Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Q1 2020 Progress Report

Let me just start off by saying 2020 can fuck right off!  This year really started crappy with some unexpected, but self-inflicted, family drama.  Then a whole series of celebrity deaths, including Neil Peart and Christopher Tolkien, really caught me by surprise.  Then I got absolutely slammed by taxes.  Now we have the COVID-19 (Chinese Virus, China Virus, Wuhan Virus, Kung flu, DTMNBN, whatever you want to call it).  Needless to say this last item has taken over our entire lives.

On to the point.  In my annual hobby forecast post I promised myself that I would check in on my goals quarterly to help keep me on track and help actually accomplish those goals. That post has lots of goals listed it is easy for stuff to get lost.  For the first quarter I decided to focus on the Kill Team goals as well as the Flames of War goals.

Kill Team


I decided to start with my Sector Fronteris set.  This is the entire box set as well as the the additional items from the AdMec and GSC kill team sets.  This was the terrain that we were using for most games so it made sense to paint this one first.  The scheme was easy and stuck to the desert theme.  I really like how this turned out.


Also for Kill Team I painted my Gamma-Zhul-881 kill team.  The are the Adeptus Mechanicus figures that were included in the original Kill Team starter set.  I built and painted them just as depicted in the game so I could make use of the pre-printed character cards from the set.  I really love these figures and I love how they turned out.  I did manage to get in a couple of game with them and they are undefeated.

I have a few more AdMec figures in progress but they were not quite ready to make it into the Q1 numbers.  I feel really good about how this game has progressed.  I have basically finished my goals for the year for Kill Team already so anything else is bonus.

Flames of War

The second area of concentration for Q1 is my Flames of War mid-war Soviets.  This is an army I have wanted to build for many years and I have been collecting models for many years as well. I finally decided I needed to get this thing painted an on the table.


The first unit I painted this year is a small KV-1 company.  These are really expensive for three is a lot for mid-war.  The models are the old Battlefront resin and metal for many years ago.  I like them but they are showing their age a bit.


Next I painted a small company of KV-8 tanks.  These are the flame thrower version of the KV-1.  They are just as expensive, points-wise, as the KV-1.  Again the models are the older Battlefront resin and metal models.


My Soviets were in need of some help as they were getting slaughtered by the Germans so I added some air support.  These are the Battlefront IL-2 Shturmovik attack aircraft.  These planes were legendary in WWII but, sadly, they kind of suck in Flames of War.  The models are the resin ones from years ago that have been reboxed for the v4 unit size.  Not sure why they change the number of planes you need every time they release a new edition.


With the tanks and planes all painted it was time to move to the infantry.  I decided to start with the support units as they could easily be added to my tank armies.  First up are the ZIS-3 guns.  These can either be used as artillery or as anti-tank guns.  I have heard they are a must have for Soviet but I have yet to get to try them out.  As with most of my Soviet collection these are the old Battlefront resin and metal models.


The anti-tank rifle unit is a signature unit for Soviet infantry forces in WWII.  You see these in all sorts of pictures and they were used all through the war.  This is the new Battlefront soft plastic set and I am not a fan.  It will work for games.


The sixth Soviet unit of the quarter is a pair for 45mm AT guns.  More old Battlefront metal.  These are actually great models.


The final Soviet unit for Q1 is the ubiquitous Katyusha battery.  There is no better example of the Soviet theory of warfare than a huge battery of inaccurate rocket launchers just destroying everything in front of them.  This is the resin and metal set from Battlefront.  Building it will give you nightmares.

The Soviet stuff was not all that I painted this quarter for flames of War.


I painted some pill boxes and MG nests.  These are mostly for game of Great War but will likely be usable for WWII games at some point.  I don't have any of the D-Day stuff but there should be some of these available in those armies.


I added 4 more objective markers to my collection.

Conclusions

Even with all the other challenges for 2020 so far I must admit that my hobby is going along pretty well.  Naturally, with the entire month of March lost the number of games I have managed to play is pretty low.  Below are the raw numbers.

Models Assembled Q1 (includes cleaning and prepping metal figures):

15mm FoW WWII - 7 (5 tanks, 2 aircraft)
28mm 40K - 7
28mm Terrain - 22

Total - 36

Figures painted Q1:
15mm FoW WWII - 110 (6 Tanks, 6 guns, 4 Rocket Launchers, 2 aircraft, 4 pillboxes and nests, 4 Objective Markers)
28mm 40K - 27 (17 Terrain)

Total - 137

Game Record Q1:
FoW Great War 0-2-0
FoW Mid-war 0-3-0
Kill Team 2-0-0


3 comments:

Tim Kulinski said...

Nice progress, you have been doing a lot with FoW. We need to get KT back on the table as well.

DaGreenskins said...

Keep up all the great work. I am finishing up another scale model and once that is done I will get back to painting miniatures.

Robert said...

Thanks for the comments guys! During these strange times the positive comments help. I'm gonna keep plugging away. What else is there to do? You guys keep doing cool stuff and posting it too!