January felt like it went on and on but February is racing by. What’s that about? Sheesh.
In many respects, January was a great month, except of course that my dear friend Dave died on January 1st. It was a couple of weeks of navigating a really mopey haze. But, things did get better for me. I was helping Dave’s wife Lynn move and organize Dave’s considerable pile of yikes last week. This was round two and I expect there will be rounds three and four and it brought back how much I missed him. I “liberated” some of the bits of work we did together so I could hang on to it–the Tirpitz and Illustrious we bombed together with AirWar 1940, the Falklands ships. I gathered up the altitude stands and some stray planes. I just want to keep them together. But just organizing everything and finding a place for them in my own field of “yikes” was filled with sadness and loss.
But I’m doing okay. It’s not all the time, just occasionally. He was the best.
I did get some painting done in January. I enjoyed every minute of it. The painting. Didn’t get quite as much done as I would like, but what the heck.
I focused a lot on those Nathaniel Greene battles I waxed so eloquently about last month. My big focus was painting the 2nd Virginia regiment that appears in all three battles. It’s big. Ten stands or 40 figures. I used the Perry marching figures and chose a variety of different looks including Continental regimentals in their distinct blue with red facings. But most of the unit is in a variety of civilian dress. Greene was always complaining about supply, so having them in varied attire seemed reasonable.
I also added a couple of stands to my 2nd Maryland regiment. These are also Perry figures in a firing line. The 2nd Maryland wore Brown faced red. So a little difference.
Finally, I added the light company for the British Guards units. These functioned as a separate unit at Guilford Courthouse and the Perry figures are pretty nice, with their cute hats and distinctive LI, though the marching pose is fairly lame. I also added some British officers, which I really like.
Total AWI figures for the month: 59
I bought the Eureka Beowulf figures, one set each of the standing looking tough guys and the same guys in action poses. Love the story of Beowulf. Really like the figures and I decided to use them as the basis for an Anglo-Danish army for SAGA. Unfortunately you need other figures to fill those out. So I did. I picked up some Footsore Anglo Danish Huscarls, the Eureka Dark Ages archers and added the obligatory Gripping Beast personalities of Cnut the Great, and Harold Godwinson and his brothers.
Now that I got ’em I gotta paint ’em. So I did manage to get the huscarls done. Hoping I might finish the lot in February that is flying by. We’ll see. Eight figures.
I also promised to get a building done each month. True to my word, I assembled and painted the Perry/Renendra American farmhouse finished. I hated assembling it. I think I would have enjoyed needles poked in my eyes more. I primed it a desert yellow color and then just dry brushed white over it. I got the aging weathered look I was after, so good on me. One figure.
Last, but not least, I tackled some of my 1/1200 scale ships. I had four unbuilt Alnavco kits, so I started with those. It was a Brooklyn class CL, and then three Fletcher DD variants. Three of those I put in Measure 22 colors, which is just blue gray over blue gray. One I put in Measure 32 camouflage. More about that in a moment. I popped open my box of cruisers I want to re-paint. I grabbed the Japanese Mogami and the Indianapolis. Japanese ships are incredibly orderly and easy to paint. If I painted nothing but Japanese ships they would go fast and easy.
However, the Indianapolis was problematic. I already have her sister, the Portland in Measure 22. For a short time 1943-44 it was a Measure 32 ship, so I decided what the heck. Measure 32 is difficult. It’s not just that it’s messy and multiple colors, it’s that it is just difficult to get right. The horizontal pattern that everyone looks at is just broken by so much detail on a tiny model that it is a huge challenge just to cover all the light spaces. It was fun to do once or twice, but I don’t think it’s an opportunity I will regularly pursue. Measure 21, Measure 22 look just fine. Six figures.
So, 74 figures for the month. I’m not complaining. I always like to get in the 84 figure neighborhood because 12 X 84 gets me to a thousand for the year, but I’m not holding my breath on that. As long as I make progress I’m not complaining.
Figure purchases. Well, yes. I ordered 15 boxes of Perry AWI figs early in the month, but honestly nothing else.
Games, well, yes a few. I played Regimental Fire and Fury with the guys at their monthly meeting. I’m enjoying that. I ran a 28mm AWI game last weekend. I’ll report that in a separate post. I also worked with David Sullivan to try out Xenos Rampant for Vietnam, which was covered earlier. I had a lot of fun playing SAGA with my Wednesday SAGA brothers. My Irish made their first appearance. While I would hardly call them formidable, they were ridiculously fun to run. We laughed through the entire game.
February will be more of the same. Lots of AWI stuff to paint. I hope to finish my Anglo Danes so I can move on to other stuff. I also commit to completing at least one ship and one building.
A Gamer's Tales 