Mid year update

At the beginning of this year I outlined my plans for 2015. I thought it might be fun to review where I am at with these.
Plan 1 - WWI 1914 in 15mm. Grand total of elements painted = 9. Elements left to paint = I can't count that high. But I have bought armies for the big five - France, Germany, Britain, Russia, and Austria-Hungary.

All of these photos are merely a recap and have appeared before in previous posts.

OK, so that is one project that isn't going anywhere very fast. How about project number 2?

Plan 2 - the Great Northern War in 15mm:

1 battalion of Swedes

1 battalion of Russians

A redoubt - at least the terrain is sorted...

So 1 battalion of Swedes and 1 battalion of Russians. Pretty good. That only leaves 12 battalions of 16 foot, 5 guns, and 9 units of 8 cavalry left to go. Almost there! Not.

Plan 3 - Gallic Wars Eagle Rampant in 28mm. These are my forces for the conversion of Lion Rampant for the Roman world. I have 15 units to paint along with casualties for battered markers and some civilians and carts etc. Of these I have completed 4 units.

But I've also completed this awesome fort

Not too bad, but I had hoped to have this project a bit further along by now.

Plan 4 - DBA Punic Wars - sold the figures. I guess that isn't going anywhere.

Plan 5 - DBA Samurai - still have the figures but now planning to use them for Commands and Colours instead. Project way down priority list.

Plan 6 - play more Star Wars. You must have seen all of the AARs on this blog for my Star Wars games? No? 6 fails from 6 so far then. 

Plan 7 - the things I'm not likely to get to this year - 

28mm WWII Bolt Action - very unlikely - I've sold all the figures.

15mm Hordes of the Empire - still have the figures, but packed away in a box somewhere.

Purchasing 15mm armies for Dux Bellorum - Maybe in 2018? Right off the radar.

Pie in the sky plans - things I'm interested in but don't know if I could make them happen:

The Russo-Polish War 1919-21 (Peter Pig) - nope
The Taiping Rebellion (Irregular) - nope
Aztecs and Conquistadores (Black Hat) - nope, but a little more on this further down
The War of the Triple Alliance (QRF/Freikorps) - YES! I've bought the armies. But I haven't painted them.
The War of the Pacific (Chile, Peru and Bolivia) (Outpost) - Nope
The Chaco War (Irregular) - Nope
The Sikh Wars (Black Hat) - Nope

German-Danish War 1864 - Nope

Plan 8 - Planning to buy WWI Russians in 15mm - Yes!

Commissions for Geoff:

OK, so I make that 95 28mm figures I've painted for Geoff, plus a dozen figures for John and two Battlefront Afrika Korps units for Terry. I think that is a pretty good output for half a year, but it does mean I need to be a bit more realistic about how many personal projects I expect to complete this year. 

Nate's mark for 2015 - F (or Not Achieved in the NCEA school system)

2015 - the new improved version

Plan 1 - to complete the forces for Eagle Rampant.

The end.

Well, not quite. I'm planning to put together a Star Wars variant of the Lord of the Rings rules and PLAY SOME GAMES before the end of the year!

These holidays I'm aiming to get all of my WWI figures based up (I paint them on their bases), glue together the last box of WotR infantry and finish the latest batch of figures for Geoff.

I want to get some more 28mm Perry Samurai for the Lord of the Rings variant that Geoff sent me.

I want to get some Outpost games Aztecs and Conquistadors for another LotR variant.

Geoff has got me an excellent start on some forces for Lord of the Rings, and I'll be keeping my eyes open for bargains to expand this.

The Sudan project will go on the back-burner while I concentrate on buying forces and terrain for the above.

I want to get into the 15mm WWI project when the Gallic Wars are finished. This will probably be the aim for 2016. One project a year is probably the most realistic expectation for so long as I look at painting other people's figures, but I am enjoying the variation in the commissions and a lot of this stuff wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for commission money. I've also reached a point where all of the projects in my cabinets are passion projects. The wars and eras that I've loved since childhood and always wanted to game. I doubt I'll be selling anything from these collections from now on.

Nate

Played a game!

It's been a while since we had a games night out at John's place. This time around I had a couple of games of Lord of the Rings with Adam who had brought his figures along. We started off with the first scenario from the Two Towers rulebook.

'Burning down the house' - latest hit from the band Orc-ing Heads

I was evil (muwahaha) and trying to burn some poor little Rohanis in their great hall. Yes, we were gaming the plot of 'the Patriot', except in this scenario the Rohan cavalry were on their way to rescue their brethren - they just needed to get through half of my Uruk-hai force.

'Wait for us! We brought marshmallows!'

On my deployment line the other half of my force was running (because everyone in Middle Earth runs - I've seen the films) to get into the action.

'Nice horsey...'

The riders of Rohan rode rapidly and roughly. I discovered that Uruk-hai are named after the noise they make when horses run over them - 'uurrrkk!'.

'Quick - form square - it works in Napoleonics!'

Needless to say half my force were crushed without much trouble - but they did delay the Riders long enough to burn a couple of civilians (it's all a bit gruesome really). But the Riders did manage to rescue the other four. Four out of six ain't bad as Meatloaf might have said if he had been revising his fractions, and it was enough to give the goodies the win.

We then played another game which was all foot troops with Eowyn and Lurtz involved. I took no photos of this game because I was really getting into it. And I won. Evil triumphed - muwhahaha! Although Lurtz died, but you know, he was expendable because he's a baddie.

Playing LotR did two things for me. First it made me want to get some figures. If anyone out there in cyberspace has a couple of dozen orcs and some Rohan chaps that they don't want (Scott, I'm looking at you!), let me know. I'll make you an offer that you'll probably refuse. I certainly only want to acquire stuff second hand as I am a notorious cheapskate - although refusing to pay Games Workshop's ridiculously outrageous prices probably isn't the definition of being a cheapskate.

Spare us an orc or two guv'nor?

Second, it reminded me how much fun and how versatile the LotR games system is. I played a lot of Legends of the Old West with Dan, which is essentially the same game, and I had no problem picking up Lord of the Rings for these games. Recently Geoff sent me his mods of this game for Samurai, (although I'm thinking of sticking to Ronin to begin with as I only want to play small skirmish games in that era) and it reminded me that this is a robust system to tinker around with. The end result is that I am going to look for a Star Wars variant, and if I can't find it, make my own. I'm also going to use it for the next project to roll into my feverish mind - Legends of the Feathered Serpent - or something similar - 28mm Aztecs and Conquistadors. Someone's already done all the hard work for this in the LotR Variants Yahoo group.

Latest in my never-ending list of potential projects

I had the Return of the King rulebook, but when John began collecting Lord of the Rings figures last year I gave him that copy to use. Then he got another copy in one of the Trade-me auctions he won and sold the copy I had given him. I just kind of expected that he'd give it back if he didn't need it - but when I gave it to him I guess the assumption was I didn't want it anymore. Never mind, I bought a copy off Amazon this morning for NZ$17 - 1p for the book and 7 quid for postage. I also picked up a copy of Michael Wood's Conquistadors book based on the BBC series of the same name, which is, incidentally, not on youtube, for the same price. Next week, time to order some sample figures from Outpost Wargames Services.

Nate