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

The last day of Christmas...

Hoi,

As promised, I will share one more Christmas song today. Also my first Challenge post is up on the Challenge blog so go over and have a look. The other contenders have brilliant contributions as well.

Cheers Sander

Some more festive music!

And here's part II

Merry Christmas!

A very Merry Christmas!

Hoi,

This year I'd like to share a nice Christmas song each Christmas day with you all. Since tomorrow I will not be able to put something up here I'll do tomorrows post now. All 3 songs will be by the Longest Johns

and here's the first:

Cheers Sander

And we're off!

Hoi,

Well the 6th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge has started as of yesterday. I had a bumpy start because of a violent stomachache, I had eaten something disagreeable I fear and have been ferrying between bed and toilet so little actual painting has been going on so far.

Last year's challenge has learned me a few things. First off it helps to set a few personal goals. Last year I had only 2: reach my target amount of points and participate in all bonus rounds. The latter goal has cost me quite a lot of time, so I re-thaught that point now.I will only participate when possible in my painting schedule and if I have appropriate models lying around.

The doyens of the hobby like mr Docherty have shown me this is the opportunity to paint large scale projects like he did last year with his Sudan project. So I have now started to prepare my WW1 kakhi project. All the models I could possibly find that can be primed with a Kakhi primer will be done in said colour and than painted for the cabinets. The picture below will show you quite a lot of my WW1 figures, some Napoleonics and my newest pet project 28mm vikings (they are on the blue plastic box in the background).

Some of the best miniatures I will paint in this challenge will be my newest finds: some CBT battlemechs under which an Unseen Crusader and Phoenix Hawk which I have always wanted to have but only just recently stumbled along on ebay. I have no idea what colourscheme to paint them in yet but have some time to figure that out yet.


For the "nostalgic" bonus round I have prepped some of my oldest 1:72 miniatures to whit some Matchbox Germans and some Revell 8th Army soldiers and look forward to painting them as well.

So lots of painting mayhem the coming days over!

That said all the challenge posts will have to be put up on the Challenge blog first and therefore the amount of posts over here will be a bit less frequent than usual.

Cheerio and see you in the lists!

White metal galore!

Hoi,

Some time ago I bought a few 1:72 white metal figures sets. I totally forgot about these and as such have not posted on them here. Since I am still preparing stuff for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge like mad, I stumbled along them and thought I'd put some stuff up here.

Firstly I bought some Dutch and Belgian Napoleonic Carabineers, 95th Rifles and miscellaneous characters from Hagen Miniatures.  I like the poses a lot and specially the Carabineers have loads of separate weapons and arms making them very customizable indeed. Sadly quite a lot of plumes were broken during transport, but that happens.

I have painted some of the Belgians up as testers since they are sold in 5 packs for the troopers and a separate command pack of officer and trumpeter. My cavalry units are 10 man strong and so I was left with some extra's and they make great testers.

Next up are some Franznap figures. I bought the General Lasalle with ADC and Davout besides some French artillery sets from them and they are really great although a bit on the fiddly side.


I am still pondering how to base these and what other figures to include on the command bases.

Oh well I will think of something I am sure.