At Year's End

Hoi,

Many of our fellow bloggers take these days before the New Year to reflect upon 2015's hobby activities. I'd like to do the same. Two years ago I started to take notes on the amount of figures painted this year and so I will be able to supply at least a few numbers to support my statements.
Let's break this post up in two parts: events and games played on the one side and figures painted on the other.

Events and Games:

This year I managed to visit 2 of the 4 Ducosim conventions in Amersfoort. They are helt quarterly and have a major point of gravity towards board- and cardgames but a fair amount of wargamers attending as well. These mostly participate in tournaments organised by clubs and as such use the venue of the Ducosim to get together. Tournaments include X-wing, Warmachine/ Hordes, FoW and 40K. I myself have once played a, non-tournament, game of X-wing on the first and a Fistful of Kung-fu on the last occasion and enjoyed them both.

The biggest treat each year must be the Crisis Convention in Antwerp around November 7th. I usually attend accompanied by my brother and 2015 was no exception. This year I totally went overboard on spending compared to earlier years as I also resubscribed on WI at the convention. All in all a great visit to an even greater show.

Now I would have liked to attend more shows but that was just not in the books. For 2016 I have booked for the Poldercon and IMPACT conventions as well and hope to be able to attend those as well, even though Life has been know to throw a spanner in the works on occasion.

Anyway, my other gaming activities have been on a slow burner as far as wargaming is concerned. There are just about no wargamers locally here as far as I am aware and my regular gaming buddy Mark and I have been trying to get a regular gaming night off the ground (for the 7th year running) and while we managed to meet up far more often than last year we almost exclusively played card and boardgames like Homeland, Space trucker and Hanabi. We got in some games of X-wing and two testers of a Fistful of Kung-fu but that's it. So there's a New Year's resolution if ever I've seen one: get more games under my belt.

Figures Painted:

Ok so let me put the numbers down in no particular order here and let you judge by yourself whether the year was productive at all.

1) The big winner must be my Napoleonics with a wopping 172 figures painted
2) 7YW: 65
3) 28mm Victoriana: 27 (including 3 carriages)
4) Terrain pieces: 28
5) Great War: 16
6) WW2: 16
7) 28mm Historical figures: 12
8) Classic Battletech mini's: 8
9) 28mm Barsoom: 12
10) Fantasy: 15
11) Sci-Fi: 5
12) Star Wars vehicles: 30
13) Star Wars West End Games: 13
14) Colonial Figures: 14
15) 1:72 Samurai: 6
16) 15mm CW mini': 25

If I have counted correctly this brings me to a grand total of 464 painted miniatures and therein we find another resolution: paint 500 in 2016.

Currently I am pretty heavily engaged in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (or AHPC for short from now on) and will probably crank up my starting figures-count for 2016 pretty much. That said I did suffer from a painters burn out after last years Challenge ended so I will have to take care this year. My second post for the Challenge is up showing some more 7YW miniatures and that has put me in 6th place at the time of writing so I aim to end up within the top 15 again this year. I have no idea if I will manage this but hey it's all for the fun of it!

All the best wishes and take care for 2016


See you next year!

Somewhere in the desert...

Hoi,

In my post on Crisis 2015 in Antwerp, I commented that I had been given some adobe buildings made by Johan. These were part of a deal in which I gave him some bitz he needed and he made me some scenery I cannot make myself. The only thing needed is some paint.

The buildings before painting:

The buildings are made of plastic-card, foam-core and lots of bobs and bits, but they really do look the part up close. They are also very versatile in that they can be used for a huge range of different periods and even worlds as I guess they could double as Tatooine's Mos Eisley at a pinch as well.

The smaller buildings can be added to the large square one in order to create a bigger storey building or change the look of the place. I think the amount is just right. More buildings will clutter the tabletop too much and less buildings would not feel like a true village. I still have Italeri's big Arabian house lying around to build and that would be a great addition as well.

After painting was done the result is this:

The big square building has a more elaborate door-frame, with the dome added, it could function as a Mosque or rich person's dwelling. Therefore I decided to give the frame a bit more colour by painting it like it had patterned tiles surrounding the door itself. The inspiration was this picture:

The building without any of the additions:

A close up of the door-frame:

With the additions:

When time permits (and it doesn't) I will add small walls, awnings and other stuff to make it look more like a village. I am looking for cheap palm trees though, can't seem to find any over here. I have looked at aquarium plants: way TOO expensive, cake decoration firms: they don't sell them nor do they have columns for that matter, so I am a bit hampered in this regard. All in all a great set of brilliant little buildings so thanks Johan!

Cheers Sander