A Breath of Life!

Hello again!

It's certainly been a while, but I'm still alive and kicking, and still intent on boring you with my continuing efforts to make a dent in my lead mountain...

So, somewhere during my mini-hiatus, we moved from the familiar territory of 2013 into the new world of 2014. I had intended to write up the typical "wrapping up" post at the end of December, reviewing what I'd done over the course of the previous twelve months, but that seems somewhat redundant now that we're almost a month into a new year. I'll simply give a brief summary instead; I painted a grand total of 180 figures, 50% of which were made up of my Wood Elf tournament army that I took to GW's Throne of Skulls event in October. I deliberately didn't set myself any tangible goals at the beginning of 2013 but as it turns out 180 is the highest number of painted figures I've completed since I started counting my annual output in 2011. How much that had to do with not setting any goals I don't know, but this year I *am* setting some goals; or rather, I'm going to try and focus my efforts on a select number of projects.

So, for 2014, these are the projects I want to try and tackle. In no particular order:

Project #1 - Wood Elves

Despite painting 2000pts worth of Wood Elves towards the end of last year (91 models in total), I still have a bunch of figures still to receive the new paint job - 128 models, to be precise. With the Wood Elves rumoured to be getting a new army book (finally!) some time around May this year, I'd like to get at least part way to painting all my old stuff before any of the new toys come out. Given that my beloved Wood Elves have waited nearly a decade for any new stuff, you can take it for granted that I will be picking up every new shiny model that gets released for them, just in case it's another nine years before they get updated again. I have already forewarned She Who Must Be Obeyed, and she has graciously allowed me to stockpile some coinage so that I might fund my unhealthy habit without diverting money from More Important Things™

Model Count = 128

Project #2 - Imperial Romans

After a year or so of sitting in boxes in a wardrobe, I decided towards the end of last year that the Romans would be one of the projects I wanted to tackle in 2014. I already had a bunch of Warlord Games plastics and Foundry metals, and I added a few more metals second-hand courtesy of Colonel Bill's at Wargamer in December (although, on reflection, these weren't perhaps the best purchases for a starter army...), so now is the time for the Might of Rome to arise to spread Imperialism among the other denizens of the Man Cave.

I'll also probably pick up more Romans from Colonel Bill's when we head to the WMMS/Alumwell in March. Those purchases won't be approved by The Treasurer, but providing I can sneak them into the house, I might get away with it...

Model Count = 124

Project #3 - Italian Condottieri

If you've read the blog for a while, you'll probably have seen a few posts showing the plastic Perry Miniatures 'European Mercenaries' I put together. I've got a couple of boxes of Mounted Men-at-Arms sitting in the wings as well, and there's plenty of scope for opposition (lots of Medieval/Renaissance armies out there) and future expansion (although nothing planned this year...)

Model Count = 98

Project #4 - The 2015 Game

We ran our "Battle of Kirkburn Bridge" in December; that was the first outing of hopefully many for this game in 2014 - it's our theme game for the year, being as 2014 is the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. However, we've already had discussions about what we might want to run for 2015, and this will form the fourth big project of the year, once we finalise our plans. We have a pretty good idea of what we want to do; we just have to figure out the details, and get down to putting it together in time for Wargamer at the end of the year (which, traditionally, is when we debut our new games!)


So there we have it! Those are the projects I'm going to try and concentrate the majority of my efforts on this year, although of course I won't rule out side projects - I have plenty of things to be getting on with, and the odd "distraction" session here and there will ultimately help keep me interested in the main projects. All told (excluding side projects) these amount to a nice round 350 figures to paint - if I can achieve that, I'll be well chuffed!

The first distraction will most likely be the resumption of my long-suffering "Battle for Khazad-dum" campaign, as after several false starts over the past couple of months, it's finally looking like we might have a date to play the fourth scenario! Touch wood, it will go ahead as planned this time...

In the meantime, I will be drawing up individual posts to detail the plans for each of the projects over the course of the year, so keep your eyes peeled!