Firstly, I'd like to hope that all my visitors have had a very happy Xmas! In the BigRedBatCave, the turkey carcass is now picked almost clean, the pudding eaten, and my thoughts naturally return to gaming (if, indeed, they ever left it!). Today I'm reminding myself what I did this year, and tomorrow, hopefully, formulating my plans for next year.
I'm a bit of a home lover. Every time I ever do one of those personality tests at work,
they come up saying “under no circumstances should his work ever involve
travel”. Despite this, one of my unwritten objectives for 2012 was to get around the country a bit more, and
I’ve managed three wargaming trips to the "lead belt", and one to Suffolk.
On the first trip in March I visited Roger, and played an
excellent game of
Borodino (above), the only big Napoleonic wargame I’ve ever
experienced.
I painted a lot of figures
for this, which have sadly not been used since.
I’ve also failed to complete my planned cavalry brigade, largely due to
not having any imminent plans for using in anger, and my
napoleonic blog has been "resting".
In May I visited
Salute. I wasn't running a game, so had more time than usual to wander around, and catch up with old friends. My favourite game was the Victrix 54mm Napoleonic bash, shown below, but, as ever, there were some lovely display games there.
May also marked my first visit (hopefully of very many) to
Partizan, where I very much enjoyed re-fighting
Heraclea (above) with Craig and The
Aventines.
Fantastic armies!
I had so much fun, I went North for a second
time in September, to re fight the battle of
Ad Castores, using Dr Phil’s new Augustus to Aurelian rules, my
Early Imperial Roman army and a great deal of simulated Italian vegetation. Finally, in November, I visited Simon “Comitatus” MacDowell
in his Suffolk fastness, and played a very enjoyable game of the
Battle of Chalons, using his beautiful 15mm collection (below).
Life on the home front has been somewhat difficult, with the
sad loss of my father-in-law, with associated inquest, probate, will, house
sale, flat purchase and move for my mother-in-law. This, amongst other challenges, have badly
disrupted my local gaming activities and consequently I’ve played fewer games
this year than in any recent year. I’ll need to sort
that, in 2013.
On the plus side, I have managed a fair bit of painting,
repainting and basing. I completed 28
units, the majority of 24 infantry; perhaps 450 miniatures in total. Altogether this is rather fewer miniatures
than I had hoped, but they were mostly of excellent quality (the Goths, below,
are a particular favourite of mine).
In terms of my modelling objectives I partially achieved 2,
completing most of my Napoleonic French cavalry Brigade, and most of what I
planned for my Early Imperial Romans 60/60/60 project; now only short 150
legionaries. I’ll need to revisit the
Romans, at least, in the summer. I
completely failed to paint anything for Runequest, my third objective. Despite the work, the lead mountain grew by
an alarming 661 unpainted metal miniatures, and now boasts a substantial
plastic foothill. I also sold off my old
Viking army which raised funds to offset some of my all-too-numerous eBay and
other hobby purchases, and made a little space for my recent painting.
Tomorrow; looking ahead to 2013!
