Wednesday 9 January 2019

A New Year begins...

With a new project of course!
The first painting of 2019 welcomes the first unit of Roman Legionaries for my Caesarian army:
Painted simply, with washes and a highlight

The decals came with these Warlord Games figures and are quite nice.

No eyes! New Years resolution.

The plan is to build armies for Clash of Empires. I am a Warhammer Ancient Battles fan from way back, and I did think about building armies for those rules. But I picked up their successors, Clash of Empires from Great Escape Games and War and Conquest from Scarab Miniatures to do a comparison. I felt that War and Conquest was just a little too different, despite amazing numbers of army lists and online support. But Clash of Empires did everything I could want. It removed the 'hero-hammer' aspect of WAB so that the focus was more on historical units, and it also changed the order of hitting to: hit roll - armour save - wound; which makes far more sense than Warhammer's sequence. The downside is that although there are a number of army lists for CoE, they are not nearly as comprehensive as WAC. So I have based my two Marian armies on the Early Imperial Legions with some input from the Spartacus era lists. I have two 2500 point armies, one for Caesar and one for Pompey, and Craig has put together a Seleucid army which I will be painting for him so I don't always have to game this period solo.

End of 2019 gaming

Dan came over from Australia at Xmas, as noted in the previous post, and we played some games.
First up was and American Civil War Black Powder game:
Initial deployment had one brigade each on the table.

The combat for the bridge which was worth a victory point

Trouble at t'mill

Preparing to retake the bridge
Sorry these aren't full battle reports. It was a couple of weeks ago...
We then played Muskets and Tomahawks for the first time, and really enjoyed the game. No photos because the figures weren't painted, only undercoated in white, and looked like a bunch of ghosts chasing each other around the forest.

A couple of days later Dan rejoined us at the beach and we played a few more games. A game of The Great War (from PSC) which was really good. I'm planning on playing a lot more Commands and Colors games this year.

Then we broke out the Ancient Fantasy, complemented by Lego terrain:
Soldiers of the Eagle vs Crazy Celts. The Chieftain is already charging off by himself like a maniac!

Shieldwall!

The rest of the Celtic army is moping around down the back.

Really proud of my lego temple in the background there...
We played four games with various forces. Dan got the hang of it quickly and in the last game used the gladiator force against the Greeks. I think I killed a gladiator while he wiped me off the board...

2018 Wrap-up

Doing a tally of my painting from last year I've arrived at the following totals:
28mm = 278 infantry, 27 cavalry, 3 artillery, 11 vehicles (all Star Wars Legion)
15mm = 431 infantry, 69 cavalry, 14 artillery and 45 vehicles (mostly Team Yankee)
Other = 10 x 54mm infantry, 1 x 1/2400 ship, 5 x 1/300 ironclads

A good deal of the painting for myself was DBA, Team Yankee or American Civil War 15mm, although towards the end of the year I was starting to get through some of the 28mm Marlburians. For others, I painted the most for Craig - Team Yankee Soviets, Star Wars Legion - and some odds and sods for Geoff.
In terms of my goals for 2018, these were kept quite simple - a Russian 7 Years War army, the 1914 Austrian and Russian armies and the American Civil War. Well, I achieved the last one, but the Seven Years War collection made way for the chance to concentrate on Team Yankee, and the 1914 project is shelved (in fact boxed and in the attic).

I had 37 blog posts last year, my worst tally yet, but it has often been a trade off between actually doing the hobby and blogging about it as other aspects of life have become intrusive of hobby time (I'm looking at you Ministry of Education). It has also limited the amount of comments that I have made on blogs, as I tend to visit, skim and move on. Rest assured that if you're in my blogroll, I am  visiting your blog regularly, even if I'm not always commenting. Blogger needs a 'like' function...

2019 Plans

Looking ahead, what are my goals for this year? Again, I'll keep it simple and restricted to 2 large, 2 medium, and 2 mini projects.
1. 28mm Roman Civil War using the Clash of Empires rules.
2. 28mm War of Spanish Succession using Black Powder.
3. 28mm Vikings and Anglo-Danes for SAGA
4. 28mm Greeks for Mortal Gods
5. 28mm Chaos Marines for 40K Killteam
6. 28mm Napoleonics for Song of Drums and Shakos (skirmish)

Yes, all 28mm, and I'll be needing to get some terrain sorted for the Dark Ages in particular. Added to this is some 15mm Samurai for Samurai Battles, the Commands and Colors game set in the Sengoku Jidai.
In order to keep myself on track, Dan and I have come up with a challenge. Each week we'll set ourselves a painting goal, and if we achieve it, that will be one point. There's no specific amount that has to be painted, it could be a whole unit or it could be one figure - we'll judge by how busy we are and make it realistic. The idea is just to maintain some painting momentum, even when things get crazy.
All converted from the DBA armies. The basing has been altered since and represents the number of dice rolled and the movement abilities of the various troop types.
Finally, should I get any exttra time (which I'm sure I won't), there is this little project in the wings as well:
Viva la revolucion!

I also aim to get in some Bolt Action gaming with my Kiwis and Fallschirmjager, and some games of Commands and Colors in its various forms. I haven't played Bolt Action 2 yet, so it will be interesting to see how the game works.

Another plan for this year is to work on the Clobberin' Time rules. I've jotted down some ideas for a scenario generator and a side plot selector, and I've been giving more thought to the card activation and teams vs one powerful villain scenarios. I've got an idea in mind that just needs a playtest.

I would like to get closer to my previous 50-60 posts for this year, but it depends on how busy things get again. I've put in place an ambitious hobby programme for one year, and the blog will always be sacrificed for actual painting or gaming.

Nate

10 comments:

  1. Your new project Romans look great!

    Upon reflection your painting output for 2018 was much larger than I expected. You did a great job of hammering out figures. 2019 looks interesting as well. We will see if you can stick to 28s for an entire year. Good luck!

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  2. Cheers Jonathan. I was quite surprised by the final tally myself. Probably because I didn't blog everything that I painted, and I'm sure I missed a few things out. I'm looking forward to 28mm year, although I'm sure a few 15s will turn up here and there.

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  3. A good way to end the year, and well done on some impressive painting tallies. Yes, something has to give, and if fewer blog posts means more painting output or more games, it's a fair trade off!

    Cheers,
    Aaron

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    1. Although I played less games this year than last year as well, so I guess it was really about the painting tally. There are times when I think painting is actually my real hobby.

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  4. Very nice Caesarian Romans Nate - I look forward to following this project. The other plans look very interesting too - good luck and I look forward to following your progress via this blog!

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    1. Thanks Keith. I'll try and keep it updated a little more regularly this year. Even if it's just a picture and a caption.

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  5. A good looking Roman unit. Are they individually based on a movement tray?

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    1. Cheers Peter. Yes, in true old style warhammer fashion, individuals on a movement tray, perfect for casualty removal and using them in other game systems.

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  6. 2019 is beginning so well, wonderful Romans!

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    1. Thanks Phil. It has been a good year so far.

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