The Year 2022 in Review!

 Hoi,

Another year has gone and passed and so it's on to the numbers of painted figures from 2022. Before I will go into that I would like to wish all of you the very best for 2023!

Warhammer 40K : 49

General Fantasy (28mm) : 38

Heroquest: 52

Battletech: 9

Star Wars Legion: 43

Project Laarden:    8

Blood Bowl:    87

Horus Heresy : 2

Grand Total: 288 figures.

Gosh, I am not really sure what to think of the above. Clearly Blood Bowl is the overall winner this year as far as the amount of painted miniatures is concerned, but that's not strange considering I have painted up quite a lot of teams for others this year. 

Heroquest is an important part of last year's output and it will remain so this year all be it a bit less I think, there's the re-release from Hasbro that I am painting up for Martijn as well as the expansions of the same producer, but I have no real plans for the game for myself. 

40k and Fantasy are an important part as well due to the Necrons I have painted for Martijn and the great Fantasy stuff I have been adding to various games. New is Star Wars Legion which I have not only painted for Roel, but also since Arthur and myself have started to play and paint the Republic era SW game, watch this space for more to come.

Talking about the future, 3 very big projects will be keeping me busy in 2023:

- I have started an army for my beloved First Legion, the Dark Angels will be entering the fray of the Horus Heresy in the 30K universe.

- Mordheim has gotten me and Arthur in it's grips as we are battling our way through to City of the Damned towards a huge pile of Wyrdstone. 

- Finally I am eagerly anticipating the release of Warhammer the Old World by GW and have started painting up some old Bretonnians I had lying around, got given by Mark and bought online. 

So that's the Old out and the New started for me, keep tuned for more posts as I am currently participating in the 13th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!

Cheers Sander

More Blood Bowl and the 600th post!

 Hoi,

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, this is not a Challenge Entry rehash but a rather new and original post, featuring new photo's of figures not shown elsewhere earlier. 

As our Blood Bowl craze set off earlier this year, Roel asked me to paint up his Ogre team. He had a few wishes for me to adhere to, he wanted the team in purple (yeah I know) and covered in lots of tattoos. So I set to work and the pictures below show the results of my labours.

While I am not particularly fond of the "Ogre Kingdoms" background GW did for the last version of WFB, these did turn out rather well I think. One of the Ogres got left out of these pictures since I haven't finished painting him yet and I might actually show him to you later on.

Apart  from the above, this post also happens to be the 600th post for this blog, which is rather an accomplishment I gather! So I am off to have a toast to myself now,

Cheers Sander

 

A Year in review...5 months late!

 Hoi,

What can I say? Life has been...trying to say the least. I have not been idle on the hobby front but rather idle on the Blog front. I still find it hard to find the motivation to upload pictures to the blog and write these posts as I can use the very same time to paint figures too! 

2021 has come and gone in the blink of an eye and I totally forgot to do a review. I will try to rectify that here right now as it is long overdue. That said I also need to say some stuff regarding the last AHPC. Arthur and myself participated again this year and I even managed to win the Challengers Choice for this Challenge. While I am mighty proud about this, I am even more proud of the Lad who has discovered the joy of painting for it's own sake, rather then get painted miniatures on the table to be able to game with them. Over the coming weeks/ months I will publish links to posts of the last Challenge here for those who have missed my entries in the Challenge under the header of: "Challenge Memories", combined with some all new posts.

So okay let's go ahead with the year's review shall we?

Well let's see what I did in numbers this last year!

 28mm

 Ancients: 2

Napoleonics: 60

WW2: 2 vehicles and 92 figures

Other Historical figures: 40 figures

Dark Ages: 0

Indian Mutiny:0

Pulp Games:0

Harry Potter Games:2

GI JOE: 3 vehicles and 10 figures

General Fantasy: 53 figures

Terrain: 8 large pieces

Heroquest: 11

1:72

Great War: 0

Colonial Period:0

 Seven Years War: 24 figures

Battletech

22 mechs

15mm

Crimean War: 0

ACW: 105

Star Wars Legion

0 vehicles 

21 figures

Warhammer 40K:

1 vehicle

25 figures

Project Laarden 1702:

4 figures

This makes for 460 painted miniatures and 3 vehicles as well as 8 terrain pieces of rather large scale. That's 2021 settled I guess.

So what has 2022 brought us so far? There's a great gaming group in town which I have more or less joined. More or less, since the nice people over there mainly play board and card games (not really my cup of tea to be honest) but a fair amount of figure games as well. The management has seen fit to dedicate their gamespace to miniature games each first Friday of the month and we'll start this Friday. On top of that I have started a Blood Bowl craze in that group and it's mighty fun! So I have been painting BB teams as an idiot, I have painted an Ork team for Menno, a Snotling team for FLGS owner and Club leader Martijn, a Skaven team for my buddy Mark, an Ogre team for Roel and now another Snotling team for Linda... In between I have also finally finished my own Darf team and gotten many new teams I still have to paint.

Here are some pictures of the highligts of last year and in the future I will post some more stuff as stated above.

 Menno's Ork Team

 Some of the mechs I have painted for CBT

 Mansions of Madness figures I have painted for Roel:

The incredibly cool Ankh Game figures I have painted for Martijn:

The 2 Laarden 1702 vignettes on which more info will follow soonish!

Cheers Sander

Cr*pbucket!

 Hoi,

 

Quite a lot of you Blogger guys have been ranting about the downright bad service Photobucket has been supplying recently. I didn't notice I had surpassed my set amount of pictures for my Free account and as such a lot of the pictures in my older blogposts were being hidden by PB untill I upgraded. They didn't notify me about this which I think isn't really civil. This morning I received a notice that my account had been inactive for quite some time, so if I didn't activate it would be closed down. 

 

Just a random picture of me for interest ;-)

Well I activated, noticed the "exceeding hosting limits" notification and since I had no desire of upgrading I tried to delete my account. The latter wasn't an option since a free account does not have a delte my account  button. I tried solving this, wasn't able and in the end just deleted all my albums and left it at that.

Now the effect of this will leave quite a lot of the older posts without pictures. I might remedy this in due time (it has no priority for me now since I haven't been actually using PB for some time) and I might just delete the posts or provide new pictures. 

I just thought I should let you all know.

 

Cheers Sander

Just about time...a 2020 review!

 Dear Readers,

We're already 3 months and 4 days into the new year and I have yet to submit my review for 2020. Blogging has again been one of the tasks I could not set myself to these last months, more so because I have also been competing in the 11th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Entries for said Challenge can be found here:

Challenge Entries

While I managed to paint a healthy 1390 points worth of stuff for the Challenge, the most prestigious part for me was gaining 10.000+ "Challenges lifepoints" meaning that during all the Challenges I have participated in, I have painted in excess of 10.000 points altogether. 

Before I start the listing of miniatures painted in 2020, I'd like to have a short recap in words of the most important projects running through the year. 

First up are the two main commission projects I have been painting: Roel's Star Wars Legion figures which was a total blast because the figures are full of character and detail.

And two Warlord projects for Martijn: both the La Haye Sainte and Stalingrad boxes. The former is done (explaining the 100 painted 28mm Napoleonics) and the latter is still an ongoing project.

On the side I have been painting stuff for myself as well, mainly Heroquest figures and scatter terrain as well as Battletech figures. 

 

Well let's see what I did in numbers this last year!

 28mm

Napoleonics: 100

WW2: 1 vehicle and 30 figures

Other Historical figures: 2 vehicles and 48 figures

Dark Ages: 16

Indian Mutiny: 10

Pulp Games: 10

Warhammer 40.000: 45

Harry Potter Games: 17

GI JOE: 3 vehicles and 10 figures

General Fantasy: 29 figures

Terrain: 12 large pieces

1:72

Great War: 112 figures

Colonial Period: 48

 

Battletech

14 mechs

15mm

Crimean War: 26

 

Star Wars Legion

2 vehicles 

31 figures

Amounting to a grand total of 7 vehicles and 558 figures painted. I am very happy with that! The output for 2019 was 261 figures so I doubled that score. This is not due to Covid I think, as a teacher it rather had a negative effect on my free time as I was forced to rapidly master online teaching. I blame it on having to do commissions as well as a lot of figures that I was able to batch paint which goes way faster then the one off figures for Heroquest or Battletech I have also painted. 

There are plans for this year in place but for now I am still very busy with painting the Stalingrad forces for Martijn. Curt has also offered us Challengers to participate in a Vaccination Challenge. Where you get to enter figures painted until you get your first shot. You can see that over HERE.

 More will be revealed in time ;-)

Stay Safe and Healthy!

Meet and greet...

Hoi,

As I told you all a while ago the family and myself visited the UK during the summer. We stayed in Canterbury for two weeks and visited the surroundings. Margate and Hern Bay were interesting places to see and London is always a thrill, specially when going to Hamleys with two small lads...

Anyway, one of the absolute highlights of the holidays for me was going to Rye in order to hook up with the legendary Lord Awdry of "28mm Victorian Warfare" fame. We met up at the railway station and immediately set out to find a suitable pub to catch up. We had some excellent pints and refreshments as well as some brilliant discussions, both about the hobby and work, us being in the same line of work and all.

Rye is a brilliant little town and we even had time to visit the local toy soldier shop, Soldiers of Rye, run by an excellently entertaining gentleman who casts and paints his own products and sells some nice books. He even gave us some solid vacation booking advice as well as some nice personal stories.

Some excellent brews were enjoyed and I really had to remind myself I was drinking pints (European glasses tend to contain less beer) This one I particularly liked.

Michael is one of the Hobby's Legends to me and so it was brilliant to be able to meet him. The last time, and also first time, we met was 2 years ago at Hastings and we forgot to take a picture back then, just as I forgot to take one of Arthur, Curt and myself way back. This time we remembered and well I can only hope it wasn't the last opportunity for a mug-shot and we will get more in the future.

I'd say this is what this hobby is all about: gaining new friends to learn from, enjoy each others company and have great fun in general!

Thanks mate and hopefully till next time!

Cheers Sander

Out with the Old and well in with the Old as well!

Hoi,

 That's right people it's that time of the year for a short recap of last year. Also, the AHPC number IX is well on it's way and I have yet to post about my preparations for this grand event.

So let's start with the recap of 2018; what did I paint and what conclusions can we make out of this?

Napoleonic Wars: 6 miniatures.... shaming truly, the less said the better...

Large terrain pieces: 9 larger buildings were finished, that's none too shabby.

WW1: 1 vehicle... yeah I know...

28mm Historicals:  15 figures, this is always a collection bin category in which figures can  be put that don't fit in with others. So yeah no worries it's okay.

CBT: 2 mechs; I will need to amend that during this year's Challenge.

Fantasy (28mm): 29 figures were done, mostly with the intention of using them with HQ

Sci Fi (28mm): 5 figures

Colonial: 12 figures were done.

Dark Ages: 4 figures

GI Joe: 3 figures and 9 vehicles were painted, rest assured more will follow.

Indian Mutiny: 22 figures finished

Heroquest: 70 miniatures done; ow jee that's even more than I expected myself...

Pulp: 5 figures

Blood Bowl: 24 figures

40K (mostly Necromunda): 45 figures

Total: 261 figures

 So yeah, what to think of that? Basically the prime focus of 2018's painting was upon 28mm Sci-Fi and Fantasy, again mainly due to Herouest and the games played at the schoolclub. I need, or at least think I need, figures for specific scenario's or cards (more on the latter later) and as such it's a big drive for my painting. Recently I have taken the opportunity to get into those GW specialist games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda that I would have loved to own back in the days of tight gaming budgets and now am able to obtain. All these old games (or rather new depending on your point of view) also give me a chance to revisit old figures that now lie un-used. Necromunda has given me the opportunity to get out my old Gaunt's Ghosts which I have now primed to be painted and used as a gang in Vervunhive. The same is true for my Dark Angels: there's a new high quality toy store in town who now sell Army Painter and GW produce and asked me to paint their First Strike demo figures. I did and as reward I received a box of Primaris Intercessor marines. I painted 5 as Blood Angels and gave back to them to use as an alternative to the Vanilla Marines and the other 5 I gave to Arthur who now has fallen in love with Space Marines, rekindling my own obsession with the Firtst Chapter, many of which await painting eagerly.

As for the Painting Challenge: I have put up our first post HERE and it's great fun to participate this year again. I plan to get quite some stuff done and since I am no longer a Minion (thank the Gods for that!), I might have actually got time to get a dent in the lead pile.

There's a few themes for what I want to paint in the Challenge, but I have no real plan like I wanted to follow last year and abandoned right from the start. The Challenge's own theme is "Fellowship" and strangely enough quite a lot of the things I want to enter are Fellowship related. Besides that the other theme is GW Boxed or Specialist Games with HQ, Necromunda, Blood Bowl and Blackstone Fortress all wanting my attention. Whether I will get into the Bonus-rounds is still under debate. It rather depends if I have anything appropriate lying around I will most certainly not get any new stuff for that as I did last year.

So there you have it. All the best for 2019 and happy painting!

Fortress "De Schans" on Texel.

Hoi,

While on holiday vacation on the small Dutch isle of Texel, the boys, my wife and I visited the small fortress of "de Schans". Build during the 80 Years War or Dutch Revolt to safeguard VOC shipping, the fortress was enlarged in 1811 after Boney himself visited the Island on his tour through the Netherlands.

Above: view from the fortress ramparts. Below: two views of the only gun still emplaced there.

The main-gate, seen from the inside of the fort.

While most of the fort is covered in earth, it was originally a brick building.

Driveway and drawbridge leading up to the main gate.

View from the road towards the glacis 

My youngest tries to help dad read the information-sign.

To the right of the building (a waterpump to keep the area dry) one can see the silouette of the fort.

  

A large part of the seawards-facing fortifications have been re-used to build dikes to keep the nearby town of Oudeschild dry. The present dike is easily 4 meters higher than the fort, therefore making it rather difficuldt to shoot at shipping at this time.

 At this moment in time I have no plans to do anything hobbywise with this, but who knows in the future.

Cheers Sander

Folkestone!

Hoi,

As I said in my last post things have been busy. Mostly with work as I had to correct the final exams and am awaiting the "second correction" which is a lot of work awaiting me soon. So I have had no real opportunity to post anything about the school trip to the UK I helped organise for 88 of our pupils and some 9 co-workers to the lovely region of Kent.

While there I tried to sneak in some hobby related stops and managed rather well. At Rochester I managed to locate the Rochester Games and Model shop (thanks Lee for the hint) and it is a great shop with a large assortment of goodies and nice helpful staff at that.

We also visited the Chatham Naval Docks Museum. While there we could have a look at the 3 historic vessels present and had a workshop at the ropery where the kids were allowed to make some real hemp rope (apparently 300 miles of the stuff was needed on an average ship of the line).

Some pictures of HMS Gannet:

HMS Cavalier with HM Submarines Ocelot in the background

HM Submarine Ocelot:

We went in the submarine and there's some movies of me in there that we will not be showing the wider public....

During our visit of Hastings I actually managed to meet up with Master Michael Awdry of the Fabled Awdry Towers, but like the big boobies we are we totally forgot to make a picture :-( Without overreacting: this must have been my personal highlight of the trip, so thanks M!

At the end of the trip a visit to London was planned and I just had to get into Hamley's to get the boys something and luckily I managed to find Arthur some Transformers action figures as well as a selfie with his great Hero Optimus Prime.

Meanwhile on the hobby front I have managed to paint the Human team for Blood Bowl by now as well as some more GIJoe vehicles and crew. I hope to feature them soon(ish).

Cheers Sander