2016 Review

Hoi,

Since it is December 31st today it's about time for my Year's Review. Posts like this are popping up all around the blogosphere and it's good to see what and how our fellow Bloggers got busy during this year, my review will concern itself mainly to the figures I have managed to paint and provide some numbers on this. While I will not delve into my personal life during 2016 I would like to mention a few things: first off is the birth of our youngest son Hugo which delighted me beyond measure. Being a dad is great and having two brilliant sons is even better (can't say anything about having daughters but I hear it's OK too :-P ). Apart from that it has been a rollercoaster ride this year and I hope 2017 will prove to be better, but I am a bit anxious what with our Cousins in the UK Brexiting and the election of Mr Trump in the States. This blog has never been about politics, but I do think both occurrences will have profound effects on the course of History...

On to the Figure Front! Just like last year I will state some categories of figures I collect and paint and the amount of miniatures of each I actually finished. For this end I use a cahier, obtained at the Musée de l'Armée in Paris featuring Good Old Boney on the cover, in which I keep track. No fancy excel spreadsheets or apps or the like. Now there would be a nice in the market: an app that keeps track of the (un)painted lead pile!

Seven Years War (1:72)
- I managed to paint all about one regiment of 24 figures for this in 2016. A bit meagre but not a biggie, other projects took prime position.

AWI
- All of 11 figures were done up for the AWI mainly to fill out a started unit to full strength. I have a few miniatures left which are mostly white metal Highlanders and I am still un-decided as to what regiment I want to depict. They are in trews by the way.

Napoleonic Wars (1:72)
- Precisely 203 figures for this period were provided with some paint this year which explains the lack of progress on the 7YW figures I guess. I am fast approaching the point where I am finishing the armies I want to realise in 1:72 scale plastics.
- The problem is that new sets and ones in white metal as well, keep turning up and setting me back.

Colonial Wars (1:72)
- 0 figures were finished for this project this year... a bit disappointing but to be expected since the project was really kicked into the backburner.

The Great War (1:72)
-  82 WW1 figures were painted, these included such far flung conflicts like the German and British troops in Africa as well as some early Belgian and French troops.
- 3 vehicles were done (two more are currently put together and base-coated but not finished in time for Year's End).

WW2 (1:72)
- 21 WW2 troops entered my "painted-cabinets" this year, concluding my 1:72 figures list.

Victoriana (28mm)
- I just about managed to paint one piece for this collection which is a Handsome Cab, these figures are now listed as my project for the 8th Painting Challenge. Yeah I am planning well ahead ;-)

Scatter Terrain (all scales but mostly 28mm)
- This is a category I have been quite active in this year and have forgotten to list well enough. A rough estimate places the amount of scatter stuff I painted this year at about 25 large pieces (excluding buildings) and about double the amount of small stuff.

28mm Historical or Diverse figures
- 9 figures
- 3 vehicles

Sci-fi and Fantasy (28mm)
- 0 I have had no interest in this subject through the year. I have sold off quite a lot of my GW stuff and will not buy any new anytime soon!

West End games Star Wars figures (25mm)
- the figure counter for these is sticking on a measly 2 figures I will need to rectify that in 2017.
- I did manage to paint up 12 vehicles but these were not all West Wind mini's

Dark Ages (28mm)
- 48 figures (mostly Norsemen and civilians) made it into the painted cabinets in 2016. As I intend to paint a lot of these during the present Challenge, I am certain 2017 is going to top that number.

80's Pulp Figures (28mm)
- 42 figures have been painted for this project, another part of the Challenge and it will see a growth for the new year. The unpainted pile for this project is still very large and with figures added from currently available commercial lines and repurposed, it will be an ongoing work of love for some time yet.
- 3 vehicles were done for the above and with a lot of them available as 3d print files more are sure to follow.

Crimean War (15mm)
- finally we come to the end of the list with this little side show of 15mm figures. Last year I managed to finish most of the Russians for this conflict and this year I concluded the remaining 48 of them. The British are up next and will be done up (hopefully) as part of this year's Challenge. Now on to the Grand total!

If I have counted correctly I have put paint to 461 miniatures over the course of 2016, a venerable amount if ever there was one...

New plans for 2017 are in the making. First and foremost is completing the Challenge and the two projects I have planned for this. Another big target will be to get going on my Salamanca Project. To be honest, I do not wish or dare to state more goals for 2017 since we all know how the "Ooooh-shiny" syndrome works and I am as susceptible to this as the next wargamer.

We'll see what 2017 brings,  a good Old Year's Eve to all of you!

Cheers Sander

It has begun!

Hoi,

My first Challenge post is up HERE, go and have a look, you know you want to! It's not a big entry points-wise, but I wanted to get stuck in and get some points on the board and that worked.

I am working on a 2016 review, which will probably published around or on December 31st so see you then!

Cheers Sander

A Challenge for the New Year!

Hoi,

It has been quite some while since my last blogpost just about 29 days ago. In the mean time, real life, that big old Bogeyman came round the corner and scared me away from most of my hobby-related activities. Work and a baby of 15 weeks old kind of get in the way. This means that in the evening after putting the boys in bed, I am pretty tired and turn in early or doze off in front of the TV.

While this might be true for now, things have settled a bit and we are getting into a sort of decent routine at home and work will be a bit less tense for the coming weeks. Great news since tomorrow the Analogue Hobbies Annual Painting Challenge will start and give me a goal to get cracking on some paintwork again!

For this year's Challenge I am aiming at fun, oh and 28mm seems to be the standard this time round. Usually my main medium of art is the 1:72 or 20mm plastic miniature, not so for this Challenge. My two main projects at this moment are the Viking project I am still working on (many miniatures from last Challenge have not been painted yet) and the absolute favourite '80s Pulp Gaming project.

Some of the smaller side projects to be tackled this year are the 15mm CW British and a new regiment for Classic Battletech.
Odd one out is the old West End Games Star Wars Sand People Bantha with rider, this is one of the "Holy Grails" of the series for me and I am going to paint it up this Challenge.

So what's up for targets? Not so much, I have listed a 1500 points target for starters. Small chance I am going to top that anytime soon, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Regarding side duels: I have only one going this time it's still a secret at the moment but I will fight Iannick in an 80s Pulp Duel.

The entry-fee to the Challenge is organised a bit differently now: it should be a team-effort, so I am lucky enough to have teamed up with two of the very best the Challenge has to offer but who and what we will be doing is going be a secret for some time to.

So happy painting to all and see you in the lists for my fellow-contestants!

More '80s Pulp!

Hoi,

While painting time is in short supply here, mainly due to me correcting a lot of tests, I painted some more blue clad baddies for my '80s Pulp Project a while ago.

Just the pictures for now, more babble on this project in a later post.

Some command figures

Grunts with night vision goggles

the rest of the grunts

The whole litter of grunts

There are still quite a few of these figures to paint and I found some 3D printable files of vehicles and will look into getting some of those done.

Cheers Sander

lest we forget...

The Crisis has passed!

Hoi,

Yesterday I was in the lucky situation of visiting the Crisis 2016 in Antwerp. As always I went there together with my brother and this year, for the first time, my 5 year old son Arthur came along. Needless to say: we had a blast!

Upon arriving we had a surprise in store for us, because there as a rather long cue in front of the Waagnatie building. From event-reports online and in magazines I understand this is rather normal in the UK and US, but for me it was a first time experience and it did feel a bit silly to be honest.

Inside we made a round to pick up my pre-orders first, with these safely tucked away, I could now check my budget- balance and went on the hunt for bargains. While Arthur kept himself up admirably for a five-year-old in such a busy and impulse-rich environment, he did start to get itchy by now and I missed some shops like Annie's (Big Squido Games) and some others I would have liked to visit but that was ok since in the end I got almost everything from my wish-list. I missed out on paints and Valejo filler, but did find some much needed primer-spraycans for a bargain price.

As every year I brought my camera along, but 1) I am rather bad at making photographs and 2) the pictures in the magazines show up eventually so there's no need for total coverage of all things admired at the show. So I asked Arthur what he wanted to see pictures taken of. Here we go:

This floating castle was a brilliant participation game, I didn't catch what ruleset but it was really nice, one of the floating rocks contained a tower which in reality was a dicetower: very cool!

Arhtur really liked Sally 4th's new Amsterdam Canal Bridge. When I took the picture the very kind gentleman behind the counter explained he is planning a range of Dutch/ Amsterdam scenery to support the May '40 Dutch army miniatures also featured on this website.

On we went to see a lot of very good demo- and participation games.My son fell for the ones including trains and you'd be amazed at how many there were, about 4 had some.

My brother took this rather flashy picture of the lad and me looking at some display that had led's in it which made it attractive to little kiddies (of all ages ;-).

One of my favourites was this table of an early Roman army confronting other Latin tribes in a valley of well made forested hill-slopes.

The bring-and-buy department was a downright mess! I'll get to to the ups and downs of this edition of Crisis in a minute, but I'd like to state that there was not nearly enough space to get through the throng and see the stalls let alone their contents. So I took the little one on my shoulders in order not to loose him and so he could see, which made for a funny picture.

Stefan a.k.a. Monty and his palls were there to with a wonderful 15mm Fantasy table. They are selling it as fantasy but it was just as rationally thought out as any of their historical games!

Apart from Stefan, I also met up with the guys from Crush the Kaiser but stupidly forgot to photograph their 1:72 Zulu War table!

Now on to the ups and downs. Ups:
- I was able to see everything I wanted in a reasonably small amount of time due to careful pre-ordering and keeping myself in hand and from impulse buys.
- The boy had a blast and when his mum put him to bed that night he was still going on about his great day, which says enough really.
- I got almost all items from my wish-list a first one yet again!

Downs, and I do realise these are rather personal so please do not feel offended if I state stuff not agreed with by you yourself.
- When entering the first hall of the building we were almost choked out again by the, sorry for the word, stench of the catering stand. I can imagine the food will have been very nice to eat but the hall reeked of cooking fat and grey clouds of smoke hung over the catering stand. This must be a highly personal experience by my brother and me and I am sure all you other visitors were not bothered by it, we were....
- An observation made by me and 4 others I spoke on the day was that the lay-out of both halls has been altered compared to preceding years which made the
convention unnecessarily busy, crowded and chaotic. Again it must be highly personal but I really felt rushed and claustrophobic at some points of the hall which I have never before.

That said they were only a very small part of an otherwise excellent day out. Sadly I didn't meet up with some of my regular friends at the show like Jan Willem, Koen and others but we'll see each other soon elsewhere I'm sure.

Let's have a look at the loot shall we?

In more detail now. Thanks to Johan I was able to replenish my Classic Battletech 'mechs store. A very good deal brought me a nice amount of mechs I haven't got or ones I like a second one of. 

My 28mm projects were spoilt for choice this time round as well. I invested in some more Stronghold terrain figures for the Dark Age project with more characters from the "Vikings Series" like Björn, Aethelstaen and Floki. I also got a female champion, -banner bearer and some more civilians (the latter from Foundry). I also bought a Warpainting booklet on painting the Dark Ages, more on that later when I have finished reading it.

The biggest winner this day must be my 28mm 80's pulp project. A truck from Rubicon models will give me an useful scenario objective. From the nice people at Crooked Dice I obtained their new landrover defender and policemen, divers, ninja's, Thuggees and some villains. These will be reinforced with some figures from Spectre miniatures and the nice SUV they sell.In all a very nice haul I reckon.

Cheers Sander

Back to the farm!

Hoi There,

As an encore to the Dark Age buildings from some posts ago here are some villagers to go along with those. I am not to sure what make they are. I know I have bought quite some Gripping Beast miniatures and some other brands as well but am not sure which ones and what figures are from what brand. Frankly: I do not really care.

Anyway, let's get on with the pictures right?

Oh and some little pigsy wigsy's got finished as well, I really like the look of these proto pigs, the sheep awaiting me are a bit more daunting though since they too are of a Dark Age breed I am unfamiliar with.

That's all for today folks!

Cheers Sander

Unmarried Zulu's or Napoleonic Austrians anyone?

Hoi,

Just a quick post to let you all know that HäT has put up a duo of crowdfunders for 1:32 Austrian Napoleonics and 1:72 Unmarried Zulu warriors here: LINK.

These sets have been in the making for quite some time and to fasten the process, HäT has now decided to go the way of the crowdfunder to bring them to the wider public.

While I have no use for 1:32 figures I have ordered some of the Zulu's which are Unmarried ones at this moment not available on the market in correct attire anywhere.

For about $15 you would be getting 60 Zulu's! Yup I am in ;-)

Cheers Sander

Rubbish...utter rubbish!

Hoi,

Today I'll be putting up a few pictures of some of my modern scatter terrain. Most pieces are from the TTCombat resin scenery line. These are little gems even if they do suffer from some flash. The flames in the oil drum are rubbish, I know, but well I have to get me a decent tutorial on doing those than I guess.

This model was a toy-car my eldest son got but which broke down the second day he was playing with it. I painted it using the excellent tutorial done by Gunbird at his blog. Now I know there's quite a lot wrong with this one such as the lay-out of the debris and the area's of rust pattern I applied, but it is my first attempt at anything like this and I like it!

Cheers Sander