As I alluded to in the
previous
post, I spent a good chunk of my hobby time last week taking stock of
things – well… taking stock of my 28mm figures, to be precise. As with any
large project, I start to drift partway through and have been dreaming about
new projects lately and so part of this was to sort of shame or guilt myself
into sticking to it. It’s a large part of how I keep my self-motivated on big
projects and I’m sure it’s a pretty flawed coping mechanism… but it’s how we
get things done around here… (Strangely it doesn’t work at all when others try
to shame me into doing things… probably because I know that game all too well –
can’t pull that crap on me, I’M the only one that can pull that crap on me… I
digress…).
The last time I did this was
just over
seven
years ago. AT that time I had just over 8000 28mm foot figures and
just under half of them were done. I also had about 500 mounted, 15 guns, and
41 vehicles – considerable less than half of those were done. Overall about 47%
off the total collection was complete – painted and based and ready for
tabletop action (because playing with unpainted figures is JUST WRONG! – in my
little kingdom, at least!). For a more detailed breakdown of what I had then
click on the hypertextified-linky-words at the beginning of this
paragraph.
As with the
previous
count, I only bothered to count the 28mm figures. I do have a few
15mm forces remaining (3 old Flames of War companies that I was last using at
battalions or brigades in Blitzkrieg Commander), and quite a few 20mm Moderns
(though I did get rid of all my 20mm WW2 stuff – thanks Bob!), and I have a bit
of
Micro
(6mm) SciFi stuff – like Battletech and 40K Epic stuff. Oh and some
homemade
Wee Ships and Spacecraft… but they are relatively small collections,
comparatively.
So over all I ended up counting 18908 28mm foot figures,
1011 mounted, 63 guns or other artillery (catapults and the like), and 175
vehicles or big beasties. And overall about 51% was painted (In calculating
percent complete I weighted cavalry as being worth two foot and vehicles being
worth 5) – breaking that down it was 10221 painted 28mm foot (54% complete),
381 mounted (38%), 32 guns (51%), and 48 vehicles (27%). Apparenlty I don’t
like painting vehicles or mounted as much as I like painting foot figures (or
perhaps I don’t find them as useful in games…?). I would guess this to be
accurate within +/- 2% (it was easy enough to count all the stuff that’s
actually IN the regular storage drawers, but I also have little boxes of this
and that squirreled away all over the place and while I tried my best to dig
them out and count them, I am sure there are some I missed – or it is possible
I missed one or two when I started going cross-eyed after counting for three or
four hours in the wee hours of the morning. In fact as I’m typing this I just
realized I didn’t count all the old Blood Bowl stuff – which has been
ingloriously dumped in the game box and had sat on the bottom shelf in the
corner of the games room for over a decade and I can’t be bothered to run
downstairs and count then now (in fact that is why it’s 2% - I originally typed
1%... but there’s probably 100 of them which could bring my error over 1% –
most of which are painted, I’ll point out… and looking back at the previous
post, I apparently forgot to count them last time as well…)
I didn’t break things down as neatly as I did last time. I
tabulated things by mostly drawer rather than by force or collection, but then
I moved stuff around in the spread sheet to get some generally breakdowns.
The most complete collection
seems to be the
Modern
(post 1945 stuff), which includes
Vietnam
(Americans, Anzacs, People’s Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation
Front), Afghans (for the war with Russia and more recent conflicts), Germans,
French, Americans (Army and Marines), Cold War Soviets, Modern Russians, Cold
War British (with FNs), Modern British (with SA-80s), Some generic forces for
the Middle East, South/Central America, and Africa, and PILES of
civilians
and police forces and such… about 85% of the collection is complete -
over 1500 of nearly 1800 figures – including a fair few vehicles.
(please note that not ALL of the
figures painted are posted in the linked galleries – something I have to
rectify at some point….)
The
World
War Two collection is also one of those closer to completion – about
70% complete – includes Soviets, Canadians, Germans (Heer, SS, Falschirmjagers,
DAK, etc), Japanese, SAS/LRDG, British Commandos, Americans (army infantry,
Paratroopers, and Marines), Early War French, Mid-war French Foreign Legion,
British/Canadian Paras, and assorted partisans and generic-mid-20
th-century
armed civilians.
The
Great
War era stuff is also nearing completion – thanks largely to the Vimy
Project… about 75% complete (1775 out of 2291 foot, and 109 our of 163
mounted). This includes the Canadians, Germans (early and later war), Early War
British, Early War French, Turks and ANZACs for the Middle East, Germans and
British in East Africa, Warlord Chinese and Bolsheviks.
l projects are lagging a bit
further behind – only about 40% complete (775 of 1956 foot, 25 of 97 mounted) –
largely due to great number of unpainted British and Zulus … These include
British and Zulus (and other Africans), as well as assorted Victorian Horror
and SF characters and forces, Martians, Boers, French Foreign Legion, American
and German Marines, Old West, and Canadians and Metis for the Riel Rebellion.
I have a few
Napoleonic
Era figures, it is one of the least complete collections – though,
once I counted, was higher than I’d anticipated… I’ve completed about 19% of
the collection (176 of 934 foot and 5 of 29 mounted). Most of the unpainted
ones are boxes of Hät plastics I picked up dirt cheap – like $5-7 for a box of
30-40 figures – how could I pass that up?! I may never get to them, but they’re
there – should the mood ever strike!
18th
Century subjects are about half done (54%) – including Seven Years
War British and French, as well as Jacobites, Pirates and other assorted
swashbuckling types.
17th
Century - largely English Civil War – are 64% complete (342 of 534
foot and 38 or 60 mounted) largely due to some significant headway I made
earlier this year.
The
Medieval
& Medieval Fantasy collection has expanded rapidly in the last
year or so – largely due to
Lion
Rampant,
Dragon
Rampant,
Frostgrave,
and
A
Song of Blades and Heroes - my painting has not, however, kept apace
with the purchasing however. In 2009 I had about 70% of the collection
complete, today only about 45% (1091 out of 2302 foot and 73 of 215 mounted!).
I have THREE European Medieval retinues for
Lion
Rampant as well as a generic middle eastern Muslim one (Seljuks,
mostly), and multiple DBA armies and
Dragon Rampant
warbands for Elves and Orcs and Dwarves, LOTR Rohan and Isengard forces, Rats,
Undead, Halflings, Dark Elves, a half dozen adventuring parties for
Frostgrave,
and piles not formed into units that could be used for
A
Song of Blades and Heroes or assorted role-playing games (playing a
bit of D&D 5E these days! And
John
has been threatening to run WFRP). These will see some loving when I’m done
with the Vimy Project…
The “
Dark
Ages” collection mostly
consists of DBA Armies for Norde Irish, pre-feudal Scots, Vikings, Normans,
Anglo-Danish, West Franks, Welsh, and Anglo-Saxons. A fair bit of these are
done (about 80%) due to the
2012
Dark Ages DBA Campaign I ran.
Likewise, a lot fewer of the
Feudal
and Fantastical Japanese (I really need to get some pictures in that
gallery!) were it not for the
Ronin
Campaign I ran for the 2014 Wargaming Birthday Bash Weekend. The
collection includes HOTT/DBA armies and individual figures for
Ronin
– Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai and Role-playing games.
In addition to historical Feudal Japanese the collection includes a great deal
many fantastical figures from the Legends of the Five rings. Actually only 45%
are done – but it’s be a lot lower if it hadn’t been for Ronin – I went a
little overboard picking up the L5R stuff a few years back I have nearly 1000
figures in this collection but over 400 are done, so…
I was a little surprised to find
that half of the
Ancient
and Mythical Greece collection was complete – considering I have five
complete Hoplite DBA armies (or 12 elements of spear, 7-8 figures per element)
of which I have hardly put any paint on. But all the individually based heroes
and monsters and assorted ancient civilians I included added up to quite a few.
I didn’t bother separating out
the
Romans
in the tallies… it would likely be similar to the Greeks – I have one complete
DBA army, but enough unpainted figures for three or four more, but I also have
a LOT of individually based figures Roman army, Gladiators, and Civilians
(which are all mixed in with all the other assorted ancient civilians – which I
counted as part of the Greeks)
The collection that is the least
complete is the DBA Successors armies. I have about 450 figures for five
successor armies (as well as Thracians, Skythians, and Classic Indians) of
which 6 foot and one elephant are complete… about 1%.
And what have I concluded from
all this…? Well I probably don’t need to be buying much new stuff anytime soon…
I have PLENTY to paint. I did a bit of planning and organizeing as I went through
– for example I have two groups of Fantasy dwarves – regular ol’ “Mountain
Dwarves” as I’ve called them in my little world to differentiate them from the
“Highland Dwarves”. I had originally planned to do bot Hordes of the Things
armies for both – as well as having a bunch of extras for skirmishing and
role-paying and whatnot – and, more recently, using with
Dragon
Rampant. As I went through I realized I’d need another SIX elements
of Highland Dwarves to finish the HOTT army… at 6 figures per element – another
36 figures…. I am loathe to buy more figures at this point – especially for a
game I haven’t played for a few years (though I would definitely like to
again…at some point…) so I decided to rebase the ones I have painted as well as
the ones I had on painting bases that were destined for that force – and now I
have enough for a complete Dragon Rampant Warband of them… well… almost… I’d
need less to complete a Dragon Rampant Warband that I would to complete a full
HOTT army of them – and a Dragon Rampant warband is likely to see more use in
the foreseeable future than another HOTT army…
Of course then I spent an
evening re-basing figures instead of painting more Great War Canadians… So this
thing I did to ease my mind about future projects and prevent distractions,
ended up being a bit of a distraction in and of itself… but I kind of expected
that, and I feel, in the long term, it will prove to be more help than
hindrance.
I think after the Vimy Game is over I’ll move onto other
things for a bit. I had though of getting some terrain done for a Passchendaele
game in the fall – since I’ll have all the figures for it! And I may still do
that… but I also need to do some other things – to keep me sane and loving the
hobby. I’d like to work on the colonial projects for
The
Men Who Would Be Kings and finish up some units for
Lion
Rampant retinues and
Dragon Rampant
warbands… maybe play some more
Frostgrave
and/or
A
Song of Blades and Heroes…? I also would like to finish up a few more
17
th Century figures to play
En Garde!
and
The
Pikeman’s Lament.
I’d also like to get back to
work on some Ancient and Mythical stuff and play some more
Song
of Shadows and Dust and try out
Faustus
Furious (which I picked up a month or so ago and finally got to
reading a few weeks ago) and
Of
Gods and Mortals (which, strangely, introduced me to Andrea
Sfiligoi’s rules, but I have yet to actually play!? I’d really like to revisit
the idea of running
Song
of Shadows and Dust as a
wargame weekend campaign – with some
Faustus
Furious-chariot-street-racing mixed in for fun!!
More on all this in a month or
so when I look back at 2016 and plan for 2017…
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Some Dwarves – a minor distraction brought about by all this
stocktaking an plannificating… Then back to the Great War Canadians… hopefully…
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