Looking Back at 2024

Well... it's been a year... 

What WERE my plans..? 

What did I actually get up to...? 

Was there any overlap in the Venn Diagram of those two things!? 

THE PLANS

Looking back at all the plans... 

Game Plan 2024 - Q1

Game Plan 2024 - Q2

Game Plan 2024 - Q3

Game Plan 2024 - Q4

I think all of those plans could largely be summed up as follows:

Get stuff painted, practice for, and play in a Warhammer 40K Tournament in February

Try to STAY FOCUSED on ONE THING: Age of Sigmar (the setting!) 

Paint Warbands for and play LOTS of Warhammer Underworlds

Paint up the miniatures for and play Warhammer Quest games (Shadows over Hammerhal, Silver Tower, Cursed City) 

Get a Role-Playing Game going - ideally Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound! 

(and maybe get a Board Game Night - or afternoon on the weekend -  going again...?)

(Maybe explore Solo Gaming more, if the above doesn't work out!) 

and then later in the year: 

Get armies ready for Age of Sigmar, Fourth Edition - first Spearhead, then Path to Glory - and play THOSE!

 

How did I do...?

Well... 

Warhammer 40K Tournament

I DID get a bunch of new stuff painted for my Tallarn Desert Raiders to play in a Warhammer 40000 Team Tournament with my friend Orion and her Space Wolves! 

By "new stuff", I mean NEWLY PAINTED, not newly purchased. It was ALL stuff I'd had for a while (and ALL of it was stuff I'd got as part of used lots, ages ago, dirt cheap!), I just finally had a reason to get them DONE! 

YAY!!

I painted: 

• 2x Astra Militarum Basilisk Self-Propelled Artillery 
• 2x Astra Militarum Manticore 
• 1x Astra Militarum Scout Sentinel 
• 8x Hunter-Killer Missile Tokens

and I played in the tournament:

Warhammer 40K - Strange Bedfellows Team Tournament

And that was pretty much IT for Warhammer 40,000 this year (other than Lost Patrol)... and I WAS trying to stay focused on the Age of Sigmar... 

Age of Sigmar 

(The Setting)

I feel like I did pretty good at STAYING FOCUSED on the Age of Sigmar setting (after the 40K tournament) - with a few small distractions (assorted solo games)!

The first half of the year was pretty much DOMINATED by Warhammer Underworlds and preparing for Warhammer Quest - both set in the Age of Sigmar. 

The Third Quarter things switched up a bit... I did try to get a campaign of Warhammer Quest started and I built up and played with Spearhead armies for the new edition of Age of Sigmar (the miniature battle game). 

In the final quarter, we continued with the Age of Sigmar versions of Warhammer Quest - finishing off Shadows over Hammerhal and starting Cursed City. There was a new edition of Warhammer Underworlds. I did get a Soulbound role-playing games going. AND I picked up a BUNCH of new stuff for a Slaves to Darkness army... but didn't really do any larger battle games... ALL of that... Age of Sigmar... so yeah, stayed fairly focused without too many distractions BEYOND the Age of Sigmar... but i did do a lot of jumping around WITHIN that setting! 

Warhammer Underworlds

For the first half of the year, I played a LOT of Warhammer Underworlds... like a LOT!! I played SEVENTY-FIVE games of the first edition this year! Seventy-one were in the first six months... and then kind of... stopped. I played only four games in whole of the third Quarter.. Partly that was because of the new edition of Age of Sigmar, and I'd shifted focus to playing Spearhead! Partly I was a little burned out on the game...

I had made suggestions about a challenge involving trying to play ten warbands ten times... of playing ALL of the warbands at least ONCE... and... neither of those happened... But here are the warbands that I DID play with in that first half of the year (with First Edition)!?

1. Wurmspat x16
2. Skabbik's Plaguepack x15
3. Thricefold Discord x9
4. Grinkrak's Looncourt x6
5. Thundrik’s Profiteers x5
6. Zondara’s Gravebreakers x4
7. Blackpowder's Buccaneers x4
8. Magore's Fiends x4
9. Dread Pageant x3
10. Mollog's Mob x2
11. Cyreni's Razors x1
12. Hrothgorn's Mantrappers x1
13. Ephilim's Pandemonium x1
14. Sons of Velmorn x 1
15. Grombrindal x1
16. Garrett’s Reavers x1

So, of fifty warbands that I own - thirty-three of which were painted -  I played with sixteen different warbands (almost half of the warbands I have painted).

(There are ohter warbands that I own and have painted that WERE played with this year, just... not by ME! Elethain's Soulraif, Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven, a few of the Stormcast warbands were all played by Amanda - so it's not like none of the others are seeing any use at all!) 

Of those seventy-five games I played, forty-three were one-on-one games. I won 20 of those... but the overall point difference was -38... so I generally lost by MORE points than I won games by.  

The other thirty-two games were multi (3-4) player games. I only won six of those. 

At the end of September, as the first Spearhead League wrapped up, there was talk of getting Warhammer Underworlds going again and maybe starting a League of sorts... And then THE PREVIEW happened and a TOTALLY NEW EDITION of Warhammer Underworlds was announced!? 

In the Final Quarter of the year, a full Second Edition was released in the form of Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard. ALL the old cards would not be playable - it was a HARD reboot of the system - No more faction decks, only generic rivals decks, with all new fighter cards and a "warscroll" of special abilities for each warband. All of the old warbands would be playable... 

I have to admit I was a little relieved with the announcement. I hadn't been playing for a while and was wondering how I could justify buying the new box and warbands and rivals decks if I wasn't still regularly playing... and with the announcement of the new edition I thought maybe I'd just STOP... there would never be another thing released for the edition that I had, I could just play with that stuff and not bother with any of the new stuff... 

but as more information cam out about the new edition and some of the other local players got excited about it, I kind of got excited enough about it, hoping we'd all get back to playing. 

One downside was the boards have changed and there is now no way to play a four-player game (unless we just used the old boards...?) and what had really been a lot of fun was playing four-player games with Nick and Orion and Amanda almost every other sunday for the first half of the year... 

We did not all instantly start playing again, though. Part of that was because.. people were busy with other things and we'd fallen out of the habit of getting together regularly, but also... the release was slow, and I'd had trouble getting cards to actually play with!? Initially the core box was released in mid November and that was it... four decks to play with the double sided board and two new warbands... but Warscrolls and cards for all the other existing warbands weren't so available... Part of that is Games Workshop and part of it is on Staples... MOST of the warscrolls and fighter cards for the older warbands were released as PDFs. The warscrolls and cards for the 16 warbands that were being released, though, were only available to BUY in a card pack called Warbands of Embergard... for $70CAD!? But it wasn't realeased until a MONTH later?! 

On release day, I played a few games with Orion - with warscrolls and Fighter cards I'd printed out in black and white and it was pretty fun... I tried getting just a few cards and warscrolls printed at Staples the following week, just to see how they turned out.. and it was pretty labour-intensive, cutting out and gluing the fronts of the fighter cards to the backs, but I was pretty happy with the result, so a few days later I ordered the rest... and it took Staples THREE AND A HALF WEEKS to get around to printing them... in the meantime, the other cards were released... but my FLGS wasn't able to get them in and if you hadn't ordered them online within a few minutes of the cards going on sale... you didn't get them!? I guess GW MASSIVELY underestimated how many people would actually want to play the new edition with their old warbands!? 

So, I'd gotten sour on the whole thing and was thinking of just saying fuck-it and throwing in the towel and moving on with other things.. 

In the end, the cards ordered through Staples finally got printed and I got in a few more games... 

I ended up playing with the following Warbands in the Fourth Quarter

1. Wurmspat x3
2. Thricefold Discord x1
3. Thorns of the Briar Queen x1
4. Zondara’s Gravebreakers x1
5. Skabbik's Plague Pack x1
6. Chosen Axes x1
7. Ironsoul's Condemnors

Total: 9 

I decided to separate them out by editions as they all play very different between editions. Some of them just has GARBAGE faction decks and, without faction decks in Second Edition, the playing fields were a bit more level... Oh, I still LOST games with them... 

As of the end of this year, I own FIFTY-TWO warbands and 34 of them are painted. I played with 19 of them at least ONCE this year. The most played (Between the two editions) were Wurmspat (18 plays), Skabbik's Plaguepack (16 plays), Thricefold Discord (10 plays), Grinkrak's Looncourt (6 plays), Thundrik’s Profiteers (5 plays), Zondara’s Gravebreakers (5 plays)

You can see pictures of them all in a Gallery I set up here:

Age of Sigmar - Warhammer Underworlds Warbands

Warhammer Quest

In the first half of the year I got a LOT of Warhammer Quest miniatures painted, hoping that through the summer I'd actually get a group PLAYING!

I got so many done, I started a Gallery Page for them:

Age of Sigmar - Warhammer Quest Miniatures

Initially the plan was to play them in order; The Silver Tower, then Shadows Over Hammerhal, then Cursed City. As summer approached, I realized it would probably be easier to finish up the stuff for Shadows Over Hammerhal!

So I finished up painting the stuff for Shadows over Hammerhal and we start playing THAT... 

Then the plan was that while playing Shadows Over Hammerhal, I could finish up miniatures for Silver Tower... Then play through Silver Tower and, while doing so, finish up the miniatures for Cursed City! 

I thought, for sure, we'd blast through Shadows Over Hammerhal in 6-8 weeks and be done by mid-late July, then blast through Silver Tower by the end of the Summer, and then start working our way through The Cursed City (and the expansion - Night Wars) through the Fall and Winter as that one seemed like it would take longer to play through... 

And I'd hoped that by the end of it, if I hadn't started one already, i might just segue into a Soulbound Role-Playing campaign (there is a book for Ulfenkarn, the setting for Cursed City!) 

That all didn't all go exactly according to play, largely for two reasons:

1) Players that were not as deeply invested and/or committed as me...? so we got started a few weeks later than I'd hoped and then SO MANY sessions were cancelled...

B) the new edition of Age of Sigmar (the miniature battle game) which thoroughly distracted me for a good chunk of the second half of the year!

We DID get started on Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal. I was running the game and Amanda, and Finnegan, and John (manager of the local Warhammer Store), and Maygan (Johns partner) were playing. We got in a couple sessions over the summer but then John and Maygan kind of bailed...  

It took me until the end of October to finally get moving on this again and just try to finish off Shadows over Hammerhal with just Amanda and Finnegan! 

In the last week of November, Amanda, Finnegan, and I started in on Warhammer Quest: Cursed City! We've been having a LOT of fun playing through it! It is going to take MUCH longer to play through than Shadows over Hammerhal did (and Silver Tower likely would)! 

So far we have played through seven journeys, bringing all the Heroes to Level One. TOMORROW we will be playing the first Decapitation Journey - trying to take down a Vargscyr!  

So... while things didn't get started as quickly as I'd hoped and we didn't get as far as I'd initially hoped... I'd say the plans for getting all the miniatures painted for the three games and then playing them, was largely a success. Especially considering interest has not dimmed and it seems like we'll continue playing this weekly into the new year! 

Soulbound

I've really wanted to get a role-playing game going for some time... with the focus on all things Age of Sigmar, Soulbound seemed like an obvious choice... and I really like the system. 

The tricky bit, as an older adult, who doesn't have an established RPG gaming group (any more)... that wants to play a "niche" game (i.e. something that ISN'T Dungeons & Dragons)... that isn't the easiest thing in the world to DO!? 

I'd tried earlier in the year... but life happened and plans got cancelled. 

I thought maybe after we'd played through the Warhammer Quest games I'd be able to segue into a role-playing game, but when we finally got going on those, I realized it could be 2026 before we finish playing through ALL of Cursed City (and maybe Silver Tower), so i said fuck it, let's do both concurently and managed to get not one, but TWO games going - one online with friends out of town, and one in-person!? There were a few stumbles getting both started, but I've managed to get in two sessions of both campaigns so far this year and it's looking like they could both be weekly things continuing into the new year!! 

(I'd still really like to play the new Twilight: 2000 and Bladerunner and Hellboy role-playing games... but those will have to wait while I ride this wave of interest!!)

Board Games

This has been an off year for board games - well, board games that were not Warhammer Underworlds! 

We did, briefly, in the Spring, get a semi-regular Board Game Night going on... but that fizzled and we didn't get it going again... There was a one-off game day in October... and then the rest were over the Holidaze! 

According to BoardGameGeek, in 2024 we played... 

• Warhammer Underworlds (First Edition) x75
• Lost Patrol x10
• Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard (Second Edition) x9
• Warhammer Age Of Sigmar (Fourth Edition) x8
• Warhammer Quest: Cursed City x8
• Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal x8
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound x8
• Warhammer 40,000 (Tenth Edition) x7
• Splendor x5
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Crypt Hunters x4
• NMBR 9 x3
• Tinderblox x2
• Wingspan x2
• Abyss x1
• Betrayal at House on the Hill x1
• Calico x1
• Carcassonne x2
• Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
• Century: Golem Edition x1
• Dixit x1
• Five Men in Normandy .30 Cal edition x1
• Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala x1
• Giro D'Italia Card Game x1
• The Hanging Gardens x1
• Lacuna x1
• Linkage: A DNA Card Game x1
• Mysterium x1
• Pirate Fluxx x1
• RoboRally x1
• SET x1
• Stone Age x1
• Tokaido x1
• Wingspan Asia x1
• Wyrmspan x1

171 Total Games Played!!

34 Different games were played. 

84 of those were Warhammer Underworlds (between the two editions ) accounting for over half of the games played in 2024

16 were more traditional tabletop miniature games 8x Age of Sigmar, 7x 40K,  1x Solo Game (as opposed to hybrind board/miniature games - like Warhammer Underworlds and Warhammer Quest and others) 

8 were Role-Playing Game sessions (4 were making Characters and sorting out backgrounds, 4 were actually PLAYING ADVENTURES!) 

63 were actual BOARD GAMES (other than Warhammer Underworlds!) 

Though, of those 63 Board Games, 30 of them were board games with fully painted Warhammer miniatures (Lost Patrol, Crypt Hunters, Warhammer Quest: Cursed City and Warhammer QuestL Shadows over Hammerhal)... Similar to Warhammer Underworlds  

Solo Games

At the end of 2023 I'd gotten interested in the idea of Solo Gaming. 

Earlier in the year I'd run a sort of online campaign set in the Back of Beyond and the battles were mostly played out solo, by myself, using One Hour Wargames... and I'd really had a fun time doing that. 

Later in the year I finally got around to trying out Five Parsecs from Home - which I'd picked up the PDF of nearly a year earlier! That, too, was a lot of fun! I ended up only playing one SOLO game with miniatures, but I ended up using the system to run a few RPG-lite games for friends online... but that fizzled around the beginning of this year. 

So in the new year, I decided to keep that open as an option... either playing more Five Parsecs from Home or exploring other games (Five Leagues from the Borderlands) - I'd even initially planned that I could play the Warhammer Quest games solo, if I didn't find other people that were willing to play.

In the end, I didn't so much PLAYING of solo games... But throughout the year I did a lot of thinking about and planning for and even some miniature painting in preparation for various solo miniature games. I got VERY EXCITED about Devilry Afoot - a new solo/co-op game of monster hunting in the 16th/17th centuries by Nic Wright! 

In the end, I only played one game of Five Men in Normandy - a solo WW2 game by the same author as Five Parsecs from Home. 

I wouldn't say this was a failure, as it was always a plan kept in my back pocket, in case I could not find other people to play games with... and I DID end up playing a lot of games with people!!

Age of Sigmar 

(The Game) 

New Edition and Spearhead Armies

In July the new edition of Age of Sigmar was released. I picked up the Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Skaventide release box - which contained TWO complete Spearhead armies... 

Previous to that, expecting that I'd be playing it with the group i'd been playing Warhammer Underworlds with, I'd purchased and painted a Hedonites of Slaanesh Spearhead Army. 

Hedonites of Slaanesh Spearhead Army

Despite HAVING a Hedonites of Slaanesh army for Age of Sigmar, that I put together when the previous edition had been released, almost all of them were Daemons, and NONE of the Spearhead army were Daemons, and so I had none of the units required to put a Spearhead army together?! 

Then I'd bought a Soulblight Gravelords Spearhead army... because I was placing an order for other things and the place I was ordering from had the Soulblight Gravelords Spearhead army on sale (which convenitenly put me into free shipping zone!)... and I figured I pretty much have a Soulblight Gravelords army from all the stuff in Warhammer Quest Cursed City... and Vampires are cool... and I needed the Vampire in the box for one of the personalities in Night Wars... and could always do with more Skeletons... 

Then I traded my 40K Imperial Knights away for an Age of Sigmar Blades of Khorne army... 

and painted up a Blades of Khorne Spearhead Army... 

Then I bought TWO MORE Army Boxes from the Bargain Bin at the Dragon's Den... largely for the terrain and the requisite miniatures to make a Daughters of Khaine Spearhead Army (Sixth!)... 

AND THEN... during the local Warhammer Store's First Anniversary event... I bought ANOTHER (Seventh) Spearhead army and within a week (or so) had a painted Sylvaneth Spearhead Army... 

Sylvaneth Spearhead Army

So that was seven (SEVEN!) Spearhead armies Acquired in three months!? 

WTF was I thinking!? (They all seemed like a good idea at the time... and I HAD been thinking I'd buy the release box and then sell off BOTH the Stormcast AND Skaven halves and just keep the rules and stuff...) Three of them got painted over those three months... 

AND THEN they released the Slaves to Darkness Battletome and a whole new Darkoath Spearhead army for the Slaves to Darkness in November.. So.. OBVIOUSLY...

Now I have EIGHT Spearhead armies... 

(Oh, and... I'm close to a ninth, if I pick up a box of Tzeentch Flamers!?) 

Maybe I SHOULD sell off those Skaven...?

Spearhead League

I DID play in the Warhammer Store's Speahead League from July until September). I only got in six games... but ended up coming in second overall (out of six players...?)... without winning a SINGLE game...? Points were given for playing a game, winning a game and playing with a painted army... and then bonus points were awarded for each different opponent you faced and each different fully-painted army you used during the league. I played six games with fully painted armies. I used three different fully-painted armies over the course of the league and played four different opponents!?

 

Path to Glory Campaign

In November, John at the Warhammer Store organized a Path to Glory campaign... 

I did a LOT OF THINKING about what army to play in the camapaing. Finally I settled on Hedonites of Slaanesh, largely because I didn't need to paint a thing for it (other than the endless spells...)... but then actually looked at the rules for all of them and what I had that I COULD build... and then decided I needed to do a completely DIFFERENT Hedonites of Slaanesh army that seemed like WAY MORE FUN! But that would require painting 15 more mounted seeker cavalry... and I started in on them... and then I had a practice game and broke another slickblade seeker - just getting it out of the cabinet!? So when it was announced that, for this league being run by the store, games had to be played IN the store... and I'm just not feeling like transporting the Hedonites there every week for games and then having to repair these dainty little models that break... 

So I starting thinking again, and, despite the fact that I could totally run Blades of Khorne if I painted ONE UNIT of Blood Warriors... or Sylvaneth if I painted up 15 Tree-revenants (which are super quick and easy to paint...), I settled on Slaves to Darkness... which I have next to NOTHING painted for... but seemed like more fun and the minis seem a bit more beefy and able to be transported without TOO much damage!?

In the end, I didn't get any of those done in time and just decided to not play in this league/campaign... but would have armies ready for the next one... and started thinking about running my OWN campaign!? More on that soon-ish... 

Before the League started I DID get in a game of Age of Sigmar WITH the Hedonites of Slaanesh army... 

MINIATURES

This is, in theory, a MINIATURE Wargaming blog, afterall... a place where I shared what I was up to in the hobby and a LARGE part of that hobby has been the acquisition, assembling, painting and basing of models and terrain! 

As always, for the last few years, the PLAN has been to BUY LESS STUFF and PAINT MORE... 

PAINTING

While, I DID manage to PAINT a LOT MORE this year than I have for the last few... 

In 2023 I painted 66x 28mm Foot, 4x 28mm Mounted

In 2022 I painted 57x 28mm Foot, 2x 28mm Mounted, 13 Tokens and Terrain Bits, 3x 28mm Vehicle/Bigger Beasties, and a PILE of Micro/Epic Scale miniatures

In 2021 I painted 216x 28mm Foot

THIS YEAR, I painted... 

• 286x 28mm Foot
• 22x 28mm Mounted/Beasties 
• 7x Vehicles/Monsters,
• 34 Small Terrain Bits/Tokens

So... More than DOUBLE what I painted in 2022 and 2023 combined! More than I painted in 2021, as well... 

For a complete list of items acquired and painted (with links to the posts) check out: 

2024 Painted versus Purchased

ACQUISITIONS    

The increase in painting came about because of an increase in interest in playing miniature games again... unfortunately, that interest also meant BUYING MOAR MINIATURES!?

This year I bought (or otherwise acquired through gifts of TRADES!):

• 28mm Foot: 559
• 28mm Mounted/Beasties:59
• 28mm Vehicles/Monsters: 2
• Small Terrain Bits: 2
• Larger Terrain Bits: 2

71 of the 28mm foot and 5 of the Mounted/Beasties were acquired through TRADE... (I traded of three 40K Knights for and ENTIRE BLADES OF KHORNE army!?)

DISPOSALS

I did, however, get RID of a few things, either through trade or sale or just giving them away... 

• 28mm Foot (painted): 12
• 28mm Foot (Unpainted): 108
• 28mm Vehicles (unpainted): 1
• 28mm Titanic Vehicles (painted): 2
• 28mm Titanic Vehicles (unpainted): 1

So, when considering the trades and other disposals... the NET gain of things unpainted 28mm Foot miniatures was 451... STILL more than the 286 I painted... 

So...  miniatures got painted... games were played...? yay...?

Stay tuned for GAME PLAN 2025/Q1 which will be posted shortly after this!!

Oooof! That was a bit of a slog... for any that made it all the way, thanks for being here! hope you weren't bored to tears by it all... 

What were  YOUR Gaming/Hobby Highlights of 2024!? 

Game Plan 2024 - Q4

We are three-quarters of the way through the year! Where did the time go!?

As with the last few Quarterly Plans, I'm not here to make any hard and fast PLANS, per se… Just set some general intentions which I will look back in 3 months, without judgement, and see what I DID manage to do! Did I do the things I said I would…? Did I do something completely different (but still SOMETHING!?) 

What DID I plan for this past quarter? What DID I end up doing? You can see the plan here:

Game Plan 2024 - Q3

As for what I did manage to get up to... 

GAMES

Things were a bit slower over the summer... I'd like to say it was because I was getting out lots and going for long rides and just generally enjoying the outdoors... instead it was HOT and SMOKEY and I didn't get out much at all... People were just busy with other things. 

Here is what I got to playing in the last three months... 

• Warhammer Age Of Sigmar (Fourth Edition) x7
• Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal x4
• Warhammer Underworlds: Deathgorge x4
• NMBR 9 x2
• Betrayal at House on the Hill x1
• Carcassonne x1
• Dixit x1
• Five Men in Normandy .30 Cal edition x1
• Warhammer 40,000 (Tenth Edition) x1

Total: 22 games! 

Yiiiiiikes... that's like half the games I played in each of the other quarters so far... 

Here's what we've played so far this year:

• Warhammer Underworlds: Deathgorge x75
• Warhammer 40,000 (Tenth Edition) x7
• Warhammer Age Of Sigmar (Fourth Edition): Core Rules x7
• Splendor x4
• Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal x4
• NMBR 9 x2
• Wingspan x2
• Abyss x1
• Betrayal at House on the Hill x1
• Carcassonne x1
• Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
• Century: Golem Edition x1
• Dixit x1
• Five Men in Normandy .30 Cal edition x1
• The Hanging Gardens x1
• Lacuna x1
• Mysterium x1
• RoboRally x1
• SET 1
• Stone Age x1
• Tokaido x1
• Wingspan Asia x1
• Wyrmspan x1

Total: 117 games!? 

That's a little better... Hopefully Q4 will be better still! 

Role-Playing Games

STILL havent' managed to get a role-playing game going... maybe by the end of the year!? 

Solo/Co-op Games

We DID, finally, start playing Warhammer Quest! There have been some hiccups and a LOT of cancelled games... and we did not get nearly as far as I'd hoped... (I'd had this idea that we'd be DONE Shadows over Hammerhal and well into The Silver Tower by now...) It was all very disappointing. There has been noise about getting it going again in October... But Amanda will be out for the first two weeks as she's heading off to a course and a short vacation. 

Still have a LOT to do to finish up all the Cursed City miniatures (having been thoroughly distracted by Age of Sigmar 4th Edition and Spearhead!)... but it doesn't seem like there's much of a need to rush... Or... Maybe there is... Maybe I'm just going to have to play through that one on my own... 

I DID however pick up a new game from Nic Wright called Devilry Afoot that I've been getting things ready for... 

And I DID just start playing a little solo campaign of Five Men in Normandy! 

So... there's that... 

Board Games

There was a hiccup around the beginning of July and Board Game Night fell off my radar and no one else brought it up and it kind of died… 

Miniature Games

I bought Warhammer Age of Sigmar Skaventide in July - my first ever core release of one of GW's Flagship games!? And I have been thoroughly distracted from all previous plans (Warhammer Underworlds, Warhammer Quest). I got VERY excited about the Spearhead format of play - smaller, fixed lists... there was an element of it that reminded me of DBA...  

I managed to paint THREE full Spearhead armies (Hedonites of Slaanesh, Blades of Khorne, and Sylvaneth) and played in the Spearhead at the local Warhammer Store (though that only amounted to six games... and I played one other at home with Orion one night...) 

Also... I managed to acquire FOUR MORE Spearhead armies, which I HAVEN'T finished painting (Skaven, Stormcast, Daughters of Khaine, and Soulblight Gravelords!?) 

(I had most of the Daughters of Khaine army already, I just needed two units... which I picked up in a deeply discounted battle box... along with a deeply discounted Starter box from 3rd Edition...)

Oh, and I picked up a Dark Oath Army box... 

And Hargax's Pit Beasts... 

Yeah, shit got a little out of control this past Quarter.

Warhammer Underworlds

I still played a few games of Warhammer Underworlds! Things have definitely slowed down though. Like, a LOT! Part of that is a general slow down in the community as everyone has been distracted by the new edition of Age of Sigmar and the new Spearhead format of play! I've played FOUR GAMES this past Quarter!? Compared to the SEVENTY-ONE games I'd played in the first half of the year!? 

Tournaments/Conventions

There was a small Warhammer Underworlds tournament at The Warhammer Store at the very beginning of the Quarter. Both Amanda and I went. 

Warhammer Underworlds: Rivals Event

MINIATURES

Acquisitions

In previous plans I'd done acquisitions as an afterthough... AFTER the section about what I actually got painted. This time around I've decided to do Acquisitions first... because... things went a little overboard... but then it gives me a chance, in the painting section, to go over what, of all that, I managed to actually PAINT!? 

Initially I’d thought I’d get the Skaventide box and sell off the Stormcast AND Skaven and just keep the rules and board and cards and terrain for spearhead… but by the time it was actually released I’d decided that Spearhead was going to be super fun and I was cranking through models very quickly and it was decided I’d at least keep the Spearhead forces of both Stormcast and Skaven and maybe sell off or trade away the extras… But so far I’ve not done that either. I’ve assembled most/all of the Stormcast... I have wavered on whether or not to keep Skaven.

THEN I bought a Soulblight Gravelords box (telling myself that I needed the Vampire Lord for Cursed City anyway)… 

(adding to the Soulblight army box that I'd bought a few weeks earlier at the end of June -because I had a Soulblight army now… and the bats were needed for Cursed City)… 

And then Hargax's Pit-Beasts... for... REASONS!? 

and then MORE BOXES that were deeply discounted and gave me MORE terrain and the models I needed to finish up a Daughters of Khaine Spearhead force… 

and then the Darkoath Army Set… 

Also, in the middle of all that nonsense, I made a MAJOR trade - I gave away my three 40K Knights in trade for an entire Blades of Khorne Age of Sigmar army!? 

In total I acquired:

28mm Foot Figures

• 1x Kroot (Free Miniature-of-the-Month July 2024)
• 1x Lord-Terminos
• 1x Lord-Terminos' Memorian
• 1x Lord-Veritant
• 1x Gryph-crow 
• 1x Knight-Questor
• 3x Reclusians 
• 2x Reclusian Memorians 
• 10x Liberators
• 1x Grey Seer
• 1x Warlock Engineer 
• 3x Rat Ogors
• 6x Warplock Jezzails
• 40x Clanrats
• 1x Vampire Lord
• 3x Vargheists
• 20x Deathrattle Skeletons 
• 2x Bloodsecrator 
• 2x Bloodstoker
• 1x Mighty Lord of Khorne 
• 2x Slaughterpriest 
• 20 Blood Warriors 
• 40x Bloodreavers 
• 5x Skullreapers 
• 1x High Gladiatrix 
• 5x Khinerai Heartrenders
• 10x Sisters of Slaughter/Witch Aelves
• 1x Scriptor Mortis
• 5x Craventhrone Guard
• 10x Bladeheist Revenants
• 1x Spirit Torment
• 2x Chainghasts
• 4x Myrmourn Banshees
• 1x Lord-Imperatant
• 1x Gryph-hound
• 3x Praetors 
• 5x Vindictors
• 1x Swampcalla Shaman
• 1x Pot-grot
• 10x Gutrippaz
• 10x Hobgrot Slittaz
• 20x Darkoath Marauder
• 6x Saviors of Cinderfall
• 1x BranchWych
• 5x Tree Revenants 
• 10x Spite/Tree Revenants 
• 1x Brakki the Guilded Key

Total: 282 x28mm miniatures and 

Yeah.. that was a bit much… But also...

28mm Mounted or Smaller Beasties!

• 3x Hargax’s Pit-Beasts  
• 1x Lord-Vigilant on Gryph-stalker  
• 1x Clawlord on Gnaw-Beast  
• 3x Prosecutors  
• 5x Blood Knights  
• 1x Khorgorath  
• 3x Mighty Skullcrushers 
• 5x Doomfire Warlocks 
• 1x Darkoath Chieftain on Warsteed  
• 1x Wilderfiend 
• 5x Darkoath Fellriders 
• 3x Kurnothi Hunters

Total: 32 x 28mm Mounted miniatures or Smaller Beasties 

28mm BIG Beasties/Vehicles

• 1x Chaos Gargant (Q2)
• 1x Ratling Warpblaster (Q3)
• 1x Treelord  (Q3) 

Terrain

Little Bits/Markers/Tokens

• 2x Skaventide/Spearhead Terrain bits(Q3) 

Medium Terrain Bits

• 2x Skaventide/Spearhead Terrain bits (Q3) 
• 1x Nexus syphon (Q3 AoS3 Extremis Starter Set) 
• 1x Guardian idol (Q3 AoS3 Extremis Starter Set) 
• 2x Domicile shells (Q3 AoS3 Extremis Starter Set) 
• 1x Pile of pillars (Q3 AoS3 Extremis Starter Set) 
• 3x Awakened Wyldwood (Q3) 

Total: 10

Painting

The Plan was to finish painting the Hedonites of Slaanesh Vanguared Box, so I'd be ready to play Spearhead when the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar was released... 

...and I DID do that!!

Beyond that, the plan was to just carry on painting up Warhammer Underworlds warbands and Warhammer Quest stuff - and mix in some more of the other Warhammer Age of Sigmar models that I had (Daemons of Slaanesh and Daughters of Khaine). 

That changed quickly with the news of the new mode of play for the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar - SPEARHEAD. I got a little TOO excited about that and Age of Sigmar in general and ended up acquiring a LOT of new minis - as detailed above... mostly purchased, but a good chunk just through trade... 

Here is what I DID get to painting this past Quarter:

28mm Foot

• 5x Putrid Blightkings
• 1x Shardspeaker of Slaanesh
• 3x Slaangor Fiendbloods
• 11x Blissbarb Archers
• 2x Slaughterpriests
• 3x Blood Warriors
• 7x Blood Warriors
• 10x Bloodreavers
• 5x Garrek's Reavers
• 1x Melusai Ironscale
• 1x Dez, the Space Sloth
• 1x Spirit Torment
• 2x Chainghasts
• 1x Knight-Questor
• 1x Space Marine Scout
• 4x Black Ark Reavers
• 4x Lumineth Aelves
• 10x Bladegheist Revenants
• 1x Green Swashbuckling Handgunner
• 1x Red Pikeman
• 6x Blue Swashbucklers
• 2x Highlanders
• 1x Branchwych
• 5x Tree-Revenants

Total: 88 x 28mm Foot

28mm Mounted/Smaller Beasties

• 5x Slickblade Seekers 
• 1x Ogroid Myrmidon 
• 1x Fomoroid Crusher 
• 1x Mighty Skullcrusher 
• 2x Mighty Skullcrushers  
• 3x Kurnothi Hunters 

Total; 13 x Mounted/Smaller Beasties

28mm BIG Beasties/Vehicles

• 1x Treelord

Total: 1x Vehicles/ BIG Beasties

Little Bits/Markers/Tokens

• 1x Beastgrave Tentacle Terrain Bit
• 1x Warhammer Underworlds Terrain bit 
• 2x Small Terrain Bits from Skaventide 

Total: 4 x Little Bits/Markers/Tokens

Medium Terrain Bits

• 2x Walls from Staventide 
• 4x Slit Trenches 

So... that's ONE Warhammer Underworlds warbands (totalling 5 minatures)...

But... I completed THREE spearhead armies completed totalling 54 miniatures (including eight mounted, and a GIGANTIC Treelord!?) 

Miniature painting production Continues to pick up momentum this quarter! In the first quarter I only managed to paint 38 x28mm foot miniatures, Second Quarter I painted 76 x28mm foot miniatures, this Quarter I painted x28mm foot miniatures! So far this year, that's xx x28mm foot miniatures. In 2023 I painted only 66 x28mm foot miniatures in the entire year... In 2022, only 57 x28mm foot miniatures!? 

So I DID get a Blades of Khorne Spearhead Army done (though there are still a LOT of Khorne Bloodbound to paint!) 

I DID paint all of Hargax's Pit Beasts... 

The Sylvaneth Spearhead Army

Disposals

I traded away three 40K knights - one completely painted, one mostly painted, one unassembled and on the sprue... 

I traded/gave away a few other unpainted 28mm foot miniatures

GAME PLAN 2024 - Q3 

GAMES

Well... things have slowed down over the summer, but there is no need for that trend to continue!!!

Using a lot of the same categories as previous Game Plans... 

Solo/Co-op Games 

This is one area that I'm hoping will take off this fall... 

I hope we do get back to playing Warhammer Quest: Shadows Over Hammerhal... 

I am DETERMINED to start Cursed City by the end of the year if I have to just start playing through it myself!? (Though it would be nice if I could at least get Amanda and/or Finnegan to play!?) 

I don't know about Silver Tower... Maybe I'll get to that one next year...?

There are a number of other Solo/Co-op games I'd like to toy around with this fall/winter...

I'd love to pick up the Five Parsecs from Home campaign I'd started... AGES ago... 

I'd like to continue the Five Men in Normandy campaign I just started. 

I would REALLY LOVE to try out Devilry Afoot and maybe run a short campaign of that as well! 

Or any of the other games from Nordic Weasel or Modiphius that I've picked up (Five Kilometres From Leipzig or Five Leagues from the Botherlands, etc) 

Warhammer Underworlds

Interest in this has flagged a bit... maybe we'll get it going again in the fall... 

It's surprising there hasn't been two more warbands for Wintermaw!? October is usually when the new "season" core release takes place?!

Age of Sigmar

There is talk of a Paths to Glory campaign at the Warhammer Store this fall... I am considering joining in on it... I am a little underwhelmed by the Paths to Glory system included in the Core Rules of Age of Sigmar 4th Edition (compared to the ones included in 3rd Edition...) but I'll give it a try. 

Part of me has thought about coming up with something of my own to run... more like 3rd... or a Map campaign... but I've decided I should focus my own energies elsewhere. 

Will there be more Spearhead...? I don't know... We'll see... Despite my initial excitement, I have to admit, I do not LOVE the game. I don't hate it... but it has a lot of the same problems a LOT of GW games have these days - the games feel more like a sporting event than any sort of combat simulation - having to constantly react to ever-changing nonsensical objectives each round... ugh... 

Other Board Games

Wow... we have really not been playing board games much... 

It would be nice to get some regular board game night going again... but I'm not holding my breath. 

Other Miniature Games

Well I got a lot of solo and co-op miniature games planned... I'm not sure if I'll get to any others... 

I guess I am interested in exploring options with games by Dan Mercy (Dragon Rampant, etc) and One Hour Wargames... but that may very likely be played solo... 

I'd also love to return to Song of Blades and Heroes... but it's entirely likely that those games would be played as co-op or GM (me) versus players... 

Role-Playing Games

Will THIS be the quarter that I FINALLY get a game of Soulbound going on...? I don't know... I sure hope so!

Tournaments/Conventions

I don't know of any coming up in Q4... not sure I'm interested in any. 

Game Weekend 

There was some brief chat about hosting a Game Weekend this fall... but that's all fallen by the wayside as no one in interested enough to actually commit to showing up any particular weekend. 

MINIATURES

On the plus side, the miniature painting has drasticall increased over the year... unfortunately not as much as the miniature PURCHASING has increased... If I managed to keep pace with what i've painted this past quarter or two... I totally won't even be close to painting more than I've purchased... ah well, maybe next year!? 

Painting

I will probably paint miniatures. 

It feel foolhardy to try and decide, NOW, what I might paint over the next few months. 

GENERALLY SPEAKING

I will probably paint stuff for Age of Sigmar - whether that is the fantasy battle game (either Spearhead OR Paths to Glory), or Warhammer Underworlds, or Warhammer Quest (Cursed City) or characters and encounters for the Soulbound role-playing game... there will be some stuff for that setting... 

I have a feeling I'll paint some other stuff, too, though... whether for Devilry Afoot or any of those other solo games... 

I also have a LOT of stuff I'm still slowly rebasing. It takes time - time away from painting NEW things (which is the main metric I seem to use to track "progress") but will ultimately make more miniatures available for games I might actually PLAY...!?

Acquisitions

There will likely be a few new things released for Warhammer Underworlds. If the pattern of the last few years is any indication, there should still be two expansion warbands for Wintermaw and a pair of rivals decks.... I may or may not pick the warbands up. I will probably pick up the decks. 

The new starter box (which will be in a whole new setting - Mosscairn, in Ghyran - if the rumours are to be believed!) would normally be expected in October... but as we haven't seen the last of Wintermaw, it could be later in November... 

I don't really NEED anything else... 

There are a few things I've thought about as possible additions to Age of Sigmar armies I have that I could use in a Paths to Glory campaign... I should probably just do something SENSIBLE and run an army that I already HAVE loads of stuff for... like Blades of Khorne... I easily have over fifteen hundred points of stuff painted for that... maybe eighteen...? 

If anything, I'd like to get a bit of terrain... maybe some cheap simple laser-cut stuff - Generic European row houses for urban combat... or maybe I'll just build it myself. 

Thinking About Things... Making Plans...

A long and rambling post about miniatures and games and campaigns and what to do when you realize you have more miniatures than you will ever get to painting in your lifetime...  

It has been over three weeks since I played any games - over a month since I've played Age of Sigmar (Spearhead) and I can feel I'm drifting into the Danger Zone... where I loose sight of what I was doing and the mind starts wandering and thinking about and considering... DIFFERENT STUFF! 

I was sick for the last two weeks of August and just starting to feel like I'm on the mend. I've not been doing much and there were a few times I found myself in the basement game room, doing some tidying and just staring at the ridiculous number of drawers that I have all these miniatures stored in and pondering how I acquired them all and thinking about what the plans were and how that has changed and feeling like another wave of change was on the way... 

I don't know how QUICKLY any of these things might happen... but things will probably happen at some point... 

This actually started months ago... or... years ago, depending on when you could things as having "started"...? 

But within the last few months, while contemplating the collection and considering what I might be able to discard (to make space for some of the RECENT ACQUISITIONS (and there have been a few things I've decided to get rid of... but I haven't exactly figures out HOW to do that yet... I digress... I will probably do this often...) 

THE GREEKS

I'd been looking at the Greeks for a while now... The plan, initially, was to build MULTIPLE Classical period Later Greek Hoplite armies for De Bellis Antiquitatis - to potentially play a Peloponnesian War campaign, at SOME point... 

So much of my planning has been around CAMPAIGNS! I LOVE the idea of campaigns. I just don't love playing one-of battles with no context. They are a little boring to me. Most of the best experiences in this hobby have been through gathering friends and playing through campaigns - either weekend affairs or the occasional extended one. 

Some of my WORST experiences in the hobby have been during those very same campaigns... usually people related, people that just want to WIN and will abuse loop holes or try to find loopholes and constantly demand rulings about this or that and/or complain about rulings or just complain about the rules and things that are "wrong" with them when they don't benefit them... 

Also just the energy and stress involved in trying to ORGANIZE a campaign... getting gamers to commit to things is sometimes like herding cats... and to get ENOUGH together at the same time, one ends up having to invite those sorts of people that CAUSE those very worst experiences... 

Do I keep hope that I will again run campaigns...? Do I just entirely give up on the idea!? If the latter... what do I do with all these!? 

I have to admit, I don't know THAT much ABOUT the Peloponnesian War... I have no idea how I settled on the city states that I settled on... (I have a feeling that it might be that they were the cities in Perikles - a board game by Martin Wallace...?) 

Here's the state of some of those forces... 

Athens... I think some (most) of these were from Crusader Miniatures...? I got two Spear elements done and some Psiloi and Light Horse - and done in my old basing system which involved MORE minatures than the regular DBA rules suggested - because I thought it made the elements look more like UNITS they were representing. 

The bases the unpainted ones are on are temporary painting bases that I put all the miniatures I'm going to eventually affix to multi-figure bases, for something to hold onto while painting. 

(for almost all of these armies I have completed the Psioloi and Light Horse elements - I'm pretty sure I did them all as one big batch one winter, years ago...) 

SPARTA!!! 

Again two elements of Spear completed and Psiloi and Light Horse options... These are mostly Black Tree Design. I bought a lot of BTD at some point in the past. They have MASSIVE ranges and would periodically have sales where a number of the packs within the range were 70% off!? So I would buy many multiples of each of THOSE packs and maybe a few others for variety and end up with entire armies of them... most of the Greek Hoplite armies - other than the Athenians are made up of the BTD minatues.

This box also has a bunch of singly based miniatures for skirmish/role-playing games. A bunch are from Crocodile games and there is a mix of Foundry miniatures in there... these are in this box, because i was running out of room in the more Greek "Heroes"drawer... These were ones I'd specifically painted as Spartans... there was room in the Spartan box, so I put them in here... 

One of the thoughts I've had about this collection is whether or not to continue with the idea of building multiple DBA hoplite armies... or just rebase them all singly for... other games... and WHICH GAMES!? (more on this in a bit...) 

Megara... haven't done any of the Spear... but have finished Psiloi and Light Horse. 

Corinth - Two Spear, plus Light Horse and Psiloi... 

Thebes... Just the Psiloi... 

If I was trying to do the cities from the Perikles game I'd still need an Argos army... 

Of course, I might have had an idea about using Perikles as a campaign system/scenario generator - which, if I recall, might have worked as there was a whole strategic element to the game where your family tried to gain influence in teh various cities... and then there are the battles that are generated by the strategic element of the games turns and then there's a whole combat resolution portion to each round... and I thought a miniature game of some sort might be substituted for the pure dice rolling to determine the outcome of the battles... If that was the case, I might have just decided to just not bother with making specific armies for each of the cities and just tried to make them all as generic as possible and just know that the ones on one side of the table were from one city, the others on the other side were from the other...?

The Greek Heroes drawer... I know the label says "Greek Myth" and some of them are heroes from Greek Myth, but most are just historical hoplites that I was using for Generic Greek Warriors in skirmish games inspired by Greek Myth.

I seem to have been much more motivated to paint individual miniatures - for skirmish/role-playing games! These are a mix of leftovers from the massive army purchases and other things I specifically bought for historical - or MYTHICAL - skirmish games... 

Mythical Greek Gods and Monsters! 

And this is what got all of this thinking started... 

I very definitely have been planning to rebase all of these. They are metal miniatures on metal washers for bases and that is VERY heavy and has been distorting these plastic drawers. I have been slowly (very slowly) working through such collections and rebasing them all to wooden discs or plastic bases. partly to lighten the collections (slightly) but also (slightly) distribute the load, as the wooden discs and plastic based are slightly larger than the washers... (I think the washers are 7/8" and the wooden discs/plastic bases are 1" or 25mm).

WHILE considering this (well... considering whether to do the Greeks with plastic bases OR wooden discs) I started to wonder about all the other Greek miniatures in the OTHER drawers (above) originally slated for multifigure bases for DBA... MAYBE it was time to give up on the idea of DBA and rebase the lot of them onto individual bases and just use them for other games (and/or get rid of a bunch of them!) 

What games though...? 

There is Dragon Rampant (or Lion Rampant, I guess, but Lion Rampant is more specifically for Medieval forces and battles)

I could put a bunch of Geneic (or not-so-Generic) Greek Hoplite forces together for these and use THIS to play out any games - or even a campaign... 

It's been a while, though, and I feel like a game of Dragon Rampant takes a bit more time than a game of DBA... and the thing I like about DBA is that games can be played in under an hour and you can thus play out and entire campaign in a weekend!?

So I got thinking and realized... there is One-Hour Wargames... and it has a Classic Period set of rules. I haven't played those specifically... but I did play and entire campaign using the Machine Age Rules from this book for a "Back of Beyond" campaign set during the Russian Civil War, which WAS a LOT of fun. 

Further making me consider the rebasing of ALL THE GREEKS are the Amazons... these too were originally slated to be a Hordes of the Things army - which I figured I could use with all the above Historical Greek Hoplite armies in a more fantastical/mythological campaign... These were rebased a number of years ago (from the temporary painting bases to metal washers) as I'd kind of given up on Hordes of the things...

(there is MORE to this collection - a bunch of light cavalry and a chariot or two... the chariots are stored elsewhere - for the moment as there just wasn't space in this box - the Cavalry was moved out of the box, temporarily, to possibly be rebased!) 

I'd given up on Hordes of the Things because it seemed ridiculous to me to have two of so many things - one set on individual bases (for skirmish/role-playing games) and another set of the same things on multi-figure bases (for Hordes of the Things). The nail in the coffin Dragon Rampant - I liked it much more than Hordes of the Things and it didn't require multi-figure bases. 

(Yes, I KNOW you CAN play Dragon Rampant with figures on multi-figure bases... so I COULD have just left them on the multi-figure bases and been able to use them for BOTH games... but ultimately I figured everything on individual bases would be more versatile and I probably woudln't miss playing Hordes of the Things all that much!) 

My army of Centaurs and Satyrs - which WERE orignially based for Hordes of the Things and used in games... AND I'd had a mix of miniatures on multi-figure bases for Hordes of the Things and a handful of others on individual bases... now they're all on individual bases and I am much happier... though they are all on metal washers... so not THAT happy, as I will need to, as some point, re-re-base these onto plastic (or wood) bases... 

So... is it decided...? am I giving up on Later Greek Hoplites DBA armies and a Peloponnesian War DBA campaign...? Is everything going onto individual bases!? Maybe...  Probably... 

Which game will I reorganize these all for...? How much will I keep and how much will I discard?! I don't know... on one had, I feel like I should just leave them be until I'm actually INTERESTED in revisiting Classic Greek Wars... but on the other hand, I feel like some thought and planning could consolidate some of this collection into fewer drawers (freeing up space for other things that are needing storage!!). On the other other hand (my third hand!?) I am concerned that if I DO start that level of planning I'm at risk of getting COMPLETELY SIDETRACKED from what I HAVE been working on (Age of Sigmar!) and go all in on rebasing and painting GREEKS??!

If I do get to reorganizing, I think the level of decisions I'd have to make is what could make up an army in the other games and how many do I need to keep - complete armies of each city state I'd want to represent in a campaign..? Or just two (or four?) more GENERIC Greek hoplite forces to play out games one (or two) at a time that are generated by whatever campaign system/scenario generator that I happen to settle on... Keep the miniatures necessary for THOSE and paint and/or rebase as required/when necessary... 

Dammit... You know what...? Now that I'm thinking about it, I think it was seeing Airborne Grove over on the Give 'em Lead blog going off on a Greek Mythology side track that may have gotten ME thinking about all the Greeks - mythological and otherwise - again!? The dangers of looking at other people blogs... 

Oh, I realized there was also THIS game on my shelf next to One-Hour Wargames, which I'd picked up at some point when I was getting really excited about Neil Thomas' games... I realized I'd never even looked at it... it's a more involved game and looks like it ALSO uses multi-figure bases... so... probably not...  

Of course with too much time on my hands while sick the last week or two... and it being too long since I've played any of the games that I've been trying to focus on... all this thinkifying and considering expanded to OTHER collections... 

THE ROMANS

The Roman collection is in much the same state as the Greeks and has a similar origin... 

Thinking about this collection was likely also inspired by watching the first season of Those About To Die on Prime last week...

The collection began with the acquisition of a HUGE lot of old Early Imperial Romans in a trade years ago... (maybe decades...?) Again, the idea was making multiple DBA Early Imperial Roman armies and using them for a fictional Roman Civil War campaign... 

I was motivated enough, at the outset, to complete ONE DBA Early Imperial Roman army... 

I think I have enough to do at least two, possibly three, MORE armies... 

I also started collecting up a few enemies of Rome - that could intervene from the peripheries... Early Germans and Picts... 

Though the Picts have ALREADY been rebased to individual bases! 

Also, similar to the Greeks... I've acquired a bunch MORE Romans, that I have individually based (for skirmish/role-playing games) and have made good use of them! 

I ran a Gladiatorial campaign using Savage Worlds for some time. I may have used them in games of Song of Blades and Heroes. I know I tried out Broken Legions at least once! I LOVE the Cthulhu Invictus setting (for role-playing games - Call of Cthulhu initially, but I think Savage Worlds has a Weird War Rome setting at one point...?) and have tried to get a few campaigns going with that... 

And then there is Song of Shadows and Dust - probably my favourite iteration of the Song of... Game Engine. I know I played a number of games of this, at one point, and had GRAND PLANS for a map campaign of a fictional ancient mediterranean city where players would take over different neighbourhoods - and control of certain neighbourhoods would confer some sort of benefit within the game. I painted up enough minis that I could field a number of separate gangs for it...  

I even toyed around with the idea of figuring out a way to make multiple quick generic factions with plastic miniatures - Song of Shadows and Dust Faction - to sell or give away to friends to encourage them to play the game with me! 

I digress... 

So... what to do with ALL THE ROMANS?! 

Do I continue with the plan to build multiple DBA Early Imperial Roman armies to play out a fictional/semi-historical Roman Civil War campaign...? Or do I just rebase the ones I need to field a couple of armies for Dragon Rampant or One Hour Wargames and dispose of the rest!? 

As I'm typing this, I feel like I'm making up my mind... 

fun fact: I sometimes don't even write these thinking that anyone's even going to read them anymore... (Oh, I know there's, like, three of you that still do and I GREATLY appreciate that you still find these interesting! Thank you!) it's become more of a journalling process to figure things out for myself. Through the process of DOING them I make realizations and decisions, rather than fully thinking it through and THEN ANNOUNCING the decision that has been made!?

Again, though... probably NOT going to just start rebasing all of these next week (after completing the Greeks)... but then...? 

THE DARK AGES

Now... this is a collection that I for many, MANY years SWORE i would NEVER re-base... NEVER... They are a COMPLETE collection and Ready-to-Play a 1066-ish campaign - like the DBA DARK AGES CAMPAIGN I already ran 12 years ago! I still have that map! It's currently sitting in my living room! 

Of course... it has been TWELVE YEARS and despite these sitting here, "Ready-to-Play", I HAVEN'T run the campaign again... It's been years (possibly a decade!?) since I've even used them in a game of DBA!? 

All this sort of thinkifying over the last week has me remembering the adage: Never say NEVER!!!

Could THESE be turned into useable armies for Dragon Rampant or One-Hour Wargames!? 

One thing I've noticed from my brief perusal of the pre-gunpowder rules for One-Hour Wargames is that there isn't really so much room for maneuvering, like there could potentially be in DBA or HotT... you have six units, instead of twelve elements... there is some initial maneuvering - albeit on a fairly small battlefield... but once units are stuck in, there is NO leaving combat they just stay there until one unit of the other is wiped out! It's just a static dice rolling game at that point - no pushing each other back and forth - like is possible in DBA.

I guess I should try and play a game or two before making any hasty decisions... 

In each of the drawers there are already a mix of multi-figure bases for the DBA army and a bunch of individually based miniatures - some were just leftovers from making the DBA army - others were specifically bought with the idea or skimishing or role-playing games in mind! 

The Vikings, the first of my Dark Age armies. Before I ever used them as a DBA army, elements were used in Warhammer Ancient Battles!?

(Huh... I'd forgotten about that until just typing it now... I guess THAT's ANOTHER option for games... I still have all those Warhammer Ancient Battles books SOMEWHERE!?  Although, in theory, that's meant to be played with miniatures on individual SQUARE bases... and that just NOT going to happen... though I'm sure the rules could be modified or sabot bases/movement trays could be used!) 

Some of the miniatures are old, OLD Citadel miniatures - from when they made historical miniatures! Most of them are from Old Glory - back when they were available through the Sentry Box for reasonable prices... and there is a mix of odds and ends from different manufacturers...

MOAR Vikings... because I'd just acquired enough to make two armies... why not make two... 

Dark Age Anglo-Saxons or Anglo-Danish...

MOAR Dark Age Anglo-Saxons or Anglo-Danish... 

I think one was destined to be a dedicated Anglo-Saxon army and the other a dedicated Anglo-Danish army...? I don't remember... its' been over a decade since I last made decisions about this collection. 

The Normans... 

Pre-feudal Scots... 

The Welsh... 

The primed black ones in the back were originally purchases so I could make enough elements that these could also be used as early medieval Welsh and have enough archers for all the options (I feel like the Medieval Welsh were split into Northern and Southern and ONE of them was almost entirely make up of Bow elements...). I've long since given up on that idea and based the extras on individual bases thinking they could be used as Welsh archers in Lion Rampant...? 

Dark Age Irish. 

Seriously all those Psiloi and Auxilia bases take up a LOT of space... if rebased, this collection could probably be consolidated into ONE drawer along with the Medieval Irish Lion Rampant retinue... 

West Franks... basically, after the campaign, I decided in future campaigns I'd need to have the West Franks (and possibly East Franks) to give the Normans something to think about, otherwise they just trample everyone before them... 

I guess what I also REALLY need to do before making any decisions about this collection is go through, army by army, and take stock of what I have for each and figure out if there is enough miniatures to put together a Lion Rampant retinue for each - of 24-30 Army Points...

Medieval Retinues 

These ones were never meant to be De Bellis Antiquitatis armies... MOST of the have been acquired since the release of Lion Rampant and were collected for that purpose. 

The thing I am pondering, in this case, is: DO I REALLY NEED ALL OF THESE!?

The Retinue of Baron Phillipe du Lapin 

I said MOST were acquired since the release of Lion Rampant.. The core of this force are remnants from my old Brettonian army for Warhammer Fantasy Battles from the 90s!? Things have been added to it since then.. but a bunch of these miniatures are miniatures sculpted by the Perrys which were simultaneously released through Citadel Miniatures as Brettonians and from Wargames Foundry as the Baron's War line?! I bought some from both companies! Some are even older Citadel models from their historical lines... and others were from other companies from the 70s/80s that were originally used as D&D miniatures, but being in medieval-looking armour/garb, got press-ganged into service in this retinue! Others are newer models from... Crusager Miniatures, I think...? Maybe some Black Tree Design...? 

It's a keeper, though it really needs to be rebased - and spread out amongst multiple drawers! the current army doesn't really even fit in this drawer. 

The colours are from that original Brettonian force from the 90s and were probably done because they were the colours of the Canadian flag... 

Lapin because it's french for Rabbit, which I thought was funny. Probably Monty Python inspired... 

I considered changing it over the years because Lapin was also the name of the gunman at the mass shooting, killing 14 women (and wounding 13 others!) at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique in 1989... because FUCK THAT GUY and I did NOT want anyone EVER making any sort of association between the two... and... ultimately I kept it because I figured no one ever would (had I not just mentioned it here....) 

The "Opposing Force". 

Done in the colours of the high school I attended from grades nine to eleven... because FUCK THEM... The narrative was that these were belligerents that kept trying to horn in on Baron Phillipe's territory while Baron Phillipe just wanted to be left alone to manage his small holdings and grow crops... Fucking bullies... ha! 

These are all (well... mostly...) newer figures acquired specifically to make an opposing Lion Rampant Retinue.

the OTHER Retinue... 

This also was acquired specifically to make an additional retinue for Lion Rampant (or Dragon Rampant!). By the time I acquired this army, I had an idea festering of running a campaign, again... possibly using the old Mighty Empires system from Games Workshop (1990) where 1 Army Point = 50 points - so a banner that was 1500 points in Warhammer Fantasty Battle would be 30 Army points worth of stuff in Dragon Rampant. 

THIS is one that I'm kind of sort of thinking of getting rid of... I HAVE two opposing retinues for Lion Rampant... when am I EVER going to run a Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant campaign... There are SO MANY other things to paint... and... how much time do I have to do that before my kids are disposing of all these miniatures and myself into a special care home... or a crematorium... 

Yeah... SOME of this thinking has been spurred on by an impending sense of DOOM and a realization that I am closet to the end than I am to the beginning and the brutal method in which my own fathers worldly possessions were disposed of over the last year as he moved from assisted living with my mom... to the hospital... to a special care home... to the crematorium... 

Anyway... enough about that... 

The only reason I haven't immediately gotten rid of them is I like the colour scheme I'd started using on these (Black and Blue) over the green and yellow of the other Opposing Force... 

If I got rid of them... or at least MOST of them I could use this drawer for overflow from the other two retinues which are currently so stuffed into their drawers that there are bases overlapping and such... 

A Small force of Medieval Irish... I think this was started because I got some in a collection I bought of assorted Dark Age stuff and these turned out to be not-so-Dark-Age-ish... so they sat in a box until I was making Medieval retinues for Lion Rampant and realized I still had these... and then some additional miniatures were bought from Crusader miniatures to have a complete force...? 

They're close enough to being done that I'd like to keep them... rebase them and finish them up at some point... 

As mentioned earlier... if the Dark Age Irish were rebased to individual bases... they could probably be consolidated into this drawer, freeing up space for... other things... 

Medieval Muslims... 

Because at some point I thought some campaigning in the Holy Land might be fun...? I had a lot of generic desert/middle eastern terrain... 

I've only finished the two units... but they're very colourful and I like them... so I'd like to keep these and rebase and finish them up some day... 

I also have some "fantastical" middle eastern miniatures... that could be used with the above in a more generic/fictional setting.

Some of these I've used as a Frostgrave warband! 

Unfortunately, this was the theoretical crusading opposing force I picked up for them (I was in Calgary and they were on sale at the Sentry Box... and... I have to admit, I know very little about the Crusades... and still don't... but I'm pretty sure THESE Teutonic knights may not have been the types crusading in the Holy Land...!?) 

So... when looking for things to get rid of... these are being considered. 

I might keep some of the foot figures - they're really just generic armed civilians and could be used in other forces or games as generic medieval fantasy minis...) 

I DID have campaigning ideas for some of these - though mostly in a fantasy realm of my own design - using a modified version of the Mighty Empires (1990) game... If I'm using the fantasy armies... do I need three (or MORE) mediaeval-ish human factions!? 

English Civil War

Carrying on with these because... similar to others, the collection was amassed with the idea of CAMPAIGNING in mind... and originally using a DBA-X set of rules. I did get multiple armies completed and I DID play a few games with the rules and it WAS a lot of fun.... but then I was finding i was collecting DOUBLE forces - stuff for the DBA-x armies and completely separate forces for The Pikeman's Lament.... 

(YES.... I KNOW..... You CAN play The Pikeman's Lament - and Dragon Rampant, and ANY of the Dan Mercy games -  with figures on multi-figure bases... so, again, I COULD have just left them on the multi-figure bases and been able to use them for BOTH games... but ultimately, again, I figured everything on individual bases would be more versatile and I probably woudln't miss playing DBA-x all that much!) 

Again, a large part of this collection was acquired through the purchase of a large collection someone else was getting rid of... I can't remember if it was a purchase or a trade. Other things have been added... but others I've had since the 90s - when I'd put in an order to the Wargames Foundry to put together a few forces for a small ECW skirmish game (Once Upon a Time in the West Country?) I can't remember if I EVER actually PLAYED it... also I was thinking the miniatures could double as character in Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play...? 

I'm not sure how much decision-making needs to be done here.. this is just an example of a collection that was put together, initially, with the idea of building enough forces to host a DBA-x campaign... that has been abandoned and decided I could do something similar with the Pikeman's Lament... as such they have been or are to be rebased and organized into units of 12 foot and 6 mounted. 

The Blue Regiment

As with other collections, I planned to put very generic, colour-coded armies/regiments together. I know... there wasn't a LOT of uniformity in the English Civil War armies... The plan was to show that by having only jackets be of the forces colour for some units with trousers and hats being of a variety of colours... I've even mixed in different shades of the colour within units to make them look a little more of a haphazard-ragtag-motley crüe... Because there are varying qualities of troops in the Pikeman's Lament, I could show Elite or Veteran troops as having complete uniforms of matching colour... and the lower quality (Green?) troops having less cohesive colouring...? 

The Blue Regiment, here, has mostly been rebased onto wooden discs... and I think I have enough units complete to field a force in a game... 

Most of the rest of these, that HAVE been rebased from the multi-figure bases, have been based on metal washers... and will, at some point, have to be re-re-based... 

The Red Regiment... 

The Orange Regiment... 

I feel like there are definitely some missing from this and some of the others... maybe the units of Dragoons...? I feel like I took them out and had thought of putting them in a separate drawer - because ALL of the drawers were running out of space... but I have no idea where i've put them?! 

The Green Regiment... 

Extra stuff I'm not sure what to do with... 

And I'm SURE there is still MORE in a box somewhere else - like plastic infantry from Warlord games? Probably enough for an entire regiment. I will likely never get to those... or most of these... probably should organize them to get rid of them all... 

Scotts Government/Conenenteers... 

the one that's STILL on multi-figure bases for DBA-x!? 

The Scots Government troops that have been rebased... but onto metal washers.

This also includes a bunch of the stuff that I never put on multi-figure bases that I'd started acquiring to put together armies for skimish games and later the Pikeman's Lament... 

The original Scots Highlander retinue... some were originally on multi-figure bases for DBA-x... others were originally on various different bases. I think they have all been re-re-based onto wooden discs...? 

Again, this is a collection that is a big mish-mash of things collected over multiple decades beginning in the early 90s. 

This was one of the first larger forces I cobbled together for the English Civil War... Partly because HIGHLANDERS... but also because most of it could also be used all the way up to the Jacobite Uprisings nearly a hundred years later... 

Part of the reason I have so many is because at one point I was trying to put multiple smaller bands together for a lower level skirmish game - that would eventually be played as a campaign (I think initially inspired by Mordheim, of all things) and involved raids of other players territories to steal sheep (and other stuff) from other players... (but mostly sheep! I have a large flock of sheep - a mix of sheepies from Wargames Foundry and Gripping Beast!) 

The Irish Brigade... a later acquisition, specifically for The Pikeman's Lament... because... you can never have enough Highlanders...? 

(Though, technically all Irish... they were FIGHTING WITH the Highlanders...) 

I think they're a mix of Warlord Games and Eureka Miniatures!? 

Not actually part of the English Civil War... but somewhere along the line I picked up a couple of bags of Old Glory Jacobites... of ebay...? or in a trade...? Or picked them up on deep discount from the Sentry Box...? I don't remember. I figured since I have ECW Highlanders that could pass as Jacobite Highlanders... and I had Seven Years War English... I could put together some forces for the Jacobite rebellions! 

I used to love painting plaid. I had a system. It was a bit of a time-consuming pain in the ass... but I loved the way it looked when done... I'm not sure if I have the patience to do ALL of these... and the rest of the other Highlanders and Irish Brigade... AND the rest of the Highland Dwarves... AND the rest of the Picts... (I was going to include a link to a similar post about the Dwarves I did a year or so ago - Dwarves Revisited - but then realized that post didn't even INCLUDE the Highland Dwarves!?) 

These were also slated for DBA-x multi-figure bases - and the handful that I did paint were originally ON DBA-x multi-figure bases... but have since been rebased to onto wooden discs and organized into units of 12 for Rebels and Patriots. 

I just realized I missed an entire drawer... the one that has a bunch of Generic Renaissance civilians and Swashbucklers that I intended to use for En Garde, AND four of five units of "Clubmen" for the Pikeman's Lament... There is zero uniformity to them as they are purely armed civilians, and thus could be used with any of the above forces. 

(I had an idea, that if playing a campaign, if the defending force was lacking due to previous losses, they might be able to summon a unit or two of Clubmen to serve on their side - mostly as speedbumps, as they are NOT very useful troops... also there is at least ONE scenario that calls for bonus clubmen to be defending a village from attack, as the attackers are formed up and approaching, defenders are rushing in to aid the town...? 

And then there are DRAWERS full of Seven Years War troops that are in much the same state as all these ohter collections.... 

AND Napoleonic Era troops!? How did I even ever start THIS one?! 

Seriously, though... this is a collection I could get rid of a bunch of stuff from... maybe keep enough to put together a couple of forces for the War of 1812 - with a bunch of options - for use with Rebels and Patriots... and maybe a few warbands for The Silver Bayonet... and just DUMP the rest... 

Uggggh... don't even get me started on the later gunpowder era stuff... Colonials and Great War - at least a large part of the Great War stuff is PAINTED... and MOST of it was made for a single battle - Vimy Ridge... which I MAY still build all the terrain for and put on... 

The acquisition of colonials was rather scatter-shot and without any formal plan (other than to play the scenarios from the Zulu War Skirmish Campaigns book) I have a mix of boers and stuff from the Boxer Rebellion... but not enough to put togehter full armies of a lot of that... 

At one point I had an idea of running a campaign set on Mars (using Space: 1889 setting and miniatures - as I have a LOT of those...) another idea I had was to run a Space: 1914 campaign - using the same setting as Space: 1889... but play out some campaigning on mars during the Great War 25 years later!? I imagined it would be like the campaigns in Africa  - guerilla fighting and a mix of Eurpean troops and martion colonial troops (I have a few from Rafm... but thought I could take the African colonial troop miniatures I'd modelled myself, modify them to look like Martians (minor changed to hands, feet, ears) and cast up a BUNCH to make units of colonial troops for all the European powers involved... 

Ugh... MORE megalomaniacal dreams of campaigns that I don't know who would EVER play in with me!? 

Wall o' Modern Stuff - World War 2 to present - and sci-fi and 40K... 

I don't really even want to think about these... I have SO MUCH stuff for World War Two... and I have next to NO desire to really even play with them again... there have been a couple of forces that I've separated out for disposal that I will NEVER finish up. Most of the others are MOSTLY painted and thus I feel the need to hang onto them... because as soon as I get rid of any of them... there will be someone who wants to play or I'll suddenly be super interested in World War Two again... I don't know... 

The two forces are ones that are ones I acquired because SALES were happening.. but I never really even started painting ANY of them... so they're a little easier to let go... I'll try to get rid of them locally before I go posting anything anywhere else...

AND THERE ARE OTHERS!? loads of other drawers full of stuff that I'm not even thinking (much) about (at this exact moment)...

 

So what realizations or decisions have I made after all of this blather... 

I don't know... I mean, I had a LOT of thoughts and realizations... and decided I should probably reorganize a lot of these and make a realistic appraisal of what I'm really going to ever get around to painting and what I might use it for... 

I LOVE campaigns... I'm just not sure how many more I'm going to be running, so... maybe I don't need to hang onto SIX or more armies for a given period or conflict!? 

When will I get to this? I don't know... Ideally sometime soon...? this fall...? Maybe over the winter...? 

I've had a lot more thoughts than that, but damn, this has gone on WAY too damned long and I just don't have the energy to type any more or articulate any of the other things I may have been pondering... I have better things to DO!! Like, y'know, paint miniatures!