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Monday, April 13, 2015

Taking Stock – World War Two


If you've been following along, you'll have noticed I’ve been painting a lot of Second World War stuff lately. It’s largely a function of desire to finish groups that will be easy to finish and stuff that is currently fun to paint – rather than stuff I want to play with at this point. I’ve kind of lost interest in actually playing with miniatures at the exact moment (which is largely a function of the degree of mess in the game room and the amount of work that will be required to get it to a state clean enough to play games… the unfun of cleaning is currently greater than the potential fun of playing games… why is that? anyway…) and lost interest in playing WW2 games quite a while ago (largely because it's never been a favourite period of mine but so many people love it and will play ONLY WW2 stuff and I feel I've played it to death...). Anyway... for whatever reason, I've been having fun painting WW2 stuff  and in the process I’ve been trying to organize my World War Two forces into something playable (should I ever actually play with them) and deciding if I really would need anything else to make each force playable and what things might be fun to add to the force at some point in the future. NEED to get versus NICE to get…

Then one night last week I thought I’d do a little stocktaking – I thought it might be inspiring to really see how close I am to finishing these all up…

Force  - Finished (Foot/Guns/Vehicles) - Still TO DO (Foot/Guns/Vehicles)

Germany – DAK – 28/0/0 – 23/0/1
Germany – Gebirgsjäger – 15/0/0 – 0/0/0 – DONE!!
Germany – Kriegsmarine  - 16/0/0 – 0/0/0 – DONE!!
Germany – Fallshirmjäger – 18/0/0 – 40/0/0
Germany – SS – 26/0/0 – 30/0/0
Germany – Heer 107/2/7 – 94/1/9
Italy – Europe 10/0/0 – 0/0/0 – DONE (sort of...)!
Italy – North Africa – 10/0/0 – 41/0/0
Soviet Union – 294/4/11 – 0/0/0 – DONE!!!
USA – Airborne – 0/0/0 – 47/0/0
USA – Army – 25/0/0 – 55/0/0
USA – USMC – 20/0/0 – 14/0/2
USA - USMC Raider – 14/0/0 – 0/0/0
Japan – 110/0/0 – 14/0/0
Great Britain – Commando – 51/0/0 – 25/0/2
Great Britain – Chindits – 21/0/0 – 14/0/0
Great Britain – SAS/LRDG - 30/0/0 – 0/0/0 – DONE (sort of...)!
Australia – 27/1/0 – 5/1/0
Canada – Infantry – 119/1/5 – 14/0/1
Canada – Paratroopers – 96/0/0 – 0/0/0 – DONE!
Canada/USA – FSSF – 26/0/0 – 0/0/0 – DONE (sort of...)!
France – FFL – 31/0/0 – 0/0/0 – DONE!
France – Early War – 10/1/0 – 32/0/0

Totals

DONE
Foot: 1094
Guns: 10
Vehicles: 23

STILL TO DO
Foot: 446
Guns: 2
Vehicles: 16

Well… over half done at least… but not QUITE as close to being done as I had perhaps hoped… especially considering that a few of the forces are not even close to being usable forces even if I did finish painting all the stuff that I currently have.

Well the plan (for now) remains the same: finish them off. I have placed a few orders to help finish up a few things (in the sense of “finish up making a complete, useable force”).

I am resisting the urge to place any further orders until all of these that I currently have are completely painted. Some of these forces, once painted, will still not be a complete useable force – the Italians for European theatres, for example. It’s DONE! But that’s ONE SQUAD! Not much use there… The First Special Service Force also needs a few packs to complete the two sections in the planned platoon – but I’m waiting on Artizan Designs to release the promised pack of Johnson Machine-gunners…

For most the plan is to field something like a reinforced platoon (or, in some cases, platoonS – or even a company!) – the scale of force most commonly used in Bolt Action. Some forces won’t be useable in that scale of action, and I have no intention to make them so – I just have them for potentially using in Role-Playing/Pulp Adventure type games.

If I cranked out about 100 foot per month (which I can easily do when I get up to high production speed) I could have these all done by mid-summer… well the Infantry… and then I’d have some vehicles to finish up. It could all be done by fall…

The question is: Do I have that long of an attention span anymore…?

Coming up next: Some Frenchies (or possibly more Chindits...?)
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4 comments:

  1. Black GuardianApril 14, 2015 at 7:03 AM

    Too much reasoning and analysis does not seem to be good for you - just get the heck up and clean your hobby room instead of finding excuses ;D
    Otherwise you´ll have to create a model of your internal utility function that reflects your preferences for cleaning vs. playing and prove that you can indeed find a point that justifies your decision, including all the assumptions going into that equation.

    But that does sound unfun, does it? ;D Aah, microeconomics... the memories ;)

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    1. timApril 14, 2015 at 2:48 PM

      I do like these mental exercises - wondering if this is all really rewarding enough for the "work" i'm putting into it. When it stops being rewarding it becomes more of a habit than a hobby. I'm trying to have less habits and more hobbies these days.

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  2. MontyApril 14, 2015 at 9:24 AM

    I have various WW2 bits and pieces partially completed at four different scales and am considering extending that to 15mm!! Not sure which rules to use, mind (Nuts! probably) though... :-S

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    1. timApril 14, 2015 at 2:46 PM

      Oh... I don't even want to think about the 20mm and 15mm WW2 stuff I have (because I do have LOTS of both!!) - it would be too depressing...

      At least I can say MOST of the 15mm WW2 stuff is done... I've been back and forth about selling them off for years now... I can't imagine ever having the desire to play Flames of War again, and if I were to play something like Blitzkrieg Commander (which is what I last used the 15mm stuff for) I'd probably start over with Microarmour.

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