pre-Xmas update

The Spencer Smith armies are growing. I've added some more marching figures and artillery, again form the very nice man in North London. Each has been well packed and posted very promptly. He trades under the name phor2273, so keep a look out on eBay if you like these figures. I shouldn't be giving this stuff out as now you'll be bidding against me!

I also had delivery this week of my Wild West Exodus pledge rewards. I was a little sad to see how small the box was, as I had ordered one of the battlefoam cases to put the figures in. I hope this is coming separately but have emailed them just in case. The figures come bagged individually which is good as some of the bits have come off the sprues in transit. The figures look very well detailed at first glance but I haven't looked to closely yet. I'll let you know how they paint up in due course.

I have added some Character figures to my WW2 armies, with Lord Lovet and his piper now leading the commandos; and Johnny Frost for the Paras.

I'm very impressed with the 15/18mm CSA figures from Blue Moon, and am really excited by how they look based up. As I'll probably be using them for pick-up games of Black Powder, I've based them 8 figures to a 60x30mm base, just because I had them from a failed Polemos project and they look "right" in this configuration.

I'm hoping the fat man will leave some goodies as I have reduced the lead mountain so that counts as being good doesn't it?

move along, nothing to see here....

As the end of the year beckons I've just had a quick look at my painting log. Despite neglecting the blog, claiming I've had no time, somehow I've managed to paint over 1200 28mm or 30mm figures as well as 30 stands of 15mm WW2. This is impressive I feel, even more so as it's more than I bought; or was until I went to London to relieve a nice man of nearly 1000 Spencer Smiths. However, coupled with the fact that I've sold some stuff it means that the lead/plastic mountain is shrinking (slooowly) and by the time the building work is done to complete the man-cave (shed) it may be down to something I may possibly manage in my lifetime!

Mind you it's only a month to Crusade.........

Work work work

So been hard at work for the last few weeks so little time for gaming or painting. Have been slowly working my way through the assault on black reach boxset. I've painted the marines as a Dark Angels successor chapter as I've been reading the Horus Heresy books. Yet to name them, so open to suggestions.

Painting the orks as bad moons, but getting tired of all the blue. not looking forward to the box of thirty six classic plastic orks from e-bay, as they are part painted as blood-axes. so will be swapping lakes of blue for red!

tried to switch things up by painting up some WW1 british artillery but nothing seems to be inspiring me at the moment. Perhaps the eldar harlequins will get the juices flowing. What I really want to paint is the thousand sons I got a while ago but they are packed ready for the big move, but that is no nearer.

I tried out the foundry Napoleonic rules the other day and have to say I'm sadly disappointed. They're not as fun as black powder, so I may just keep it for the eye candy (or it may find its way to e-bay in the not too distant future)

reflections

I've been looking back over the last few posts to this blog and have realised that there are several themes running through it. I have stated my allegiance to 28mm gaming on several occasions, yet the last purchases I have made are 30mm Spencer smiths and 15/18mm ACW. Admittedly the latter was to round out a win of £25 of Blue Moon sculpts in a Battelgames/Miniature Wargames competition. I've tried 15mm ACW before but lost heart, hopefully with these lovely sculpts I be able to keep going. I have been re-reading Shelby Foote's three volume history of the ACW and this has inspired me. I have several regiments of 28mm ACW based for black powder, yet as is the case with many of my armies I've never used them as I don't have enough to play a reasonable sized battle. I have decided that I'll paint the 18mm figures before deciding which scale to go with.
The Spencer Smith thing is probable my own fault. I painted a battalion of the c18th British for my youngest son for Christmas last year. They were a joy to paint and even with my poor skills look great arrayed in their scarlet ranks. Then I had a good win on eBay of over 100 plastic Spencer Smiths which have been painted as either side in the AWI. I've used 48 man regiments so fairly Old School, but have based them on 4x4 on a 40mm square base. This seems to be a fairly universal basing method and will allow for quicker movement than single bases. At this stage I'm looking at using Black Powder as the basis but with tweeks to allow simplification for the boys. I've been so enamoured of the scale and the style that I made a diversion the other week to London to buy around a 1000 castings from a lovely chap. They will allow me to have great little armies for the AWI and then I may expand into the SYW as most of the figures can double up, I'm not that much of a button counter!
On the back burner are still my c19th WW1 project and some 28mm WW2.
Thats enough to be getting on with, especially with Christmas and Crusade coming up.

I am a bad man

Hello, my name is Melvyn and I've been bad. I've neglected this blog for nearly a year. It's not really my fault. Life got int the way. There are only so many hours in the day, and I've got more responsibility at work, as well as now coaching rugby twice a week. All this eats into gaming and painting time, reducing my ability to get anything done, let alone update the blog.

So what have I done? On the plus side I've managed to get several regiments of SYW Spencer Smiths painted. I've based them for Black powder (4 castings on a 40x40 base) which I played for the first time this week. I did it originally thinking it would be perfect for the British grenadier or Kreigkunst sets of rules but never got round to playing them and eventually sold them on eBay!

I'm also interested in the Bolt action rules, although I'm worried they might just become WW2 40k given the podcasts etc I've heard. I want to game ww2 in 28mm, but havent found a set of company sized rules yet. I did wonder about IABSM, but i'm not sure how my sons (my main opponents) will deal with not being able to move all their units every turn. When we played black powder, Tom (11) seemed to be ok with the concept of issuing orders to get troops to move, but this might have something to do with the fact that I rolled far more blunders than he did. One of these required a brigade to take 2 moves to the rear, promptly removing them from the board!!

My wargames collection is in a state of flux as well. As we are having work done on the house, they are all packed away and relatively inacessable. It's made me realise that I've lost interest in some periods and scales. I have decided to get rid of my 28mm Napoleonics as I've never used them. Even the beautiful plastic sculpts from the Perrys and Victorix have not rekindled this era. I think the problem is that this period screams out for massed figures which I just cannot manage in 28mm, given that even when the building work is done the most I'll have to game on is a 6x8 table. At the back of my mind is the thought of going to 15mm, but I've tried this before (all be it with 6mm) and lost interest in the shear numbers of figures needed. Perhaps when the Plastic Soldier Company releases their 15mm plastic napoleonics then I'll come back to the era, but we'll wait and see.

oops

I've just realised that i've left the blog alone since january! This is primarily since work has been hectic and together with my MSc studies, free time has been limited. Since this blog was meant to be about my wargaming, if I don't game I don't post.
I have been painting and now have a new warband for Saga of skraelings which i could use for Muskets and Tomahawks which interests me more.

Is it really 6 months since I Posted?

it seems only yesterday that I was updating my tales of gaming woe. However six whole months have passed. Why the big gap, well things at work are really busy as I've just taken more education on. Now I have to design and run a whole module for the final year undergrads, & on top of that I've started my masters so that has severely cut into gaming time. I have managed to have a couple of games of 40K with the boy (losing them all of course). All this down time has allowed me to really reflect on the hobby. I'm definitely a 28mm gamer so have bitten the bullet and sold all my other scales on Ebay. Then I promptly used the money raised to by the new Warlord Games Zulu boxed set. This I justify as an investment as the siege of Rorke's Drift will fit on the kitchen table and is a firm favourite with the boy (if he sees the film once more I think he will be in it).

Crusade (Penarth) is at the end of the month, so I'm saving my money till then. I thinnk the main purchases will be Cold War Russians/Warsaw Pact for Force on Force, and I may see what deals Warlord are offering for Hail caesar armies. Hopefully once the next essay is in I can spend more time painting etc.

PS - having said I had no time last year, I just worked out that I painted over 800 28mm castings in 2011, what's more surprising that this is MORE THAN I BOUGHT!!!!! The Lead mountain is shrinking at last, time to go shopping then.