Coming up on 2016

As is the done thing at this time of year, I have been reviewing the year from a hobby perspective and looking ahead to next year.

I think I’ve made decent progress with some projects, and none at all with others. But I guess that’s the norm for most gamers. I spent more than I should have but hopefully nothing will be wasted and all will be used/painted/read within a couple of years!

The key projects were:

• 28mm Post-Napoleonic/19th Century Colonial – for Sharp Practice and Ayton 2015
• 6mm Franco-Prussian War – for the 4 player game in March and further formations added after that
• 25/28mm Fantasy (largely re-paints) – for Frostgrave, which I haven’t played yet..
• 6mm Seven Years War – at the end of the year, as a start to a major renewal of an old period

I dabbled with other things too, including Lion Rampant forces for future games, but didn’t get properly into it in terms of much painting – although I tried the rules out using 15mm figures and borrowed a retinue for the LAW forum day at Foundry.

Painting totals were:

• 28mm   100 (plus about 80 I had painted for me)
• 15mm   11 (crap, but still the best year’s output for a while!)
• 6mm     900

For 2016 I have a few plans in mind already and the good thing from a motivational point of view is that I really want to get stuck into several of them immediately.

• 6mm SYW – I have spent a fair few Christmas break hours basing (or re-basing) hundreds of figures for this project. I have about 800 painted already, but (gulp) 2,000 to do. It’ll take a while, and several re-visits to this project to get everything done, but now I’ve fixed the rules and the unit structures I’m very motivated to get as much done as possible in this first push.
• 28mm 18th Century (not a duplicate of the 6mm, definitely, absolutely not). Ayton 2016 (end of April) is the target for this, but I haven’t decided on an order of battle for what I’m taking yet. Whatever, it’s unlikely to require a lot of painting and I intend to get into this from Feb/March onwards.
• 6mm 1859 Austrians – I may of course become burned out doing SYW Austrians in this scale, but you never know. I really want this army and I’ll make it happen somehow.
• 25/28mm Fantasy – I want to play Frostgrave and need to spend a bit of time on scenery. I already have the ‘winter’ terrain boards, I just need to assemble and paint the MDF ruins I’ve acquired this year, and scratchbuild some more using the high density polystyrene, which I’ve already had a play with. Figure-wise, there’s not a lot to do and I’m not far off having 2 decent warbands to start out with.

There are other things I’m interested in pursuing in 2016, and  possibilities include:

• 1/3000 Naval – the age of sail. Originally bought (some a very long time ago) for Napoleonics, but now I’m thinking that the SYW, AWI and Revolutionary Wars would be more interesting. Easier to paint too! Who knows?
• 15mm Ancients. There is a small group of LAW nutters who want to get together and play some Punic Wars battles in this scale. The lack of an agreed approach, set of rules, basing style or philosophy are merely ankle-high obstacles that we will inevitably overcome.. If so, I have a few more to paint to round out my existing armies.
• More terrain boards, including a few additional river bends and some bigger hills
• Jungle scenery (trees, suitable buildings, boats, etc) for a 28mm Colonial Sharp Practice campaign. The 2nd Edition of the rules will be interesting to see too.

Perhaps more importantly, I intend to get plenty of games in too. There’s the FPW campaign to finish with GM, hopefully in January, and then further one-off and campaign battles in a number of periods and scales. 2015 was pretty good for games all in all, and I’d like to do just as well in 2016.

So, lots to do and look forward to, which is the way with this brilliant hobby.

I’d like to wish all visitors a Happy New Year, and hope you re-visit in 2016.