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Monday, January 30, 2017

Countdown to Vimy – 10 weeks to go!


Again, I’d meant to post this last night , but ended up staying up way too late (watching the first three episodes of True Detective season one and painting German staff and casualties) and was too tired to post it (even though it was mostly written, I just needed to download pictures of the workbench…). I guess I'd also I'd done two other posts yesterday... so...

Whew! What a week… I did get a fair bit done, but not everything I’d hoped… and some changes to THE PLAN will have to be made…

The Plan for last week was to:

#1 Paint a regiment (three battalions) of Germans


CHECK! 48 Great War Germans were painted this week completing the 262 Reserve Infantry Regiment.

I had a bit of a roller coaster of emotions earlier today. All week I thought I was working on the 261st Reserve Infantry Regiment, only to discover last night I ‘d already painted the 261st!? WOOO! I was super excited thinking I only had ONE more regiment to paint instead of two… ten doubt started to creep in and I began to think; “no… that CAN’T be right…” and sure enough it wasn’t. I’d forgotten about two regiments of Bavarians I need to do… so I went from thinking I had two to do… to thinking I only had ONE… to realizing I actually have THREE MORE REGIMENTS to complete…

I ws just about ready to throw in the towel…

Then I got to thinking. When I originally planned this I did not make the German battalions the same size as the Canadian ones, and before game even rolled for losses during the “Week of Suffering” (the week of harassing bombardment previous to the assault) and I got thinking, if I’m not going to field entire full-strength battalions… and I’m going to remove a bunch more right away before the game starts… WHY THE HELL AM I PAINTING FULL-STRENGTH BATTALIONS for the Germans!?

So I started to think about reorganizing and realized if I went with 10 man battalions – saying their smaller than the Canadian ones because a) the aforementioned “Week of Suffering” has depleted the units in the line, and b) the Canadians have all received fresh drafts of recruits to bring them to (or above!) strength! This way I will need only 45 more to finish the stuff I’d originally planned to for sure get done AND I could paint another 40 or so to do the assorted battalions that were rushed forward from the reserves to make counter attacks on the day. Which means I’ll end up painting about the same as I’d been thinking I’d have to do over the next few weeks.


#2 Base and prep three more battalions to paint the following week.

Totally didn’t get to this yet… Hopefully today I’ll get to casting up the next batch.

#3 Finalize plans for terrain.

Too busy painting and organizing other things, didn’t get to this. I’ll definitely get to it this week.


#4 FINISH CLEANING THE TABLE!!!


CHECK! The table all cleared off! Well… mostly…


4th Division Terrain – ready for some refurbishing.


Detail of the 4th division terrain.


This Week…

#1 Cast, base, prime and goop remaining Germans.

#2 Cast, base, prime and goop British 5th Brigade

#3 Base, prime and goop remaining 6th Canadian Brigade (miniatures should be arriving on Tuesday)

#4 Finalize Terrain Plans (and maybe start in on refurbishing 4th Division terrain...? That might be a bit much with all the miniature prepping and painting going on...)

#5 Reorganize Germans – repaint collars on old 261 Reserve Infantry Regiment to match collars on 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment reorganize those two regiments to form 11th Bavarian Infantry Regiment, Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 1, and Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 3.


Next Week:

#1 Paint 45 Great War Germans to add to those painted last week and reorganize into 10 figure battalions to form the 3 regiments of the 79th Infantry Division.

#2 Refurbish rest of 4th Division’s Terrain

Rest of February
Finish Germans – 4-5 more battalions of units in reserve plus machine Guns and mortars
Build Terrain for 2nd and 3rd Division.


March
Finish British and Canadians 2 battalions
Build Terrain for 1st Divison


April
Make more wire and barrage markers


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Ummm…? Maybe a round up of boardgames we played through the second half of January…? Hopefully updates of plans for terrain building and pictures of some other Great War odds and ends (I have some german casualties on the workbench at the moment)

7 comments:

  1. Looking fantastic Tim, can't wait for April to roll around. I will be sure to drive the Santa Fe down for the trip to have room to lug those boards!

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    1. Thanks Terry! I've had a few local people with trucks offer to help get them to where ever I end up holding - so I think I'm covered in that regard. It's how I'm going to haul the minis I'm wondering about now. I'll probably just have to unstack their storage drawers and loads those up in a car (or cars!)...

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  2. I got a vivid sense of panic as I read through your thought process as each obstacle and doubt surfaced. Great stuff to read and somewhat comforting to know I am not alone. As Murdock says, you are a painting machine!

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    1. Is it that obvious? I need to read my Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy more: DON'T PANIC!

      That has certainly been the greatest advantage of the internet - letting us nutjobs know that there are similarly afflicted mental cases out there in the world!

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  3. That's a clean table, bet a lot of work went into achieving that! I'm tired reading your schedule and worry for your terrain but I'm sure you'll be fine.
    Best Iain

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