Time Is Flying By in 2016

Man, where have the first 3 months of 2016 gone?  It seems like it was just New Years.  I certainly haven't been as active posting here as I would like; it seems like I find excuses not to post when it doesn't really take all that much time...something I need to work on for sure.

The good news is that I have been pretty active on the gaming front.  I've played a lot of different games, including playing in the Shifting Sands Flames of War event in January, and the Gathering in the Desert Bolt Action Operation Torch campaign event in February.  I enjoyed both thoroughly...played some excellent opponents and had a fun time.  I actually managed to be the top Axis commander with my Italian Paras in the Bolt Action event with a 1 win, 1 loss, and 3 tie record...just goes to show how poorly the Axis did!  Next year Shifting Sands is supposed to be Team Yankee, so I'll be passing on it...not that I have anything against Team Yankee, it's just that I have plenty else to do and I need to draw some lines.  Gathering in the Desert next year is supposed to be Normandy, so I am more likely to build a force for that than I am getting into a new period.

I haven't completed much painting this year, though I have been working a a few different things.  I prepped a couple of 15mm WWI armies for Great War to be painted by Saguaro Painting Service, painted some 28mm WWII, based some figures for SAGA, and have been rebasing a 10mm army as I shift to that scale for my big battle ancients and medieval gaming.

Here are 3 Perry Brother WWII German Fallschirmjager MG teams.  I am going to use these as additions to my Italian Para force when I want to play Chain of Command as the unit structure is different than that in Bolt Action.  They are nice figures, but a little smaller than the Warlord Games Italian Paras as you can see in the comparison shot:

 Comparison - Perry on the left and Warlord on the right

I also contracted some 28mm Varangian Guard for my SAGA Byzantines.  The painter, Andrew K., had posted some stuff for sale on a forum and I liked his work.  He was great to deal with and said he liked painting these up.  The figures are from Crusader Miniatures with the exception of Harald Hardrada which is a Gripping Beast figures.  All have LMBS shield transfers.

Harald Hardrada

 Command

 Spearmen - Front

 Spearmen - Rear

Well, that's it for now.  The next post will definitely be sometime in April as I show off the 10mm figures I've been working on.  I am not sure what I'm going to work on after that...it will be something as I think I'm starting to get back into a groove.

SAGA - Byzantines Complete



It's been a few months since I've posted...not because I haven't been doing anything gaming-related, I've just been busy (and a bit lazy when it comes to this blog).  Anyway, I just finished up a 28mm Byzantine force for SAGA.  All of the figures are Gripping Beast, which are great figures IMO.  The banners are from LBMS; this is the first time I used their products and they were actually pretty easy to work with once I did the first one and realized how I messed up :-) !  Note to self, follow the directions!  Anyway, the force consists of 4 units of 8 warriors (one with bow), 2 units of mounted hearthguard, and the warlord.  The hearthguard can be ran as all bow, or if I want one unit of bow and one with kontos, I can just adjust accordingly.  For some reason the picture of the warlord is a little washed out; I have no idea why this happened since the camera settings were all the same. 

 

Warrior Unit 1



 Warrior Unit 2

 Warrior Unit 3

 Warrior Unit 4 with Bows

 Hearthguard Unit 1

 Hearthguard Unit 2

 Warlord

As you can see by the tracking on the left-hand column, I am a few hours behind on my 1/2 hour a day goal for the year.  With summer coming I hope to catch up as there is only so much time that you want to spend outside in Arizona in the summer!  I have gotten in a lot of games, and have plenty more scheduled including a 3 game SAGA "non-event" run by Tim K over at "Cursed Treasures", and a late war Flames of War tournament in late July.  In the meantime, I'll keep playing various games and having fun.

With the Byzantines finished up, next on my painting cue is a 15mm Polish skirmish force for By Fire and Sword.  I had actually started painting on those figures before finishing off the Byzantines; having an event planned for SAGA gave me the motivation to finish something off which is good since now I have one less project to worry about.  I'm not sure what I'll work on after the Poles; I have lots of possibilities...right now I'm leaning toward picking something with minimal work needed to finish so I can feel like I'm making progress on my mountain of lead.  Anyway, that's all for now...happy gaming!