Christmas Presents from Kind Friends

As many of you will realise I neither ran Secret Santa or took park in Santa Clause this year so it was quite a surprise when I received two presents from Secret Santa. Well Christmas day found me receiving not two but four presents.Words fail to show my appreciation as I just did not expect such gifts. Just shows how great our community is.

From America I received this Leven Miniatures windmill that will see use in upcoming Peninsular games with The Boy and Lee. I actually have an unpainted one prepped but waiting some paint and did want to get at least one more so a perfect present. The kids devoured the Peeps too having had some at previous Christmas's usually from my wifes friends.

I have already mentioned the £10 Baccus gift voucher which I spent on some more 6mm figures that arrived Christmas eve. These included yet more peltasts and lots more phalanx figures. These Peltasts will fit in lovely with my army for Magnesia and being troops I have been putting off for months I now can use these as a basis to copy. These will give me four units so is a real boost.

The fourth present was another four units of Gauls which again can fit right into my plans for Magnesia. 

So what can I say other than a heartfelt THANK YOU to the kind folks who have given me such wonderful gifts. 

Other more expected gifts with a wargames slant (i.e. off a list) has been the rest of the troops needed for Magnesia, a copy of To The Strongest! rules that we are planning on using at the Magnesia game at Joy of Six which I have had a quick go with Lee last week and seem to run well and hopefully will play fast enough to actually show good progress at the one day show.

I also got a book on Dunkirk that may provide a scenario or two's idea for ASL but if not be a good read. I also have had enough figures to provide me with four more Battalions of infantry for my SYW 15mm Prussians which will not help me keep up with Lee but at least gives me a respectable force to try and see him off.

So quite a haul and I am very pleased with what I received, hopefully you all will also have had a good Christmas and look forward to a good New Year. I will be posting some of my more recent finishes having done the final touches to a group that were all based at the same time.

Christmas Gifts

Well I have not posted in an age as I expected but a couple of very nice surprises have given me the desire to post. I have received to gifts in the last week. One in the form of a box labelled from Secret Santa and a second as a Gift Voucher from Baccus.

I do not know who these kind people are, but thank you very much. One is going under the tree later to be opened on Christmas day and the other will be used as soon as I work out my final list for our display game for next years Joy of Six.

It just goes to show what a wonderful hobby we have and I can't tell you how much both gifts touched me and just at the right moment as I was feeling a bit down, so again thank you so much.

Other news is that I have continued to paint and have notched up quite a tally running into November. November itself as seen me just paint up four units of Gallic infantry in 6mm, the mix of colours and more limited time proved to slow production right down but with those in the back mirror I am pleased to report that I have done about half the work needed on two battalions of 15mm French SYW infantry for The Boy. These will be finished very soon and will be added to his growing army which will grow aplenty more next year with another four battalions of figures on order from Santa.

Not that my army has not had some help, five battalions of infantry and three regiments of Dragoons have almost emptied the mountain of my SYW, just a few infantry battalions and a Dragoon regiment to paint up but again Lancashire Games will be assisting with a few more infantry battalions.

Keeping with the Prussians I have painted up three battalions of Prussian Guard infantry for my 6mm Naps, need the figures for another two battalions to be able to do the last three, these being Adler Russians in reality. These may make the blog once I have done the base work, building up a bit of a stash of basing, also including some British Generals for The Boy's 6mm Naps that Lee gave him ready painted crews for 6 guns Lee also gave him. Next up for that army is yet more infantry.

Sounds like I will be busy in the Analogue Painting Challenge? sadly no, after thinking about it for a couple of months I stepped off the roster as I felt that I would not do myself any good taking part this year. Last year I pushed hard and then going to Heroes for a long weekend of ASL really left me very fragile and thus whilst I will follow it this year keenly I will be producing at a rate far below what I can do but at a level I am happy with.

More of my time has been spent on scenario design for ASL and whilst I have just three new scenarios under test I have a bunch of other ideas going through further research. It's amazing how much time is taken up by the various stages of design but I am really enjoying it and my book collection certainly has benefitted from it. 

As for blogging I think you will be seeing a bit more of me again, I have really enjoyed the rest and whilst I thought my painting might suffer for the lack of blogging it's not and indeed I think not thinking I need to blog this has actually meant I was more at home sitting at the painting table. Well all apart from those Celts LOL.