2016 - New Year Plan (McBeth)

Now that the 12 Games of Gamesmas are out of the way, I can now look at what the rest of 2016 will hold for my magpieisim! A long post follows...




There are several projects that I'm working on, or have an eye of starting this year. Pooch mentioned to us a while back that blogging a post like this will 'help with our issues' and 'lay out a path for keeping the magpieisim under control'.




Pffff. Whatever.






Anyway, a look for the future! Here is a break down of the things I want to do this year.

• Flames of War

Our time committed to Flames has reduced to almost nothing this past 12 months. I'm running the ValleyCon16 Flames comp this year so don't have to paint anything for that particular competition, but I have an eye out for later in the year when we make our first post Nick pilgrimage up to Palmerston North for Panzershreck. I hear that Panzershreck may be Early War this year and will continue to be a 1000 point doubles competition. I have a couple of Early War armies (NZ Divisional Cavalry and a German Infanteriekompanie) but I also have the bones of a Free French French Foreign Legion rifle company in a box in the basement that needs to be painted. It would also be a great accompanying unit for the Div Cav for Panzershreck! I've also picked up some other units for my Late War 51st Highland Division rifle company that need to have some paint applied. 16 years of playing Flames (and getting paid in product!) has lead me to a point where there is not much more I want to do in regards to making more armies as my time commitment to Flames competitions winds down.






To do for 2016



Free French


Strip, paint and base:
2 platoons of Legionnaires
1 platoon of Sappers
1 75mm Artillery Battery
1 25mm AT Battery


These will join the already painted and based Australian 2pdr Portee Platoon, H35 Hochkiss Platoon and a veteran British Marmon-Herrington troop.






Scots


Paint:
Wasp troop
M10 tank destroyer




Purchase and paint
M10 Tank destroyer (a second one for the troop)

• Blackpowder

As mentioned in previous posts, I set the group on a path towards a large multi-player American Revolution game for a convention that is being held over the Easter Weekend in the Hutt this year. We have been smashing through the painting of troops and terrain in preparation for this but we still have a long way to go. I'm in command of the British and have been steadily painting units for them. So far I have completed the 3rd Brigade (15th, 17th (replaced with 45th because no-one does the flag!, 44th and 42nd), the 1st and 2nd Grenadier Battalions, the Guards Brigade (1st and 2nd Guards Battalions), a cannon and some brigade commanders.






To do for 2016




Paint and base:
6pdr Cannon
12 figures of Hessian Jaegers
2 Brigade Commanders






Purchase, paint and base:
54 figures of Hessian Grenadiers (will swap out one battalions worth for McZermof for some Rebel Scum so he does not go mental painting them!)






Add to that finishing off the terrain and that's me for the next 2-3 months!

• Bolt Action

Our new magpieism! I'm planning on doing a late war British rifle company for this, based on the 51st Highlanders again. Haven't really settled on a list or purchased any figures yet OR EVEN PLAYED A GAME but as the other are keen and I REALLY WANT TO PLAY 28mm WW2, I'll get involved as well :). Stay tuned on this front. Ideally Mighty Ape ('Dat Ape) will restock its Bolt Action stocks so I can spend some Xmas vouchers with them :)

• Frostgrave

McZermof and I played a couple more games of Frostgrave for Gamesmas and rekindled my like of this lightweight but very fun game. While I don't need anymore figures or warbands (Wizardbands? Wizgangs?), I have plenty of Perry Miniatures plastic medieval sprues lying around for me to make more mooks. As seen in the post for Gamesmas, I also dug out my copy of Heroes Quest so I can use the monsters in that game for Frostgrave. Those figures will probably get a lick of paint this year.


Maybe.






The real thing I want to do for Frostgrave is make some terrain to accompany the Big Hand Statue. I've plenty of cork board and MDF in the basement so I may try and yet again get the Junior McBeths involved and get some terrain done this year to flesh out a table of ruins.






To do for 2016




Paint:
Heroes Quest monsters (particularly the undead)




Make, paint and base:
Terrain - ruined buildings!

• Infinity

This is both the RPG and the table top game. Over the Christmas Gamesmas break Pelarel loaned me the rules for the tabletop game with the fluff book as well. The fluff really impressed me. I had played a few games a while ago but had never read the books or setting fluff to get what it was all about. Now I've read through it I must say Corvus Belli have done a fantastic job of creating a fully fleshed out universe. I have some Haqqislam figures already, but as people have already commented on their surprise that I did not start with Ariadna forces initially, I'll be looking to get a starter pack for them. How can I not run a force that combines my two favourite national forces; Scots and French!






To do for 2016




Buy and paint:
Ariadna sectoral starter pack

• Napoleonics

I started my first blogs on this forum with pictures of the 15mm Austrian army I was building for Napoleon at War. Since then interest has not waned, but time spent on the army has been marginalised. I have done some more work on them in regards to basing them and adding flags, but the AWI stuff has been more pressing.






To do for 2016
Paint and base:
2 battalions of Germans
1 battalion of Hungarians
1 squadron of Hussies
Finish the basing for the whole army
1 more 6 pounder to mount on the limber base.

• Competitions and Travel

There are only a couple of events that I want to get to this year. There is ValleyCon of course, seeing I'm the registrar, committee member, treasurer and am running the Flames comp. There is the historical convention run by Allen Yaxley which will be held over Easter where we will run the AWI game and there is also Panzershreck. Anything else would be a bonus, but most other comps fall at times during the year that other non-wargaming things pop up on as well. I may head over to Call to Arms this year and play Bolt Action or Impetus perhaps.






Right, now onto the things I would like to do this year!

• Kings of War

This game looks cool. I wasn't a big fan of the Warhammer Fantasy game, but the background fluff was interesting. With the death of Warhammer and the rise of the apparent abortion that is the Age of Sigmar, Kings of War has taken off in New Zealand. There are now organised events around the country and the size is growing. I've looked longingly at the Mantic stuff on Mighty Ape ('dat Ape!) and it is a very reasonable price. More so when you consider that as Kings of War uses a set base size for the different strength units (a'la Impetus) you don't need to actually put the right amount of figures on each base. You can go for using less and model nice dioramas and use the spare figures for more units!

*Mantic Games

I'm fascinated by the undead armies in these types of games so I would look at running an undead army of skeletons and zombies for Kings of War. Throw in a Vampire Lord on a frickin' undead Pegasus and I am in! I may have to paint the pony to look like this though:

Undead my little pony. Seems Legit.

• Team Yankee

Having played a couple of games with Pooch, I'm pretty sure I like it, but really need to play more. I have a West German force in 6mm with Leopard 2s, Leopard 1s, Marders etc that was originally done for Cold War Commander that I would like to use whenever Battlefront get to expanding the available nations from the current 'Merican and Soviet ones. The models are all old Heroics and Ros 1/300th and are all just a bit shit, so I'd love to replace them with some smexy new ones from GHQ or CinC miniatures.

*image copyright Battlefront Miniatures

• Dead Man's Hand

This fell by the weigh side very quickly after we started playing it two years ago, but that is to be expected when we jump from one shiny to another shiny like some wargaming whore. I liked the cinematic feel of this game and Tank Engine has a sweet town set up that we should use more often.

*image copyright Great Escape Games

• In Her Majesty's Name

Another 'silly' game in the vein of Frostgrave or Dead Man's Hand, but very enjoyable none the less. I have a British army and a Vampire force, plus I can repurpose my DMH desperadoes for a cowboy/villain list as well.

*image copyright Osprey Publishing

• Ambush Valley

Pelarel and I did the testing for Battlefront's 15mm Vietnam book, Tour of Duty. Again, much like Team Yankee, we didn't like the scale that Battlefront went for (being company + scale rather than 15mm). For us, the Vietnam war was platoon scale. So, with some NVA, VC and ANZACs we are getting through painting and basing 15mm figs on individual bases for some Ambush Valley. We've played Ambush Alley and Force on Force a bit in the past so it will be interesting to see how it translates to Vietnam.



*image copyright Osprey Publishing