British Tank Troop - 4th County of London Yeomanry

These are the first completed model for 2017!  Not a very quick start to the year but nice to finally have something to talk about.  This is a troop from the 4th County of London Yeomanry, 7th Armored Division as they would have appeared about a week after the Normandy invasion.  I built and painted these for my friend Tom as part of a trade deal.  These will see the table in a couple of months for our big Point 213 Bolt Action Tank War game.  All the models are plastic kits from Warlord Games. They are VERY nice kits!

The Great Carnac - 2017 Game Edition

Time again for the nearly fruitless endeavor of attempting to predict the future of my gaming hobby.  Without further adieu I shall now hold the envelopes to my head and predict their contents.

Flames of War - WW2

For the last several years I have started off my predictions with Flames of War WW2 and this is because every year this is the game I hope to do the most with.  The last few years have seen this game slip in its number one spot but I expect this year will be different.

Starting things off in March of this year will be the new edition.  Fourth edition will start in North Africa and see a return to mid-war.  This is exciting to me as mid-war desert is where my FoW gaming began and it is a popular era with several of my friends.  The introduction of new plastic models in support of the new edition is also very exciting.  I can see this being an area of purchases this year.  Even though I have looking forward to this I am also a bit apprehensive as well.  You see, I really like the current edition of the game and I really feel in only needs a few tweaks but 4th edition will be an almost entire redesign based on the successful Team Yankee rules.  I have not played TY nor read the rules but I know enough to say this is not an evolution of the game as much as a revolution.  I willing to keep an open mind, however, and give this a shot.

My immediate plans for FoW will be to paint my 2500 points (3rd Ed) US Marine force.  I purchased this army last year and have completed all the assembly last year.  I have a couple of friends who will be working on Japanese forces for this theater and I hope to have this on the table this year.  It is possible that we may need to keep using 3rd edition rules as I am not sure how Battlefront will address the Pacific with 4th edition.

This year might also see the completion of one of several other army painting projects I have waiting in the wings - late war Panzer company, LW British Airborne, MW 11th Panzer Co, EW French Infantry.  All of these projects are complete model-wise and are just in need of painting.

Flames of War - Great War

I have really enjoyed playing this period over the last year+.  I want to keep this on the table for 2017 and expand my forces.  I have several units to add to my existing German and British armies.  I have also acquired the US army starter army and would like to paint this up and expand it as well.  Ideally I will at least acquire the models for a French army.  I am a bit concerned with how the new edition of the rules will impact this period.  As of yet BF has not commented on how this will be changed.  I hope this does not mark the end of support for the period from Battlefront.  Either way, I will keep using 3rd edition if I have too.

Flames of War - Fate of a Nation

This period has finally gotten rolling for me and this year I hope to keep the momentum.  My Israeli army will be in need of some serious upgrades this year.  So far my experience has be all bad but I think I just need to work on the army composition a bit.  I would also like to start work on an Egyptian T-55 tank battalion this year.  If I can just acquire the models I will be happy.  Maybe there will even be viable plastic options this year.  Rules-wise, this may be another period that stays at 3rd edition.  No word yet on how this will be addressed with 4th edition's release.  Some say that this may migrate to Team Yankee rules.  Since I am not sure what the differences are, or will be, I can't comment on if this will be a good thing.  Time will tell, I guess.

TANKS

I dabbled in this game a little last year and I think it has lots of potential.  This seems like a great use of my existing 15mm tank and terrain collection.  My friend Mike initially thought this would be a cool set of rules for 28mm tank battles but I kind of poo-poo'ed that idea, but now I think he might be on to something.  All it would take is a double sized movement stick.  Hmm, lots of potential here...

SAGA/Crescent and the Cross

SAGA has been a staple game for a couple of years now and that is not going to change this year.  Our group is looking at running an Age of the Wolf campaign sometime this year.  I have plans to paint a Rus army, an Anglo-Saxon army and to complete my Normans.  For Crescent and the Cross I have an Arab army I would like to get painted and on the table.  Last year I want to get some themed terrain built but that didn't pan out.  I will keep that goal on the list for this year.

Kings of War

This game has been slowly building momentum with my friends and I expect this year to he a big year.  I have been using my old WAB Norman and Saxon armies for KoW as Kingdoms of Men.  It has been working out great and helped motivate me to rebase and otherwise cleanup some old, well used miniatures.  For 2017 I would like to add a purpose built KoW army to my collection.  I have had my eye on Undead for a couple years and this year I would like to at least purchase the models.  I would also like to purchase the historical supplement and maybe try some historical forces.  Expect good things from this game this year.

Black Powder - American Civil War

This year should start strong for BP ACW as we have a large game planned for February.  This will be the second of our Chancellorsville battles.  If things go well I would like to get in another game later in the year.  That one will be Salem Church and will complete a nice Chancellorsville battle trilogy.  As for modeling and painting I have a couple small Union regiments on the paint table now that I need to finish.  I would also like to paint a couple regiments of Union cavalry and the dismounted cavalry.

Black Powder - Napoleonic

This period really have me excited.  Last year we finally got our models on the table for a small teaser game.  It was more an excuse to put the models on the table than a proper game but it was still very inspiring.  This year I would like to paint a couple of Swiss battalions to add to the French collection as well as an entire brigade of Italians.  I think I have enough figures for this and I also have some really sweet flags.  If I can do this I will rate the year a smashing success!  If I get replaced by a figure painting alien I might paint a unit or two of Middle Guard and maybe a unit of Hussars.  I have so much I can do with this.  I would like to get another game on the table for late spring.

Frostgrave

This game had so much local interest and promise when it came out a couple of years ago but it kind of went DOA.  I still hold out hopes that this will get on the table this year.  I have a painted war-band and I have collected all the supplements.  This year I would like to add more encounter models and scenario specific terrain.  One of the problems with this game is the requirement sot have some much extra models and very specific terrain to properly play the game.  This prep work I think has been a big roadblock to getting this going.  If I can play one game I will call this a win.

Infinity

This year my be the "shit or get off the pot" year for this game.  I spent a LOT of money on this last year but only managed one little demo game.  I now have the rules and enough figures for a viable force.  Time to get painting and get playing.  Fortunately there is a large local community and several of my friends are interested.  If this does not get a proper playing as well as a a completed painted force this year than I will rate it as a failure!

Bolt Action

This game has been a pretty steadily played game since its first release 4+ years ago.  With the release of the 2nd Edition rules I expect that interest in this game will pickup.  I have really been getting the itch to return to 28mm WW2 gaming and the new rules should help drive that in 2017.  We are planning a large Tank Battle game for March/April which I expect to really light the fire of interest.  This year I want to finish collecting and paint my 28mm US Marine collection and get in a few games set in the Pacific.  Our large tank game requires a lot of Normandie style terrain and I expect that once that game is over we will play more games set in that theater.  I picked up the Pegasus Bridge set last year and I would like to get that built and painted.  I have put off terrain purchases for 28mm WW2 for a long time and I think this lack of nice terrain has helped keep this game from taking off with the group.  I need to change that this year.

Victory at Sea

Several of my friends and I have been kicking around the idea of doing some WW2 naval gaming, using these rules, for some time.  I really want to do some battles set around Guadalcanal set in 1942.  I think this year I will try and collect some models to start a US fleet.  I think we will use the GHQ 1/2400 scale ships as these are likely the easiest to acquire and the most cost effective in the long run.  Stay tuned on this one.  It is pretty low on the list so I am not sure I will get to it.

Other Stuff

Since I lack a laser focus there is always the possibility that something new and unexpected may pop up over the course of the year.  This might be some thing like Rogue Stars or maybe Sword Point.  It might be something that hasn't been released yet.  There might even be an old game or two that might come back into vogue, like Lord of the Rings, 40K or Necromunda.  Oh, oh! What about Muskets & Tomahawks..?

On the blogging front I really want to get back to regular posts and improving the quality of the posts.  For the last year+ I have done lots of work in progress posts have moved to Twitter.  I need to stop doing that and just post that stuff to the blog.

This year I need to keep making progress on the terrain particularly for 28mm games.  My 15mm WW2 collection is pretty good but most of my 28mm stuff is old and generic.  I need to look at projects for Pacific and projects that can be used for Infinity.  I don't have any specific ideas yet.

Parting Thoughts

This year I need to be more sensitive to just how fortunate I am to be able to spend so much of my time and resources on playing with toy soldiers.  I also need to make sure I show my gratitude to my friends and readers that share the same interests.  I really am a lucky man to be able to pursue my hobby.  I hope everyone has a fun and happy New Year!

10th Anniversary!

Today marks the 10th anniversary of my little painting and hobby blog.  Amazing how time flies!  My first post was 1/3/2007 and if you are interested you take a look at it.  When I started I didn't really have a plan or a goal for the blog other that to document my hobby and share cool stuff with fellow gamers.  That is pretty much what I have done and I guess I will stick with that winning strategy.

According to my stat counter I have had 259,461 visitors and more than 400,000 page views in the last 10 years.  Not too bad for an amateur hobby blog.  Interestingly, Google put my all time page views at 551,184 which is quite a bit different from the Statcounter numbers.  Not sure why.  As for posts this will be the 491st post on the blog.  Had I been paying attention over the last few months I could have made this the 500th post at the same time!  If I plan now maybe I can make the 20th anniversary and the 1000th post line up.  Google says I have 293 followers.  I know at one time this was over 300.  I am not sure this function is very popular with people reading blogs any more.  I know I don't really use it.

Over the years I have had varying levels of feedback and comments from my readers.  Back when my content was mostly Games Workshop related (40K and LOTR) I got several comments on most posts.  Since shifting to mostly historical content a few years back the comments and the traffic have slowed a bit.  It would be easy to say this is due to the relative popularity of the games, and this may he something to do with it, but I think it is mostly the quality of the content.  Back in my 40K days I spent more time documenting not just the end results but also the processes.  Now more of the WIP posts are on Twitter and are seen by far fewer people.  This also helps explain the slow down in posts in general.  I think Twitter is something I need to get away from and I need to get back to doing more value oriented content her on the blog.

Anyway, I just wanted to mark this milestone and to thank all the visitors and readers who have stopped by over the years.  Time to get to work on the next 10 years!