two months. Also I could work towards cleaning out the basement so I have space to set up and actually work on terrain and play test the scenarios when it’s done.

In July and August I’ll try and get the bulk of the terrain building done. That would just leave me having to finish up painting the figures through the fall and winter. (and working on another somewhat related project… but more on that in a bit…)

That brings us to September… and ToonCon. I had said I was going to do something at ToonCon. But I also said I wasn’t going to work on planning stuff for any other games. Then I got this Idea: REGINA TRENCH. The Weekend of Tooncon will be just before the 100^th anniversary of the battle of Thiepval Ridge on the Somme – where the Canadians had their first crack at Regina Trench. I know… I know… This will require building MORE terrain! But I think it will be a relatively easy thing to build and I may just build it out of some generic modular trench terrain sections that could be used for any other trench battlefields on the western front – I’ve been meaning to do something like that for a while.

As for the 13^th Annual Wargaming Birthday bash in February (2017)… Well, it’s likely not going to be a skirmish campaign like this year. I’m thinking I might play Vimy By Divisions. If I have the terrain completed and enough figures I could play the battle on each Division’s front separately throughout the weekend.

I guess I'll need to rent a hall to set it all up on the day. Luckly 9 April 2017 falls on a Sunday, so I can do it ON the actual anniversary and be reasonably sure at least a FEW people should be able to show up.

I guess I need to find some people to show up and PLAY the game! When I ran the 4th Division game at Mayday 2007, I ran the Germans (with the help of Will!) and had four Canadian players - each taking half a brigade. I'll probably need 4-6 helpers just to run the Germans, and another 12 players if I gave each player a full brigade.

And After…?

Well since I have all the figures, I could build some terrain for Passchendaele (or use some modular trenches) to play at Tooncon in September of 2017… Maybe do some games of the last 100 days in 1918…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry – to finish up the 9^th Brigade.

(If you missed it, I posted the Royal Canadian Regiment yesterday

Wait, Out.

We are currently experiencing a temporary existential  crisis.

Please stand by.

More Medieval Stuff and Blathering About What to DO Next?!

The dust has begun to settle from last weekend’s Frostgrave Campaign Weekend and I’m easing myself back into painting…

Including a few painting sessions with the kids! Actually we started listening to A Game of Thrones audiobook this week – so they’ve been quite keen to sit down and paint. Actually The Girl never needs convincing – she LOVES painting. The Boy could take it our leave it… but since the only time we listen to audiobooks is when we’re paiting – and he does like listening to audiobooks (especially fantasy ones!) he’ll dig stuff out and get some work done.

I’ve more or less carrying on with what I’ve been working on the last month or so… more on that later, but for now – here’s what I’ve finished up this week:

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Six foot Men-at-Arms from Black Tree Design for my green and yellow Lion Rampant retinue.

A couple more religious types to help spread the good word… I thought I might try and get 12 of these – or at least a few more and mix them with civilians to use as a bunch of pilgrims heading to the holy land (I’d call them a unit of “Peasants” in Lion Rampant). The figures are from Old Glory (I think…).

New Treasure Hunter for the Jade Wizard’s Warband. This is an old Citadel Miniatures/Games Workshop figure that I’ve had for over 30 years and recently stripped to repaint (I posted a picture a couple weeks back just before he went into the paint-stripping-bath).

Finally another Archer for the Middle Eastern flavoured warband. I’m not sure of the manufacturer; I got him in a trade.

Well... What next…?

I’ve been so wrapped up in making terrain (and making more terrain), and painting warbands (and more warbands and other stuff), and playing Frostgrave (and again, and again…) all in preparation for the 12^th Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Campaign Weekend: Quest for the Skull Sword …. I kind of haven’t given much thought to what I’m going to do for… well…  the rest of the year – and beyond!?

Sure, I worked out a bit of a plan in January and I’ve been thinking about En Garde! and painting up swashbucklers for it (like these ones and these ones and  these ones) and then there’s Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant which I’ve been thinking about a lot and painting stuff for (like these Elf Archers, and these Elite Elf Foot, and these Halflings, or these peasants and such) – we even got in a game of Dragon Rampant in early January… but they’ve been distractions that I quickly pushed aside to stay focused on the task at hand… so now what…?

I feel pulled in so many directions at once…

Part of me wants to just drop Frostgrave and move on to other things. But another part of me, now that I’ve got all this stuff done, wants to get a regular campaign going – even if it’s just with the family – and play through all the scenarios in the core book and then the Hunt for the Golem campaign and then Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign…

Part of me wants to just jump into high production for Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant.

I have a feeling that’s just not going to work out for the next month or so….You see for the next month the kids and I are studying the early 20^th Century – so that means the Great War, the Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War, and World War Two – all of which I have both board and miniature games for – so I have a feeling that we’ll spend a lot of our game time doing those sorts of things. I might set aside Saturday evening for Frostgrave… but the rest of the game time through the week will be devoted to more modern subjects.

Part of me hopes that this might jumpstart a renewed interest in the Vimy Project… it’s just over a year to go until the 100^th anniversary of the battle and I have NOT been keeping up with the schedule laid out in that last post… but if I jumped right in and stayed focused I could probably pull it off… Of course WHERE would I put it on…!? Who the heck would even want to play in it!? the Legion Hall a block from my place would be a perfect location – but would there be enough interest in Saskatoon to run it here – or would it be a big enough draw that people would be willing to travel to Saskatoon in April of next year to participate…? I don’t know…. I guess I’ll see how the next month goes.

I guess that’s most of my plan worked out for the next month – Frostgrave on Saturday nights… Early 20^th century during the rest of the week for the month of March (and in April we’ll be covering even more modern subjects – I’ve got all sorts of Vietnam and Cold War miniatures and board games we could make use of…) and we’ll see where my interests lie at the end of that.

I DO want to get to try out En Garde!, and play a lot more Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant. Also I have a complete Medival Muslim retinue and a third complete European retinue to paint up for Lion Rampant – and a bunch more halflings and others I’d like to paint up to finish Warbands for Dragon Rampant. I'll probably continue to paint a bit of this while playing other games for the next month of so. But serious work on these projects (and playing these games) may have to wait until later in the spring… or summer… or 2017 if I get going on the Vimy Project again!!

Of course then there's Men Who Would Be Kings... which I'm also pretty excited about and have been gazing over my British colonials and Zulus (and Boers... and Martians!?) and pondering which of those I should get working on... 

Then there's the Imperial Guard Jungle Fighters I'm so close to getting finished... which, seriously, a week or two of serious work and I'd be DONE ALL OF THEM and they'd be sitting ready for whenever the kids or my friend and his kids finish any of their units and want to play...

I could go on...

Too much stuff to do, too little time...

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have some Seljuk Cavalry on the workbench that I'll probably be finishing up next.

Probably not getting in a game of Frostgrave this weekend, but perhaps next weekend... 

Game Plan 2016

After looking back at 2015, it's time to start looking ahead to 2016!

Of all the years I’ve done some sort of Game Plan for the year (because I do recognize I am far more productive when I have a plan and stick to it) I have the least idea of what I want to do… It’s not that I’m losing interest in gaming or miniature gaming – quite the contrary – I feel pulled in too many directions at once and can’t really settle on just one thing!

Game Weekend

I’ve been dragging my butt about organizing a game weekend, as I couldn’t really settle on any one thing to do for the weekend – too many fun games that could be played. Ultimately I have settled on playing a A Song of Blades and Heroes campaign using some elements of Song of Deeds and Glory and elements of other campaign systems to play a somewhat abstract map campaign.

Gaming Our Way Through History

We have one more volume of Story of the World to read through and I have a bunch of games lined up to play as we go through it.

Board Games

China the Middle Kingdom– not just modern history – this is a game based on Britania which covers a great deal of the history of China – players play successive groups of peoples that rise to power and the eventually fall to newer groups from 400BCE to modern day.

Maharaja - similar to China: the Middle Kingdom above. The time period of the game runs from the Aryan invasions of 1500
BC to the establishment of the British Raj in the mid-1800s – so mostly stuff we’ve already covered, but hopefully the game will be a good review…

Soldier Raj India again – a little more focused on the period between 1767 and 1846. By the same guys that did Soldier Kings (which we tried… but didn’t get to play a whole game of…)

American Civil War - The Eagle Games production – as it allows for more than two players and has lots of little toys!

Railways of the World - because history isn’t JUST about war!?

Railways of North America because the map is basically just Canada… We can built the CPR!

Prairie Aflame - a game of the (Canadain) Northwest Rebellion of 1885. I doubt it’s covered in the book we’re reading – but I thought I’d add it in for a bit of Canadian history.

Go West

Expedition Northwest Passage

Bittereinder…? A game of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). I ‘ve had this for years. I may or may not try it with the kids…

Axis & Allies 1914 - a lighter strategic game of the Great War… possibly if the kids are up to it I might try Paths of Glory

Red Russia for the rise of Bolshevism and the Russian Civil War

Warlords: China in Disarray

Popular Front for the Spanish Civil War

Axis & Allies 1942 for a lighter strategic game of the Second World War

OR (if we can find the time!)

Axis & Allies 1940 Europe AND Axis & Allies 1940 Pacific because that would be fun… we’d have to find some more players and set aside a weekend to play it…

Twilight Struggle for the Cold War… only two player… so maybe we’ll play a few games of it.

Fire in the Lake - a grand strategy game of the Vietnam War.

Port Stanley: Battle for the Falklands another game I’ve had kicking around for decades that I may or may not get to playing with the kids.

Labyrinth: the War or Terror 2001 - ? - to bring us right up to the present day…

Power Grid Deluxe again, to add in a little something that ISN’T just about WAR!?

Third World War? as a bit of a “how it could have gone down”? I have this entire series of games (Including Arctic Front – Battle for Norway, Southern Front – Race for the Turkish Straits, and Persian Gulf – Battle for the Middle East) I’ve always wanted to play them all together…

Miniature Games

One Hour Wargames - I’ve been meaning to get in a game of this… I’m running out of useable time periods. The more modern options presented in this book don’t really appeal to me.

Ever Victorious Armies which I had, at one point, modified to play some colonial actions…

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.…? (without the Giant Steam Robots or Martians) as an alternative to the modified EVA…?

Contemptible Little Armies for a simple game to cover some actions in the Great War, Russian Civil War, and the “Back of Beyond” (China, etc)

Wings of Glory - for some WW1 Dogfighting.

A World Aflame - one of the Osprey Wargames I picked up a few years back to try out. Meant for the “inter-war” period. I thought I might try it out for some Spanish Civil War actions (though I don’t have any SCW specific miniatures – I do have a lot of generic early 20^th Century civilians armed with bolt action rifles that might make due for some of the combatants).

Bolt Action - for some skirmish action in WW2. I have no shortage of options for this!

Force on Force - I can use this for Vietnam and other Cold War and more modern actions…

Cold War Commander for some larger scale actions in the Cold War and more modern conflicts – I’ve been thinking about re-doing some of my forces for this game in mirco-armour… perhaps that won’t get done in time to play with the kids during our study.

Flying Lead…? For smaller scale actions in just about any 20^th century conflicts…

Saturday Game Afternoons

I know I’ve been saying this for years, but I’d really like to start hosting longer games on Saturday afternoons/Evenings once (or twice) a month. I did get in at least THREE this past year… (There was probably more if you could ones where just my family played – but I’m thinking about games where people OTHER than my family join us to play a longer board game…).

Eldrtich Horror - actually already played a 7-player game of this on 2 January 2016 – but I’d like to play it AGAIN!

Firefly– already have a couple afternoons set aside to play this – once with just Amanda and the kids, and again with some other guys!

Soldier Kings I tried it as a three-player game with the kids and it didn’t work out so well… I’d like to play this as a 7-8-player game…

Soldier Emperor - as Soldier Kings above – I’d love to play this with 7 players.

Forbidden Stars - I did get in one game over the holidaze, but I’d like to try it again.

Game of Thrones - 6-players… I had started reading the first book again with the kids. Maybe when we finish it, we’ll recruit a few more players and have a go.

Arkham Horror having played Eldritch Horror now, I kind of like it better… but I’d still like to play this a bit more (especially since I picked up a few expansions on sale over the holidaze!?)

Axis & Allies (1914, 1942,  or 1940 Europe, and/or 1940 Pacific) – these will probably be played as part of the Story of the World studies with the kids – but the bigger ones (1940 Europe and Pacific) could be played together as a weekend long mega game with eight players!

Ikusa - I did get to play this last year with the kids. I think it’d be more fun with 4-5 players.

Empires Age of Discovery Played it last year with four – like to try with six.

Joan of Arc - as with the last two, I played it with the kids this past year but would really like to play it again with six players.

Wallenstein - ditto.

I’m sure there are others… but these are the ones that are at the top of the list to play. If I played just one each month I’d get through… well.. MOST of them!? How hard could that be?

Other Events

ToonCon 2016 - 23-24-25 September 2016 – The Boy and I had a great time last year, so I definitely think we’ll be going again this year! Not sure about Amanda and The Girl… I know The Girl is keen to go, we shall see…

The Vimy Project?

I don’t know… Maybe when I get reading about the Great War with the kids it will rekindle my interest in this project… I’d have a LOT to do to get this ready in time, now… it could be done… but it’d be a lot of work.

Other Miniature Gaming

Other miniature games I'd like to play (or get back to playing) this year... 

Dragon Rampant and Lion Rampant – Dragon Rampant just arrived last week and I’ve really enjoyed reading it and am looking forward to trying it out and getting back to playing some more Lion Rampant. Also last week I ordered a pile of stuff from Black Tree Design to fill out a few more Lion Rampant retinues/Dragon Rampant warbands

En Garde! We had a  lot of fun playing Ronin (also by Craig Woodfield) and I’m assuing it will be more or less the same system – I can see the system easily porting over to the new genre perfectly with just a few modifications – mostly for flavour – and some new army lists. I have craploads of pirates and English Civil War soldiers that could be pressed into service. I also recently ordered some “Swashbucklers” from Wargames Foundry and wouldn’t mind picking up some three musketeer types from Redoubt.

40K – the kids and some friends have shown some interest in this and I have a small collection of Imperial Guard I could use in this. I hope we can weave together some sort of narrative campaign for our various forces and steer away from the standard “bring 1000 points and have a battle” as that will get pretty boring real fast…

Frostgrave - I'm sure we'll get in a few more games of Frostgrave this year. I actually have a few new wizards and adventurers to be painted... and a pile of ruined city terrain in progress... 

Flying Lead – I’d really like to try this out some more in different modern periods

Men Who Would Be Kings – I have to wait until September for this one, but I’ve been looking for a new colonial era game.

Galleys & Galleons – I haven’t played this since I did some playtesting for it. I’d like to get in a game or two sometime… 

Song of Drums and Tomahawks – Another Ganesha Game I’d like to try out. I have miniatures that could be used. Just need to find some time and sort out a scenario.

One Hour Wargames – I’ve been meaning to have a go at these for some time. Hopefully I’ll get to it this year.

Some sort of micro scale sci-fi (Epic 40K or Future War Commander or Samurai Robot Battle Royale or Dirtside or Horizon Wars) – I have a pile of 40K epic stuff that I’ve been eyeing up since the kids got interested in 40K stuff… need to find some rules to use with them…

There are a number of other Wargames from Osprey coming out this year that I might like to try out - Rogue Stars and Broken Legions look interesting... I'll probably pick up Poseidon's Warriors and Chosen Men to have a look at... 

Role-Playing Games

I’ve really had a lot of fun playing in the Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu/Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign this past year. I’d really like to get back into running some role-playing games…

Only War – mostly because I have a PILE of Imperial Guard miniatures and it’d be fun to weave it into the narrative 40K skirmish campaign. Also I’ve always been a fan of Military RPGs – there’s no faffing about with “why are we going on this quest?” – you are given orders, you carry them out to the best or your ability…

Rogue Trader – It just looks cool. Between me and the kids, we have lots of miniatures that could be used for resolving action on the tabletop…

Cthulhu – I’ve really enjoyed playing in the Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu campaign this last year and it’s got be feeling like running some of the other campaigns I have – in particular Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Maybe when we finish up Masks of Nyarlathotep.

Traveller? As a less dark alternative to Rogue Trader, I wouldn't mind running some other sci-fi game involving space travel... 

Other Board Games

Of course there are lots of other games I’d really like to play (or play more of…)… Dominion… Race for the Galaxy… Carcassonne… Giro d’Italia… Onward to Venus… and others….

Is that enough to do this year…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Painting update – 40K, Swashbucklers and dismounted ECW cavalrymen.

Perhaps a game report of the Frostgrave we played over the holidaze…