More Medieval Stuff and Blathering About What to DO Next?!

The dust has begun to settle from last weekend’s Frostgrave Campaign Weekend and I’m easing myself back into painting…

Including a few painting sessions with the kids! Actually we started listening to A Game of Thrones audiobook this week – so they’ve been quite keen to sit down and paint. Actually The Girl never needs convincing – she LOVES painting. The Boy could take it our leave it… but since the only time we listen to audiobooks is when we’re paiting – and he does like listening to audiobooks (especially fantasy ones!) he’ll dig stuff out and get some work done.

I’ve more or less carrying on with what I’ve been working on the last month or so… more on that later, but for now – here’s what I’ve finished up this week:

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Six foot Men-at-Arms from Black Tree Design for my green and yellow Lion Rampant retinue.

A couple more religious types to help spread the good word… I thought I might try and get 12 of these – or at least a few more and mix them with civilians to use as a bunch of pilgrims heading to the holy land (I’d call them a unit of “Peasants” in Lion Rampant). The figures are from Old Glory (I think…).

New Treasure Hunter for the Jade Wizard’s Warband. This is an old Citadel Miniatures/Games Workshop figure that I’ve had for over 30 years and recently stripped to repaint (I posted a picture a couple weeks back just before he went into the paint-stripping-bath).

Finally another Archer for the Middle Eastern flavoured warband. I’m not sure of the manufacturer; I got him in a trade.

Well... What next…?

I’ve been so wrapped up in making terrain (and making more terrain), and painting warbands (and more warbands and other stuff), and playing Frostgrave (and again, and again…) all in preparation for the 12^th Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Campaign Weekend: Quest for the Skull Sword …. I kind of haven’t given much thought to what I’m going to do for… well…  the rest of the year – and beyond!?

Sure, I worked out a bit of a plan in January and I’ve been thinking about En Garde! and painting up swashbucklers for it (like these ones and these ones and  these ones) and then there’s Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant which I’ve been thinking about a lot and painting stuff for (like these Elf Archers, and these Elite Elf Foot, and these Halflings, or these peasants and such) – we even got in a game of Dragon Rampant in early January… but they’ve been distractions that I quickly pushed aside to stay focused on the task at hand… so now what…?

I feel pulled in so many directions at once…

Part of me wants to just drop Frostgrave and move on to other things. But another part of me, now that I’ve got all this stuff done, wants to get a regular campaign going – even if it’s just with the family – and play through all the scenarios in the core book and then the Hunt for the Golem campaign and then Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign…

Part of me wants to just jump into high production for Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant.

I have a feeling that’s just not going to work out for the next month or so….You see for the next month the kids and I are studying the early 20^th Century – so that means the Great War, the Russian Revolution, Spanish Civil War, and World War Two – all of which I have both board and miniature games for – so I have a feeling that we’ll spend a lot of our game time doing those sorts of things. I might set aside Saturday evening for Frostgrave… but the rest of the game time through the week will be devoted to more modern subjects.

Part of me hopes that this might jumpstart a renewed interest in the Vimy Project… it’s just over a year to go until the 100^th anniversary of the battle and I have NOT been keeping up with the schedule laid out in that last post… but if I jumped right in and stayed focused I could probably pull it off… Of course WHERE would I put it on…!? Who the heck would even want to play in it!? the Legion Hall a block from my place would be a perfect location – but would there be enough interest in Saskatoon to run it here – or would it be a big enough draw that people would be willing to travel to Saskatoon in April of next year to participate…? I don’t know…. I guess I’ll see how the next month goes.

I guess that’s most of my plan worked out for the next month – Frostgrave on Saturday nights… Early 20^th century during the rest of the week for the month of March (and in April we’ll be covering even more modern subjects – I’ve got all sorts of Vietnam and Cold War miniatures and board games we could make use of…) and we’ll see where my interests lie at the end of that.

I DO want to get to try out En Garde!, and play a lot more Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant. Also I have a complete Medival Muslim retinue and a third complete European retinue to paint up for Lion Rampant – and a bunch more halflings and others I’d like to paint up to finish Warbands for Dragon Rampant. I'll probably continue to paint a bit of this while playing other games for the next month of so. But serious work on these projects (and playing these games) may have to wait until later in the spring… or summer… or 2017 if I get going on the Vimy Project again!!

Of course then there's Men Who Would Be Kings... which I'm also pretty excited about and have been gazing over my British colonials and Zulus (and Boers... and Martians!?) and pondering which of those I should get working on... 

Then there's the Imperial Guard Jungle Fighters I'm so close to getting finished... which, seriously, a week or two of serious work and I'd be DONE ALL OF THEM and they'd be sitting ready for whenever the kids or my friend and his kids finish any of their units and want to play...

I could go on...

Too much stuff to do, too little time...

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have some Seljuk Cavalry on the workbench that I'll probably be finishing up next.

Probably not getting in a game of Frostgrave this weekend, but perhaps next weekend...