2014 round-up

So now comes the dreaded moment where I try to sum up the year gone... but first a look in the rear view mirror. What did I think I would be concentrating on a year ago, and how did it go?

Painting tally 2014

• 20mm WW2 figures: 35
• 20mm buildings: 3
• 28mm S/F figures: 18
• 28mm vehicles: 2
• 28mm Fantasy figures: 5
• 28mm WW2 figures: 45
• 36mm Boardgame figures: 7
• X-wing ships: 3

If we look on the number of produced stuff it isn't THAT impressive, but compared to my usual output it's quite good. I seem to have shifted back to 28mm figures though. Originally I started playing WW2 in 20mm because it was cheaper and faster to paint, but during 2014 I have rediscovered the joy of painting larger figures. This of course means everything takes forever to paint, and yet I managed to paint 18 orks and a big Dreadnought for 40k, as well as 45 WW2 figures and an armoured car in 28mm (more on that below).



Planned Projects for 2014:
Here are what I thought I'd be doing at the beginning of 2014, point for point.

6mm WW2. I will try to play the first scenario from Blenneville or Bust. With painted figures even. No, really, I mean it...

- Ooopsie. I had some really good intentions with this one. I pressganged two of my workmates as players and was going to umpire it myself. I converted the US force charts to British since I wanted to use my British miniatures for the whole campaign. I started to paint a couple of armoured cars and ordered a company of Fallschirmjäger from Adler miniatures... and then nothing happened. Quite frankly I was seduced by Chain of Command and forgot about IABSM.  FAIL

British armoured cars from SHQ... and nothing more.

20mm WW2. This is all things Normandy. British, Germans, US Paratroopers and terrain, terrain, terrain. Will be used to demo Chain of Command at various conventions during the year.

- Well... this one I actually did. I painted an entire platoon of US paratroopers and a bunch of terrain stuff and we did demo Chain of Command at Gothcon in 2014. So although I haven't done anything on my Brits and only a little on my Jerrys I am satisfied with my effort. PARTIAL SUCCESS

An Elhiem para and a roadside shrine I did as a jump off point.  

28mm WW2. Perry Miniatures Desert Rats and Deutsche Afrika Korps is one project, Finnish Winter War is another. Why the two you ask? Well, I was seduced by the awesome sculpts by the Perry twins, and then I was seduced by the awesome value in the Baker Company kickstarter.

- Weeeell... I'm not sure how I'm going to rate this. I originally intended to only paint stuff for the desert or from the Winter War kickstarter. In the end I did paint a handful of Desert Rats or DAK figures, but none of the Winter War stuff. Instead I decided to paint a couple of Crusader early war brits that I had lying around and then I bought a full late war platoon and started to paint that. A full squad, a vickers team, a medical orderly and a flamethrower team got painted, not bad. I entered a double dare with Thomas where he would buy and paint a corresponding amount of Germans for each finished unit of brits I put on the blog, but being an evil knave and rapscallion he never said when he would do it. (My guess is late 2020.) So naturally I had to buy my own germans, which I have done. Along with a Panther... hrrrm... actually the Panther was first. To summarize I now have third of a platoon painted for late war Brits, desert war Brits and desert war Germans. PARTIAL SUCCESS

Crusader Miniatures late war British figures.

Perry Miniatures Desert Rats

Perry Miniatures DAK.

And then whatever takes my fancy to keep me sane; Warhammer 40k, 1/48 scale models or Fantasy. I have realised over the years that I need some fun fillers not to get bored with my projects.

- The fun fillers turned out to be mainly X-wing miniatures, I have played lots, bought more, and re-painted three of the ships (they are pre-painted so you don't have to paint them). I also managed a bunch of orks and a Deff Dread and a couple of chaos miniatures for Warhammer Fantasy. Then Shadows of Brimstone arrived with a ton of miniatures which is what I have been painting most lately. SUCCESS

This Deff Dread was my big 40k project this year, and it was FUN!!!! Next year: a Stompa!

One of my re-painted X-wing ships, a HWK-290.

Player Characters from Shadows of Brimstone.

I have one New Year's resolution though: NO MORE KICKSTARTERS!!!

- This is kinda awkward... I actually backed three kickstarters, although only one had any figures in it. First I backed Shadows over Normandie, an expansion to the Heroes of Normandy boardgame I also backed on Kickstarter in 2013. Although I haven't played it yet it's quite spiffing and a Acthung Cthulhu crossover sounded like a good expansion. Then I was seduced by all the short, stunted and hairy eye candy in the Clan McFiggin Brewers kickstarter from Oathsworn figures. Lovely stuff, and they delivered on time too, but I haven't worked up to painting any of the figures yet. I might do a blog post on them in 2015 if you are curious, but I ain't promising anything. And lastly I backed the Basius 2 kickstarter which features a kind of 3D stamps for stamping out green stuff textures on your bases. I plan to use it on some scenery projects rather than figure bases. We'll see when I get them. But resolutions are meant to be broken, right? FAIL

So, did I do anything not planned? Well... I have bought lots of scenery stuff that is suitable for 28mm Europe rather than sticking to the desert or wintery Finland. I have also spent far more money on X-wing than I imagined, but on the other hand that is also the game I have been playing the most during 2014, I even participated in a local tournament, though I hate competitive play.

Other than that I think I have stuck to the plan, but only because the plan was very loosely formulated. A technicality, you say. Maybe, but my conscience is clear. So what are my plans for 2015? I will deal with those in my next post. Stay tuned people.