That was 2016!

Finishing off table clutter

Having just read last years update post I see that I had a few aims at that point. Firstly the desire to get my Italian Napoleonic's bottomed. That happened and linked to this was a start of the Poles. Well 1 out of 2 then but at least the Poles should be started in the next few months as the Challenge runs on.

I was expecting to finish off my 15mm Persians, well I have got close, just one more cavalry unit to paint and they are prepped ready for this years challenge so looking good. I managed to get less of the Macedonian finished, notably two units of cavalry. One of these is prepped the other not so lets hope I get round to these soon.

The ECW in 15mm has not been touched and I doubt it will happen this year. I am OK with this as I have not touched the painted army all year.

I had well over 5,000 figures unpainted this time last year. I now have 5,037 and did dip to almost 4,500 before getting my Christmas present. My plan for the challenge to get to below 4,000 with the ultimate aim of being below 3,000 by the end of May.

But what of projects and aims for 2017?

15mm SYW 

The new project of 2016 (March) has seen a fair production of painted units. This should continue through this year. I need to get more of The Boy's units painted though as we plan to get a good few games in with Lee with our campaign of Little Nations. 

15mm Ancients

We all know projects are never actually finished as such but the Persians are likely to come to a halt once I have this last cavalry unit painted, but I may still add the odd unit to it.

The Macedonian and offshoots will get some attention, two cavalry units and two phalanx's are up for early this year and I want to buy some Forged in Battle miniatures for at least a couple more blocks of pointy boys but that will probably be it for 2017, well unless I buy some more other units.

15mm WWII

Looks like it's more backwater that ever. If Lee and me get a game or two in I can see this getting more attention. I would be most likely just adding to the forces Lee has for say the Russians than setting out for my own force. We just need to get going with it.

6mm Napoleonic's

Already touched on the Poles, also need to get back on track with doing a few Prussians every now and then which will be happening sooner than later.

The French also need to get some love, got hundreds of figures in my lead pile so I plan to get a few battalions done every now and then.

6mm Ancients

The Macedonian's have been seeing a lot of attention and will get yet more in the next few months, mostly infantry. That will mean I will need to add yet more cavalry at some point but the bigger need is to paint up the last of my Persians and get more, a lot more. The only issue with getting 20 pike blocks is the need to face them with a Persian hoard. Not that I believe the Persians outnumbered the Macedonians as much as the victors claimed but I still need more of them!

6mm ECW

After reading a couple of books on the ECW I am now all fired up and painting these guys again. With eight regiments of infantry on the table I can confidently say it's started again. I also have leaders, cavalry and dragoons prepped, just got to keep them in the front of my mind.

Other projects

I have a number of other projects on the go, none of which are high on the paint list but will keep having something done from them just to keep the painting interesting. 

Chatter Behind The Bike Sheds - No Wolrds For Me

This is how I thought I would feel but I am more shrug. I have found shows more difficult since The Boy has got into gaming and wants to go to them. It almost seems like work to try and balance doing my stuff and getting the most out of a visit for my son. The fact that he waits patiently as I AGAIN stop and chat for twenty minutes as we nip to the next game he wants to play etc just makes me feel worse. Balancing the desire to chat with mates, supervising The Boy's purchasers and games as well as my own retail needs does make it difficult. 

Not making a show I have been looking forward to for months and not really being too bothered is a bit of a shock. Especially as I thought I was going to make it with no problem not having worked out my rota properly. The Boy is OK with it, I did say he may still be able to go with Lee but he is happy to have a game or two with me when I get home from work on Sunday.

I of course will miss the chance to catch up with a few mates which is the only part I can't manage to substitute via the net, however I will try and make sure I get to York being the next probable show for me. 

It does beg the question are shows losing their attraction to me other than the obvious face to face meet ups that normally only happen at such shows and if so is it the same for others?

Whilst I did have some good ideas on what I planned to buy I have so many figures  (over 5,000) that I won't miss out and even do myself a favour by not going. Get the lead pile a bit more under control. However below is a list of sorts of what I would have been looking at getting.

15mm Ancients 

I was certainly going to buy a couple of packs of Forged In Battle Alexandrian phalanxes, enough to give me three more pike blocks, even though I don't actually need any more blocks. I would also get some command which I probably could do with. I still have a few blocks worth of unpainted figures that I still have yet to paint.

I was NOT going to buy any more Magister Militum companion cavalry. I still have two units worth from the last Worlds waiting for me to paint. These should get painted in the upcoming Analogue Painting Challenge at which point I will need to decide if I want more cavalry and if so who from.

6mm Ancients

I have six units of Persian cavalry to paint up (108 figures) a few units of Thracian infantry (about 96 figures) and four phalanx (400 figures) clearly I need more, lots more. 

With Lee pushing his Romans I will be further building the Macedonian army. I would have picked up another four or six phalanxes and possibly another three units of cavalry. 

The Persians still need a lot of help to get up to a large enough army to face the Macedonians as they already stand. For this I would have added some more Persian cavalry, most likely the heavier options and some Satraps. I now have six Hoplite units so for infantry I would have gone after levy bow and javelin armed troops.

15mm SYW

The other main and fairly fresh project would see me dropping a few pounds the way of Old Glory or Timecast for more cavalry. I have plenty of infantry awaiting painting, two Lancashire Games battle packs untouched but cavalry wise I just have the unpainted I have used in a few games that need de-basing and painting up. Command and Artillery I have a plenty.

The Boy needs more of everything but he is happy with what he has till we get a few games in. He should be more excited once I have his Blue Moon dragoons finished (current project)

6mm Napoleonic's

Can I seriously consider buying more? The bulk of the 5,000 is indeed 6mm Napoleonic. Well true I do have rather a lot but the Polish need some command and these I need to order from Adler for picking up from a show. So this will now have to be Triples if he travels to that show, or mail order if not. Either way I have plenty to keep me busy for now.

I do plan to get back to painting up more of the Prussians and even more of the French at some point. At the moment the 6mm Ancients and 15mm SYW are absorbing most of my painting time.

And that's it, I stocked up with bases some time ago so am good to go and now I have Thursdays off from work can nip over to Mansfield if I am running low on the odd bottle of paint. So anyone who is going to the Worlds please keep an eye on Lee and remind him he still has SOME space in the shed!

Chatter Behind the Bikesheds - Blogging V Facebooking

Something I have been mulling over for the last few months or longer has been the relationship between running a blog and posting on open feeds and pages on Facebook. Both have their advantages and draw. However how well do they sit together?

Blogging has been here for quite some time and peeps like me have managed to rack up quite a few posts over the years. However Groups and Pages on Facebook have really taken off in the last couple of years and a good number of quality communities have sprung up making such sites as TMP rather less the place to hang, (ducks and runs for cover).

Buggles

We all know Video Killed the Radio Star but is Facebook standing over the mortally wounded Blogger with a knife dripping blood? Probably not but I do think if you swap the knife for a pool cue and a few hours in A&E and you would be closer to the truth than most would want to admit.

But for all the attractiveness of Facebook Groups I wonder how many will wake up in the morning to see the beaut from the night before actually is a bag of spanners? I mean you can't really argue against the speed of response to a quick post. The likes seem to come faster than light and if you time it right the comments can be thick and fast. 

Set against this Blogging gets very few likes as the images get seen by a lot less people, likewise comments seem to be mostly the same few who regularly comment, it's so often the same crowd. OK lets rewind a bit, you mean it's the same peeps most of the time, these guys must really be into the stuff we write then. Now THAT is cool and it's even cooler when an old post gets a comment, especially when it also is from a new follower. 

That's the biggest weakness of Facebook, one post gets plucked out by Facebook every now and again to point out you have been mates with X for x years and here's a post you shared. other than that your pretty much bolloxed regards looking back in time on posts you have thrown into the wide world. 

What I really find useful is situations like when I was wanting to know which way the flags should go on the colonels battalion for my SYW Prussians. On the excellent Seven Years War Wargaming group a quick question was very well answered. A great resource and shows Facebook at it's best for gamers.

Blogging will always have it's place, at the moment I do think it's at possibly it's lowest ebb and will remain so for some time but as bloggers start to realise they are missing chunks of their own hobby history I believe more will either return to blogging or blog that bit more often. I make no secret my main reason for blogging is self serving. I do it because I enjoy it and enjoy the feedback.

My recent posting rate has dropped way off to one post a week from the heyday of five plus a week and average of three a week. That is despite having plenty to blog about and more to do with the lack of time to keep my blogs fully updated, play the games I do and actually paint up figures. I can live with that, though my aim is to get back to three posts a week. Lets see how I do with that over the coming month LOL.

Chatter Behind The Bike Sheds - Options.

A few of you out there must be wondering if I have suffered burn out from Project Waterloo, or maybe just maybe I am doing all the prep for the marathon that is The Analogue Painting Challenge. The truth is far more down to earth. I have been working on a couple of projects that have supplied far too few photographs. Not least for my forgetting to take any of the British Command I painted up to finish off Steves commission for his Waterloo game. The second project has almost sent me nut's, not one but twenty regiments of 6mm Union Infantry, that's a lot of blue. The biggest issue for me has been the reduced time to paint married up with the time suck that was these little fellows has meant I have been putting off sessions or finishing a session and not having finished a step, that for me is quite a turn off so they have been a bit of a struggle. I am happy to say these are now finished and I can start to look at things I want to paint. I do have my Santa Clause to paint which turned up Thursday and I will start that soon but in the meantime..........

Even though the ACW was 6mm I REALLY want to get on with some Companion cavalry so they are next up on the prep table whilst I have a few 28mm started that also need my attention so they should get some time spent on them. Indeed when I cast my eye around both my table and to paint boxes I can't help but think I really could go a year maybe two without buying a single figure and still have options. 

That as we all know won't stop me buying more lead though, just making me do a spot more thinking before I do so. I don't see any new projects coming up either this year or next, a quick list of what I have in the fire and it's progress should be enough.

1. 6mm Borodino, yet more French needed but not that much, it's more about the allies, Neapolitans and Polish for me. Happily this is at least two years away.

2. Sticking with 6mm the Ancient Army needs more, much more, especially as I want to also start work on the Persians next year. I think any Christmas money may well be going the way of Peter at Baccus.

3. Our 6mm ECW project is shambling along and should see some more work before the year ends as we get closer to actually having enough units painted to have a game.

4. Last for the 6mm on the active list should be the WWI planes, OK it's not really active but I need to get back to this.

5. 15mm Ancients, I bought a load of Greek Hoplites and Persian Cavalry, add this to the Companion cavalry waiting in the wings and I have something to get me going, plus the old 15mm I still have should see work done during the challenge.

6. Been too long since we played a 28mm gunfight game, I need to get on with the buildings and the rest of the figures I have on hand. My intention to buy and paint up a Mexican band around my Santa Clause present did not happen but remains a definite to do. I just need to think about it, sort the figures and then I bet we play more gunfight games.

7. SAGA, got plenty of figures painted, got loads unpainted, just need to get them out and play some more. Lee has started his army again so maybe we will finally get round to playing. Defiantly continue to paint up more figures though. Another challenge opportunity.

8. Fantasy, our Friday group will be starting again soon and the kids love it, expect plenty more figures turning up on the blog, especially the ones given to me by Anne recently(ish)

9. 20mm Ancients, these will remain a bit of a slow cooker but I am planning a unit every month or so to get these painted up reasonably quickly (for me). Then I can see me buying an army not taken by the rest at Kev's Cabin, indeed it's going to be a driving force in getting more of the Celts painted up.

10. 32mm Arena Rex, I really enjoyed painting up the first figure and have a second under way, expect this project to pick up speed as I get more and more finished, these are great looking figures and I can see me continuing to buy them once I have these finished.

As you see I can really save myself the bother of buying anything, still I do NEED more 6mm Phalanx's to go against those Persians I have yet to buy.....................

Chatter Behind The Bike Shed - Bang Per Buck

I like to gauge the cost of my hobbies not in £ spent but rather in £ spent per game. That is to say if I had spent £100 and played ten games it's actually cost me £10. That's a great formula for those games/figures that have had a great deal of play, not so good for big projects like the Napoleonic's that have seen far more of the brush than the battlefield.

As I enjoy painting I do take account of that time in the equation. Such maths has often lead me to see that I have under utilised some others should be pensioned off they have seen so much action.

My best buys though to be in the boardgame genre. Die Siedler Von Catan (Settlers of Catan) has had over 200 games played over the years and has recently been introduced to the kids and will get plenty more play again as they really are getting into it. We even had to buy a second copy as the original was so worn! We did buy the Seafarer and City and Robbers expansions (including the 5-6 player add on's). Basic Catan gets the vast majority of the play but I do like the City and Robber expansion quite a lot.

The other big hit in board games is of course Advanced Squad Leader, when you have spent well over £300 for a counter storage system you know you have invested heavily into something. I now get between 30-60 games a year, well down from my 100 a year of 3-4 years ago but I have played 480 games since I started to record them in 2010, another 200+ easy before that. The frightening thing is that valuing it £ per play it still comes in something above £5 a game, possibly half or more again!

The new kid on the block Command & Colors is showing no sign of slowing down with around twenty games played from the two sets I have, that works out about £5 a play. I am already mentally committed to buying the other expansions and look forward to playing other opponents than my son at this great game as well.

My Later Achaemenid Persian army in 15mm is top dog in figures as it was well used the first time round that I wargamed and was rebased for Field of Glory and has managed a reasonable number of outings and now I am trying it with Hail Caesar it's getting yet more play. I have added a few more units to it over the last four years and I can see a few more going it's way but for the most part it's done and as such is a real value for money army.

My 15mm Macedonian army has a long way to go before it can claim to rival the Persian's but it is getting regular play, even if it's rare that I am the one pushing the figures around.

My old 15mm ECW had it's day but rules that never really worked for us and over play has meant it has not seen action for well over twenty years. I have hopes it will be dragged out again via Black Powder with Matt but I am also painting up a 6mm army that is bound to cut into it's time.

On that subject the fact that I am painting up a 6mm Macedonian army has to mean the 15mm will loose some time. I am likely to then move onto the Persians in 6mm as well. The difference being that these will be massive armies, I like the idea of double digit pike blocks. The mass effect will be stunning.

The worst figure performer has to be by 6mm Prussians. Literally thousands of figures and I think three games played with them so far. I fully expect plenty more but I doubt I will ever get a reasonable £ per play ratio and I am OK with that as the painting hobby side needs to be factored in.

Other games that have failed to meet potential that I do feel bad about is a mixed bag. The Gunfighters really need to get played more. It's possible Monday will be the next outing but having played a couple of games of Dungeon Quest with the kids I can see the cowboys being postponed. Saga also needs a few more outing's and I must go through the rules again, get a few more under our belts and then have Lee over for a game or three to propel him with painting his up.

I still have not even cleaned up the Arena Rex models, I am just too busy painting up other figures before I can spare the time. They will be a guilty pleasure when i get round to them so happy to wait until the time is right.

Another way of calculating the cost is spending divided by total hobby time spent. Whilst I like many many others can not/will not look full on the actual money sunk into the hobby I am very confident that when you take this colossal cost and set it against the time spent on all aspects of this great hobby of ours it works out to a very reasonable rate.

Chatter Behind the Bike Sheds - The Cult of the Black SS

Has any period of war ever had such a polarising effect? Possibly the Roman's given the popularity of the Roman armies but the difference is that other than the misconception that all Roman's wore red (Thanks Hollywood) you don't get much outside comment on your Roman army when you get it out in public.

The SS on the other hand can get ugly real quick. I would hazard a guess that their is more SS armies for Flames of War than any other single formation and I am willing to bet that if you take a cross section of teenage players that ratio shoots right up. To start off with the SS are always depicted as being super efficient and add the bad boy image and you have wargames gold.

Not that it starts or ends with FoW, no sir not by a long chalk. The SS are a big draw not only in FoW, not even in figure gaming nor all of wargaming but in anything that has something to do with them. Be it historical memorabilia, reproduction or real, books reinactments or hobby related it's always a big draw and as such it's always a commercial opportunity. 

Germany with good reason has banned the swastika and as far as I know is the only country where denying the holocaust is a crime. But still the cult of the SS remains strong around the world. My intention is not to actually discuss the actual SS nor the relationship it has with far right movements even today, that is other than to say that it's wrong and very misguided. No what I want to talk about is the Cult of the Black SS, both in games and the supporting industry.

Way back when board wargames was the bigger of the two wargames arms (computer games being not yet thought of) the first strike for special treatment was the use of black counters to represent the SS. Special rules were introduced to represent the extra discipline or combat effectiveness of the SS and a star was born, even if it was a dark one.

I am not saying the SS did not need special rules, nor am I saying that supplying their own colour counters was a bad thing. What I do believe was that in doing so a precedent was set and a fashion was created. Why black? well for a start it's striking and would stand out against all other national counters and black and bad can go hand in hand just as well as black and sexy which is fortunate as I am sure different folks see them as one or the other.

Of course it has become more fashionable to address all German's fighting in WWII as Nazi's I think your hard pressed to get a book published in the last five or so years that does not constantly refer to Nazi soldiers with the term German Soldier failing to be used more than a few times through the book. Books being the chief misuse of said catch phrase. The idea that every German soldier (or probably even the majority) were of Nazi persuasion is clearly wrong and ignores that the typical German soldier was as much a victim as Tommy, Comrade, Buddy etc. It's a trend that actually I fear is more dangerous and damaging than most would consider. How long will it be till it's accepted that the only evil or wrong doing was those Nazi's and forget that every major nation played it's part in making WWII not only possible but inevitable.

But I digress, lets get back to the books, the books pictured above is simply a few pulled from a very large collection with four of the books from the same author and given that they are all from the same publisher it's not too surprising they have the same look.

However this is another book from my collection and surprise surprise it's also available in black. So obviously I am drawn to such books but a quick search shows that you are hard pressed to find books on the SS that are not dressed so, for example.

Lots more volumes from this series, again note the use of red on the cover, seven books out of seven so far.

This book lacks the red, the first one so far but keeps with the fashion of black and white and the stark relief it gives.

The black is somewhat more subliminal but it's still there and the red is back. Red of course is another colour that is seen as sexy, just sayin'.

Full house here, not that all the images of SS books were fitting the pattern I am showing here. I found TWO books under the search of SS Book Images out of over twenty that did not conform to the formula I present here. That's quite worrying that so many books share such a narrow design style.

My favourite board game Advanced Squad Leader launched with special rules for the SS and as such has counters just for the SS and have the SS lightning ruins in the top right corner to remind you they are SS. The counters were still the same colour blue as standard Germans but when Avalon Hill released The Bridge to Far historical module it released the first and last official black ss counters for ASL. That module now commands around £400 on Ebay due in part to being out of print but also because of the ss counters!

Not that other providers of ASL have not also provided black counters for the ss, I personally have at least five sets of ss counters from other packs.

The rarest of these third party producers counters can really increase the value of a pack when sold on ebay. Rarity itself pushes the price up but the fun using such counters at an event you can have as the debate rages over your game on their use adds a few pounds to the final bid I am sure.

Not that ASL or Avalon Hill have the monopoly on the black ss counter. Avalanche Press released a scenario book and counter set covering the SS and their involvement in the battle for Normandy.

Again the pack comes with the black counters that so often are used to depict the SS but in this case the Nazi emblems are missing which seems more tasteful.

So it's clear that the ss get special treatment either from the marketing department or based on the historical use of such things as black counters but is this a bad thing?

Yes and no is the answer I think. Yes in the fact that the wider audience and more importantly the less informed onlookers get exposure to the special treatment and as such can and often will come to the conclusion that somehow the ss are being looked up to and admired. It's fortunate that unless you have direct exposure to our hobby you don't see the even greater fan base that the ss have. More so as the chance of them understanding that special treatment and it's context within wargameing. much easier to brand all that wargame as warmongers and secret Nazi's. Something we have had to deal with in the past and still have to explain away at times.

No because any informed gamer is aware of the fact that the fighting units of the ss tended to be tougher than the army equivalent, was better armed and trained and was an elite formation. However all this could be done without their own special coloured counters and the downside is very often not worked into the units such as the high casualty rate often received on accomplishing the objective.

As for me I still use the black counters, still get a little satisfaction from knowing it pisses some people off and whilst that should not make me smile it still does. Black ss are sexy and I know it.

Chatter Behind the Bike Sheds - Winning a Game

Wargaming tends to have one goal that of winning. Now I don't mean at the cost of enjoying the game, the cost of historic accuracy or many of the other important personal goals we may set in a game. I am talking here simply of the objective of the game. Recent years scenarios have become more common where the objective has at least become something more than break your opponents army though this remains the core of nearly every battle you will play.

However since it's very conception Squad Leader and Advanced Squad Leader have often had objectives (Victory Conditions) that in many games can leave your opponent with a fully functioning force but have still lost the scenario.

Above is the objective in a recently released ASL pack and is reasonably representative of other ASL battles. It includes the need for at least one truck surviving the battle (it needs to get from one side of the battlefield to the other). On top of this the Germans also need to cause more casualties than the British the rules themselves supply the points value of each unit used in the game with the British having a lot more points worth of troops than the Germans.

The scenario is set in 1940 and depicts an encounter battle between the 3rd RTR and elements of the 6th Panzer Division. The Brits are represented by 9 tanks whilst the Germans have 5 superior tanks a pair of antitank guns a few squads of infantry with a LMG and Antitank Rifle. Only three of the British tanks have a main gun bigger than a MG!  

In the actual battle the British took a real beating losing almost all the tanks that were involved in the battle. However they did enough damage to the German spearhead that the command decided to try and find another route to Calais less defended and it gave another 24 hours for the British to use this port. Unknown to the German's nothing else was in position to halt them behind the burning wrecks of the 3rd RTR.

My point here is that given the usual game we tend to play the Germans would have won the game when the British force was either destroyed or forced to retreat due to hitting it's breakpoint. It still would be a good game but it would be a different game played in a different way. All you would be doing nine times out of ten would be just destroying each other. It's more often than not is a straight fight with more thought to attacking your opponent than force preservation. If the above objective was in play the German's would have to keep at least one of the three trucks in play and protect it whilst trying to get it off table whilst the British could either go after the automatic win of taking out all three trucks or let the trucks survive and destroy other German forces to offset the extra VP's the Germans would get from the exit of the trucks. Suddenly both sides have more options.

I know more rules now have supplements with scenarios that cater for more interesting battles than either take position x or break the opposing army but I know from my experience that most of my games remain the old vanilla, how about you guys?