Ah, why is February so damn short?
It was a good month. Played a few games. I think I managed three miniature games in February, which is way more than I did when I was working. I squoze in an AWI Regimental Fire and Fury game, a SAGA game using my dastardly Irish, and a 1914 game, Serbs vs. Austrians. All were much fun, though 1914 continues to have a steep learning curve for me.
I’ve done a lot of reorganizing this month. I’ve slipped a lot of my planes into smaller bins, which saves space. I also brought some stuff home from Dave Schueler’s. Tried to keep it to stuff we worked on together so I can attempt to recreate those games. The Falklands ships, the Tirpitz and her escorts, all of the scenics for the Raid on St. Nazaire managed to be shoehorned into whatever room I have in the garage. There is still more reorganizing I want to do in March, particularly with my AWI figures
Got some painting done too. It was a month split into three painting parts. In the early part of the month, I primarily focused on my Perry AWI figures. I finished two sets of command figures, for the militia commanders and Continental leaders. I completed an eight figure unit of the British Guard grenadier company. I wrestled with the best way to paint Lee’s Legion infantry. Should I put ’em in linen white with bluish facings, or better to go with the more traditional purple. When I asked Lorri, she reminded me Casey’s favorite color was purple, so that sort of decided for me. Finally, I painted the British six pounder with crew for the Southern campaign. 31 figures in all.
In the middle of month, I gave some time to painting some of my 1/1200 scale ships. The shipyard was indeed open. I was mostly focused on painting the five Japanese heavy cruisers I had that were dunked in an unfortunate shade of blue. So I primed right over those bad boys and had at it. I used my various Life Color IJN paints to get them done, and voila. My painted/repainted Japanese navy now stands at six heavy cruisers, three light cruisers and 15 destroyers.
But wait, there’s more. I brought home some unpainted destroyers I found at Shoe’s house. He primed nine metal and 3d printed ships and stuck ’em on a big sheet of cardboard. I pried them off and glued them to craft sticks and had at it. There were several Fletcher class, four Gridley/Bagley class and at least one Farragut. My collection of painted and repainted ships has gotten pretty large. 15 ships slid off the ways in the Smyth Shipyard and joined their respective fleets. The Americans now stand at two heavy cruisers, four light cruisers and 27 (!!!) destroyers. Remember, I acquired these last April, and though I’ve added some to the pile that’s 57 ships painted, included all those that were purchased.
Finally, I finished the month working on my Anglo Danish SAGA army. In January I purchased the action and standing around sets of the Beowulf figures offered by Eureka Miniatures. I’ve added the needed additional goodies to fill them out a bit and made significant progress on them. First, finished the dozen archers that seem a little well-appointed to be levies, but I’ll take ’em. Then I focused on the spearmen that will be the Angol-Danish warriors, the fyrdish dudes. These were fun figures to paint. Nice variety of figures and poses, though realistically they should be pretty similar and boring. Oh, well.
One of the issues I’ve had with my SAGA armies, this is my third, is the problem of spears and hands. Or the tendency of spears to vacate hands. I decided to two-part epoxy them in, as well as the shields, so we’ll see how this goes. I also made the decision to hand-paint my shields. Anglo Danes tend not to have elaborate shield patterns and Little Big Men Studios doesn’t make shield transfers for Eureka, so I took a chance. Not perfect, but they’ll do.
Two quick one offs were the completion of the gunboat Conestoga from my 3D printer and I also finished a 4Ground Viking farmhouse. It’s always nice to have a scenic or two for the SAGA game table.
So the February total is 75. That’s 149 for the year. Respectable, but I’d like to complete more.
Did I buy anything. Well, yes I did. Need to stop doing that. There’s a long story to why I bought figures for Xenos Rampant, but let’s just agree that I purchased a box of Stargrave Troopers, as well as a couple of sniper figures, totaling 27. They’re plastic, ewwwww, but I’ll live through it.
I also added a box of plastic Anglo Danish warrior types so I could have more the six points to my army. It’s always nice to be able to make choices.
March is here, March is good, because it has 31 days. I’ll be painting more AWI figures. For certain there are 36 militia that must be complete before a game get together on March 18th. I’ll also complete some my Anglo Danes. Just the plastic guys and some leader types to wrap up. Finally, there are six American cruisers I promised myself I’d complete. Lots to do. Always lots to do.
A Gamer's Tales 