A long and rambling post about miniatures and games and campaigns and what to do when you realize you have more miniatures than you will ever get to painting in your lifetime...
It has been over three weeks since I played any games - over a month since I've played Age of Sigmar (Spearhead) and I can feel I'm drifting into the Danger Zone... where I loose sight of what I was doing and the mind starts wandering and thinking about and considering... DIFFERENT STUFF!
I was sick for the last two weeks of August and just starting to feel like I'm on the mend. I've not been doing much and there were a few times I found myself in the basement game room, doing some tidying and just staring at the ridiculous number of drawers that I have all these miniatures stored in and pondering how I acquired them all and thinking about what the plans were and how that has changed and feeling like another wave of change was on the way...
I don't know how QUICKLY any of these things might happen... but things will probably happen at some point...
This actually started months ago... or... years ago, depending on when you could things as having "started"...?
But within the last few months, while contemplating the collection and considering what I might be able to discard (to make space for some of the RECENT ACQUISITIONS (and there have been a few things I've decided to get rid of... but I haven't exactly figures out HOW to do that yet... I digress... I will probably do this often...)
THE GREEKS
I'd been looking at the Greeks for a while now... The plan, initially, was to build MULTIPLE Classical period Later Greek Hoplite armies for De Bellis Antiquitatis - to potentially play a Peloponnesian War campaign, at SOME point...
So much of my planning has been around CAMPAIGNS! I LOVE the idea of campaigns. I just don't love playing one-of battles with no context. They are a little boring to me. Most of the best experiences in this hobby have been through gathering friends and playing through campaigns - either weekend affairs or the occasional extended one.
Some of my WORST experiences in the hobby have been during those very same campaigns... usually people related, people that just want to WIN and will abuse loop holes or try to find loopholes and constantly demand rulings about this or that and/or complain about rulings or just complain about the rules and things that are "wrong" with them when they don't benefit them...
Also just the energy and stress involved in trying to ORGANIZE a campaign... getting gamers to commit to things is sometimes like herding cats... and to get ENOUGH together at the same time, one ends up having to invite those sorts of people that CAUSE those very worst experiences...
Do I keep hope that I will again run campaigns...? Do I just entirely give up on the idea!? If the latter... what do I do with all these!?
I have to admit, I don't know THAT much ABOUT the Peloponnesian War... I have no idea how I settled on the city states that I settled on... (I have a feeling that it might be that they were the cities in Perikles - a board game by Martin Wallace...?)
Here's the state of some of those forces...
Athens... I think some (most) of these were from Crusader Miniatures...? I got two Spear elements done and some Psiloi and Light Horse - and done in my old basing system which involved MORE minatures than the regular DBA rules suggested - because I thought it made the elements look more like UNITS they were representing.
The bases the unpainted ones are on are temporary painting bases that I put all the miniatures I'm going to eventually affix to multi-figure bases, for something to hold onto while painting.
(for almost all of these armies I have completed the Psioloi and Light Horse elements - I'm pretty sure I did them all as one big batch one winter, years ago...)
SPARTA!!!
Again two elements of Spear completed and Psiloi and Light Horse options... These are mostly Black Tree Design. I bought a lot of BTD at some point in the past. They have MASSIVE ranges and would periodically have sales where a number of the packs within the range were 70% off!? So I would buy many multiples of each of THOSE packs and maybe a few others for variety and end up with entire armies of them... most of the Greek Hoplite armies - other than the Athenians are made up of the BTD minatues.
This box also has a bunch of singly based miniatures for skirmish/role-playing games. A bunch are from Crocodile games and there is a mix of Foundry miniatures in there... these are in this box, because i was running out of room in the more Greek "Heroes"drawer... These were ones I'd specifically painted as Spartans... there was room in the Spartan box, so I put them in here...
One of the thoughts I've had about this collection is whether or not to continue with the idea of building multiple DBA hoplite armies... or just rebase them all singly for... other games... and WHICH GAMES!? (more on this in a bit...)
Megara... haven't done any of the Spear... but have finished Psiloi and Light Horse.
Corinth - Two Spear, plus Light Horse and Psiloi...
Thebes... Just the Psiloi...
If I was trying to do the cities from the Perikles game I'd still need an Argos army...
Of course, I might have had an idea about using Perikles as a campaign system/scenario generator - which, if I recall, might have worked as there was a whole strategic element to the game where your family tried to gain influence in teh various cities... and then there are the battles that are generated by the strategic element of the games turns and then there's a whole combat resolution portion to each round... and I thought a miniature game of some sort might be substituted for the pure dice rolling to determine the outcome of the battles... If that was the case, I might have just decided to just not bother with making specific armies for each of the cities and just tried to make them all as generic as possible and just know that the ones on one side of the table were from one city, the others on the other side were from the other...?
The Greek Heroes drawer... I know the label says "Greek Myth" and some of them are heroes from Greek Myth, but most are just historical hoplites that I was using for Generic Greek Warriors in skirmish games inspired by Greek Myth.
I seem to have been much more motivated to paint individual miniatures - for skirmish/role-playing games! These are a mix of leftovers from the massive army purchases and other things I specifically bought for historical - or MYTHICAL - skirmish games...
Mythical Greek Gods and Monsters!
And this is what got all of this thinking started...
I very definitely have been planning to rebase all of these. They are metal miniatures on metal washers for bases and that is VERY heavy and has been distorting these plastic drawers. I have been slowly (very slowly) working through such collections and rebasing them all to wooden discs or plastic bases. partly to lighten the collections (slightly) but also (slightly) distribute the load, as the wooden discs and plastic based are slightly larger than the washers... (I think the washers are 7/8" and the wooden discs/plastic bases are 1" or 25mm).
WHILE considering this (well... considering whether to do the Greeks with plastic bases OR wooden discs) I started to wonder about all the other Greek miniatures in the OTHER drawers (above) originally slated for multifigure bases for DBA... MAYBE it was time to give up on the idea of DBA and rebase the lot of them onto individual bases and just use them for other games (and/or get rid of a bunch of them!)
What games though...?
There is Dragon Rampant (or Lion Rampant, I guess, but Lion Rampant is more specifically for Medieval forces and battles)
I could put a bunch of Geneic (or not-so-Generic) Greek Hoplite forces together for these and use THIS to play out any games - or even a campaign...
It's been a while, though, and I feel like a game of Dragon Rampant takes a bit more time than a game of DBA... and the thing I like about DBA is that games can be played in under an hour and you can thus play out and entire campaign in a weekend!?
So I got thinking and realized... there is One-Hour Wargames... and it has a Classic Period set of rules. I haven't played those specifically... but I did play and entire campaign using the Machine Age Rules from this book for a "Back of Beyond" campaign set during the Russian Civil War, which WAS a LOT of fun.
Further making me consider the rebasing of ALL THE GREEKS are the Amazons... these too were originally slated to be a Hordes of the Things army - which I figured I could use with all the above Historical Greek Hoplite armies in a more fantastical/mythological campaign... These were rebased a number of years ago (from the temporary painting bases to metal washers) as I'd kind of given up on Hordes of the things...
(there is MORE to this collection - a bunch of light cavalry and a chariot or two... the chariots are stored elsewhere - for the moment as there just wasn't space in this box - the Cavalry was moved out of the box, temporarily, to possibly be rebased!)
I'd given up on Hordes of the Things because it seemed ridiculous to me to have two of so many things - one set on individual bases (for skirmish/role-playing games) and another set of the same things on multi-figure bases (for Hordes of the Things). The nail in the coffin Dragon Rampant - I liked it much more than Hordes of the Things and it didn't require multi-figure bases.
(Yes, I KNOW you CAN play Dragon Rampant with figures on multi-figure bases... so I COULD have just left them on the multi-figure bases and been able to use them for BOTH games... but ultimately I figured everything on individual bases would be more versatile and I probably woudln't miss playing Hordes of the Things all that much!)
My army of Centaurs and Satyrs - which WERE orignially based for Hordes of the Things and used in games... AND I'd had a mix of miniatures on multi-figure bases for Hordes of the Things and a handful of others on individual bases... now they're all on individual bases and I am much happier... though they are all on metal washers... so not THAT happy, as I will need to, as some point, re-re-base these onto plastic (or wood) bases...
So... is it decided...? am I giving up on Later Greek Hoplites DBA armies and a Peloponnesian War DBA campaign...? Is everything going onto individual bases!? Maybe... Probably...
Which game will I reorganize these all for...? How much will I keep and how much will I discard?! I don't know... on one had, I feel like I should just leave them be until I'm actually INTERESTED in revisiting Classic Greek Wars... but on the other hand, I feel like some thought and planning could consolidate some of this collection into fewer drawers (freeing up space for other things that are needing storage!!). On the other other hand (my third hand!?) I am concerned that if I DO start that level of planning I'm at risk of getting COMPLETELY SIDETRACKED from what I HAVE been working on (Age of Sigmar!) and go all in on rebasing and painting GREEKS??!
If I do get to reorganizing, I think the level of decisions I'd have to make is what could make up an army in the other games and how many do I need to keep - complete armies of each city state I'd want to represent in a campaign..? Or just two (or four?) more GENERIC Greek hoplite forces to play out games one (or two) at a time that are generated by whatever campaign system/scenario generator that I happen to settle on... Keep the miniatures necessary for THOSE and paint and/or rebase as required/when necessary...
Dammit... You know what...? Now that I'm thinking about it, I think it was seeing Airborne Grove over on the Give 'em Lead blog going off on a Greek Mythology side track that may have gotten ME thinking about all the Greeks - mythological and otherwise - again!? The dangers of looking at other people blogs...
Oh, I realized there was also THIS game on my shelf next to One-Hour Wargames, which I'd picked up at some point when I was getting really excited about Neil Thomas' games... I realized I'd never even looked at it... it's a more involved game and looks like it ALSO uses multi-figure bases... so... probably not...
Of course with too much time on my hands while sick the last week or two... and it being too long since I've played any of the games that I've been trying to focus on... all this thinkifying and considering expanded to OTHER collections...
THE ROMANS
The Roman collection is in much the same state as the Greeks and has a similar origin...
Thinking about this collection was likely also inspired by watching the first season of Those About To Die on Prime last week...
The collection began with the acquisition of a HUGE lot of old Early Imperial Romans in a trade years ago... (maybe decades...?) Again, the idea was making multiple DBA Early Imperial Roman armies and using them for a fictional Roman Civil War campaign...
I was motivated enough, at the outset, to complete ONE DBA Early Imperial Roman army...
I think I have enough to do at least two, possibly three, MORE armies...
I also started collecting up a few enemies of Rome - that could intervene from the peripheries... Early Germans and Picts...
Though the Picts have ALREADY been rebased to individual bases!
Also, similar to the Greeks... I've acquired a bunch MORE Romans, that I have individually based (for skirmish/role-playing games) and have made good use of them!
I ran a Gladiatorial campaign using Savage Worlds for some time. I may have used them in games of Song of Blades and Heroes. I know I tried out Broken Legions at least once! I LOVE the Cthulhu Invictus setting (for role-playing games - Call of Cthulhu initially, but I think Savage Worlds has a Weird War Rome setting at one point...?) and have tried to get a few campaigns going with that...
And then there is Song of Shadows and Dust - probably my favourite iteration of the Song of... Game Engine. I know I played a number of games of this, at one point, and had GRAND PLANS for a map campaign of a fictional ancient mediterranean city where players would take over different neighbourhoods - and control of certain neighbourhoods would confer some sort of benefit within the game. I painted up enough minis that I could field a number of separate gangs for it...
I even toyed around with the idea of figuring out a way to make multiple quick generic factions with plastic miniatures - Song of Shadows and Dust Faction - to sell or give away to friends to encourage them to play the game with me!
I digress...
So... what to do with ALL THE ROMANS?!
Do I continue with the plan to build multiple DBA Early Imperial Roman armies to play out a fictional/semi-historical Roman Civil War campaign...? Or do I just rebase the ones I need to field a couple of armies for Dragon Rampant or One Hour Wargames and dispose of the rest!?
As I'm typing this, I feel like I'm making up my mind...
fun fact: I sometimes don't even write these thinking that anyone's even going to read them anymore... (Oh, I know there's, like, three of you that still do and I GREATLY appreciate that you still find these interesting! Thank you!) it's become more of a journalling process to figure things out for myself. Through the process of DOING them I make realizations and decisions, rather than fully thinking it through and THEN ANNOUNCING the decision that has been made!?
Again, though... probably NOT going to just start rebasing all of these next week (after completing the Greeks)... but then...?
THE DARK AGES
Now... this is a collection that I for many, MANY years SWORE i would NEVER re-base... NEVER... They are a COMPLETE collection and Ready-to-Play a 1066-ish campaign - like the DBA DARK AGES CAMPAIGN I already ran 12 years ago! I still have that map! It's currently sitting in my living room!
Of course... it has been TWELVE YEARS and despite these sitting here, "Ready-to-Play", I HAVEN'T run the campaign again... It's been years (possibly a decade!?) since I've even used them in a game of DBA!?
All this sort of thinkifying over the last week has me remembering the adage: Never say NEVER!!!
Could THESE be turned into useable armies for Dragon Rampant or One-Hour Wargames!?
One thing I've noticed from my brief perusal of the pre-gunpowder rules for One-Hour Wargames is that there isn't really so much room for maneuvering, like there could potentially be in DBA or HotT... you have six units, instead of twelve elements... there is some initial maneuvering - albeit on a fairly small battlefield... but once units are stuck in, there is NO leaving combat they just stay there until one unit of the other is wiped out! It's just a static dice rolling game at that point - no pushing each other back and forth - like is possible in DBA.
I guess I should try and play a game or two before making any hasty decisions...
In each of the drawers there are already a mix of multi-figure bases for the DBA army and a bunch of individually based miniatures - some were just leftovers from making the DBA army - others were specifically bought with the idea or skimishing or role-playing games in mind!
The Vikings, the first of my Dark Age armies. Before I ever used them as a DBA army, elements were used in Warhammer Ancient Battles!?
(Huh... I'd forgotten about that until just typing it now... I guess THAT's ANOTHER option for games... I still have all those Warhammer Ancient Battles books SOMEWHERE!? Although, in theory, that's meant to be played with miniatures on individual SQUARE bases... and that just NOT going to happen... though I'm sure the rules could be modified or sabot bases/movement trays could be used!)
Some of the miniatures are old, OLD Citadel miniatures - from when they made historical miniatures! Most of them are from Old Glory - back when they were available through the Sentry Box for reasonable prices... and there is a mix of odds and ends from different manufacturers...
MOAR Vikings... because I'd just acquired enough to make two armies... why not make two...
Dark Age Anglo-Saxons or Anglo-Danish...
MOAR Dark Age Anglo-Saxons or Anglo-Danish...
I think one was destined to be a dedicated Anglo-Saxon army and the other a dedicated Anglo-Danish army...? I don't remember... its' been over a decade since I last made decisions about this collection.
The Normans...
Pre-feudal Scots...
The Welsh...
The primed black ones in the back were originally purchases so I could make enough elements that these could also be used as early medieval Welsh and have enough archers for all the options (I feel like the Medieval Welsh were split into Northern and Southern and ONE of them was almost entirely make up of Bow elements...). I've long since given up on that idea and based the extras on individual bases thinking they could be used as Welsh archers in Lion Rampant...?
Dark Age Irish.
Seriously all those Psiloi and Auxilia bases take up a LOT of space... if rebased, this collection could probably be consolidated into ONE drawer along with the Medieval Irish Lion Rampant retinue...
West Franks... basically, after the campaign, I decided in future campaigns I'd need to have the West Franks (and possibly East Franks) to give the Normans something to think about, otherwise they just trample everyone before them...
I guess what I also REALLY need to do before making any decisions about this collection is go through, army by army, and take stock of what I have for each and figure out if there is enough miniatures to put together a Lion Rampant retinue for each - of 24-30 Army Points...
Medieval Retinues
These ones were never meant to be De Bellis Antiquitatis armies... MOST of the have been acquired since the release of Lion Rampant and were collected for that purpose.
The thing I am pondering, in this case, is: DO I REALLY NEED ALL OF THESE!?
The Retinue of Baron Phillipe du Lapin
I said MOST were acquired since the release of Lion Rampant.. The core of this force are remnants from my old Brettonian army for Warhammer Fantasy Battles from the 90s!? Things have been added to it since then.. but a bunch of these miniatures are miniatures sculpted by the Perrys which were simultaneously released through Citadel Miniatures as Brettonians and from Wargames Foundry as the Baron's War line?! I bought some from both companies! Some are even older Citadel models from their historical lines... and others were from other companies from the 70s/80s that were originally used as D&D miniatures, but being in medieval-looking armour/garb, got press-ganged into service in this retinue! Others are newer models from... Crusager Miniatures, I think...? Maybe some Black Tree Design...?
It's a keeper, though it really needs to be rebased - and spread out amongst multiple drawers! the current army doesn't really even fit in this drawer.
The colours are from that original Brettonian force from the 90s and were probably done because they were the colours of the Canadian flag...
Lapin because it's french for Rabbit, which I thought was funny. Probably Monty Python inspired...
I considered changing it over the years because Lapin was also the name of the gunman at the mass shooting, killing 14 women (and wounding 13 others!) at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique in 1989... because FUCK THAT GUY and I did NOT want anyone EVER making any sort of association between the two... and... ultimately I kept it because I figured no one ever would (had I not just mentioned it here....)
The "Opposing Force".
Done in the colours of the high school I attended from grades nine to eleven... because FUCK THEM... The narrative was that these were belligerents that kept trying to horn in on Baron Phillipe's territory while Baron Phillipe just wanted to be left alone to manage his small holdings and grow crops... Fucking bullies... ha!
These are all (well... mostly...) newer figures acquired specifically to make an opposing Lion Rampant Retinue.
the OTHER Retinue...
This also was acquired specifically to make an additional retinue for Lion Rampant (or Dragon Rampant!). By the time I acquired this army, I had an idea festering of running a campaign, again... possibly using the old Mighty Empires system from Games Workshop (1990) where 1 Army Point = 50 points - so a banner that was 1500 points in Warhammer Fantasty Battle would be 30 Army points worth of stuff in Dragon Rampant.
THIS is one that I'm kind of sort of thinking of getting rid of... I HAVE two opposing retinues for Lion Rampant... when am I EVER going to run a Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant campaign... There are SO MANY other things to paint... and... how much time do I have to do that before my kids are disposing of all these miniatures and myself into a special care home... or a crematorium...
Yeah... SOME of this thinking has been spurred on by an impending sense of DOOM and a realization that I am closet to the end than I am to the beginning and the brutal method in which my own fathers worldly possessions were disposed of over the last year as he moved from assisted living with my mom... to the hospital... to a special care home... to the crematorium...
Anyway... enough about that...
The only reason I haven't immediately gotten rid of them is I like the colour scheme I'd started using on these (Black and Blue) over the green and yellow of the other Opposing Force...
If I got rid of them... or at least MOST of them I could use this drawer for overflow from the other two retinues which are currently so stuffed into their drawers that there are bases overlapping and such...
A Small force of Medieval Irish... I think this was started because I got some in a collection I bought of assorted Dark Age stuff and these turned out to be not-so-Dark-Age-ish... so they sat in a box until I was making Medieval retinues for Lion Rampant and realized I still had these... and then some additional miniatures were bought from Crusader miniatures to have a complete force...?
They're close enough to being done that I'd like to keep them... rebase them and finish them up at some point...
As mentioned earlier... if the Dark Age Irish were rebased to individual bases... they could probably be consolidated into this drawer, freeing up space for... other things...
Medieval Muslims...
Because at some point I thought some campaigning in the Holy Land might be fun...? I had a lot of generic desert/middle eastern terrain...
I've only finished the two units... but they're very colourful and I like them... so I'd like to keep these and rebase and finish them up some day...
I also have some "fantastical" middle eastern miniatures... that could be used with the above in a more generic/fictional setting.
Some of these I've used as a Frostgrave warband!
Unfortunately, this was the theoretical crusading opposing force I picked up for them (I was in Calgary and they were on sale at the Sentry Box... and... I have to admit, I know very little about the Crusades... and still don't... but I'm pretty sure THESE Teutonic knights may not have been the types crusading in the Holy Land...!?)
So... when looking for things to get rid of... these are being considered.
I might keep some of the foot figures - they're really just generic armed civilians and could be used in other forces or games as generic medieval fantasy minis...)
I DID have campaigning ideas for some of these - though mostly in a fantasy realm of my own design - using a modified version of the Mighty Empires (1990) game... If I'm using the fantasy armies... do I need three (or MORE) mediaeval-ish human factions!?
English Civil War
Carrying on with these because... similar to others, the collection was amassed with the idea of CAMPAIGNING in mind... and originally using a DBA-X set of rules. I did get multiple armies completed and I DID play a few games with the rules and it WAS a lot of fun.... but then I was finding i was collecting DOUBLE forces - stuff for the DBA-x armies and completely separate forces for The Pikeman's Lament....
(YES.... I KNOW..... You CAN play The Pikeman's Lament - and Dragon Rampant, and ANY of the Dan Mercy games - with figures on multi-figure bases... so, again, I COULD have just left them on the multi-figure bases and been able to use them for BOTH games... but ultimately, again, I figured everything on individual bases would be more versatile and I probably woudln't miss playing DBA-x all that much!)
Again, a large part of this collection was acquired through the purchase of a large collection someone else was getting rid of... I can't remember if it was a purchase or a trade. Other things have been added... but others I've had since the 90s - when I'd put in an order to the Wargames Foundry to put together a few forces for a small ECW skirmish game (Once Upon a Time in the West Country?) I can't remember if I EVER actually PLAYED it... also I was thinking the miniatures could double as character in Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play...?
I'm not sure how much decision-making needs to be done here.. this is just an example of a collection that was put together, initially, with the idea of building enough forces to host a DBA-x campaign... that has been abandoned and decided I could do something similar with the Pikeman's Lament... as such they have been or are to be rebased and organized into units of 12 foot and 6 mounted.
The Blue Regiment
As with other collections, I planned to put very generic, colour-coded armies/regiments together. I know... there wasn't a LOT of uniformity in the English Civil War armies... The plan was to show that by having only jackets be of the forces colour for some units with trousers and hats being of a variety of colours... I've even mixed in different shades of the colour within units to make them look a little more of a haphazard-ragtag-motley crüe... Because there are varying qualities of troops in the Pikeman's Lament, I could show Elite or Veteran troops as having complete uniforms of matching colour... and the lower quality (Green?) troops having less cohesive colouring...?
The Blue Regiment, here, has mostly been rebased onto wooden discs... and I think I have enough units complete to field a force in a game...
Most of the rest of these, that HAVE been rebased from the multi-figure bases, have been based on metal washers... and will, at some point, have to be re-re-based...
The Red Regiment...
The Orange Regiment...
I feel like there are definitely some missing from this and some of the others... maybe the units of Dragoons...? I feel like I took them out and had thought of putting them in a separate drawer - because ALL of the drawers were running out of space... but I have no idea where i've put them?!
The Green Regiment...
Extra stuff I'm not sure what to do with...
And I'm SURE there is still MORE in a box somewhere else - like plastic infantry from Warlord games? Probably enough for an entire regiment. I will likely never get to those... or most of these... probably should organize them to get rid of them all...
Scotts Government/Conenenteers...
the one that's STILL on multi-figure bases for DBA-x!?
The Scots Government troops that have been rebased... but onto metal washers.
This also includes a bunch of the stuff that I never put on multi-figure bases that I'd started acquiring to put together armies for skimish games and later the Pikeman's Lament...
The original Scots Highlander retinue... some were originally on multi-figure bases for DBA-x... others were originally on various different bases. I think they have all been re-re-based onto wooden discs...?
Again, this is a collection that is a big mish-mash of things collected over multiple decades beginning in the early 90s.
This was one of the first larger forces I cobbled together for the English Civil War... Partly because HIGHLANDERS... but also because most of it could also be used all the way up to the Jacobite Uprisings nearly a hundred years later...
Part of the reason I have so many is because at one point I was trying to put multiple smaller bands together for a lower level skirmish game - that would eventually be played as a campaign (I think initially inspired by Mordheim, of all things) and involved raids of other players territories to steal sheep (and other stuff) from other players... (but mostly sheep! I have a large flock of sheep - a mix of sheepies from Wargames Foundry and Gripping Beast!)
The Irish Brigade... a later acquisition, specifically for The Pikeman's Lament... because... you can never have enough Highlanders...?
(Though, technically all Irish... they were FIGHTING WITH the Highlanders...)
I think they're a mix of Warlord Games and Eureka Miniatures!?
Not actually part of the English Civil War... but somewhere along the line I picked up a couple of bags of Old Glory Jacobites... of ebay...? or in a trade...? Or picked them up on deep discount from the Sentry Box...? I don't remember. I figured since I have ECW Highlanders that could pass as Jacobite Highlanders... and I had Seven Years War English... I could put together some forces for the Jacobite rebellions!
I used to love painting plaid. I had a system. It was a bit of a time-consuming pain in the ass... but I loved the way it looked when done... I'm not sure if I have the patience to do ALL of these... and the rest of the other Highlanders and Irish Brigade... AND the rest of the Highland Dwarves... AND the rest of the Picts... (I was going to include a link to a similar post about the Dwarves I did a year or so ago - Dwarves Revisited - but then realized that post didn't even INCLUDE the Highland Dwarves!?)
These were also slated for DBA-x multi-figure bases - and the handful that I did paint were originally ON DBA-x multi-figure bases... but have since been rebased to onto wooden discs and organized into units of 12 for Rebels and Patriots.
I just realized I missed an entire drawer... the one that has a bunch of Generic Renaissance civilians and Swashbucklers that I intended to use for En Garde, AND four of five units of "Clubmen" for the Pikeman's Lament... There is zero uniformity to them as they are purely armed civilians, and thus could be used with any of the above forces.
(I had an idea, that if playing a campaign, if the defending force was lacking due to previous losses, they might be able to summon a unit or two of Clubmen to serve on their side - mostly as speedbumps, as they are NOT very useful troops... also there is at least ONE scenario that calls for bonus clubmen to be defending a village from attack, as the attackers are formed up and approaching, defenders are rushing in to aid the town...?
And then there are DRAWERS full of Seven Years War troops that are in much the same state as all these ohter collections....
AND Napoleonic Era troops!? How did I even ever start THIS one?!
Seriously, though... this is a collection I could get rid of a bunch of stuff from... maybe keep enough to put together a couple of forces for the War of 1812 - with a bunch of options - for use with Rebels and Patriots... and maybe a few warbands for The Silver Bayonet... and just DUMP the rest...
Uggggh... don't even get me started on the later gunpowder era stuff... Colonials and Great War - at least a large part of the Great War stuff is PAINTED... and MOST of it was made for a single battle - Vimy Ridge... which I MAY still build all the terrain for and put on...
The acquisition of colonials was rather scatter-shot and without any formal plan (other than to play the scenarios from the Zulu War Skirmish Campaigns book) I have a mix of boers and stuff from the Boxer Rebellion... but not enough to put togehter full armies of a lot of that...
At one point I had an idea of running a campaign set on Mars (using Space: 1889 setting and miniatures - as I have a LOT of those...) another idea I had was to run a Space: 1914 campaign - using the same setting as Space: 1889... but play out some campaigning on mars during the Great War 25 years later!? I imagined it would be like the campaigns in Africa - guerilla fighting and a mix of Eurpean troops and martion colonial troops (I have a few from Rafm... but thought I could take the African colonial troop miniatures I'd modelled myself, modify them to look like Martians (minor changed to hands, feet, ears) and cast up a BUNCH to make units of colonial troops for all the European powers involved...
Ugh... MORE megalomaniacal dreams of campaigns that I don't know who would EVER play in with me!?
Wall o' Modern Stuff - World War 2 to present - and sci-fi and 40K...
I don't really even want to think about these... I have SO MUCH stuff for World War Two... and I have next to NO desire to really even play with them again... there have been a couple of forces that I've separated out for disposal that I will NEVER finish up. Most of the others are MOSTLY painted and thus I feel the need to hang onto them... because as soon as I get rid of any of them... there will be someone who wants to play or I'll suddenly be super interested in World War Two again... I don't know...
The two forces are ones that are ones I acquired because SALES were happening.. but I never really even started painting ANY of them... so they're a little easier to let go... I'll try to get rid of them locally before I go posting anything anywhere else...
AND THERE ARE OTHERS!? loads of other drawers full of stuff that I'm not even thinking (much) about (at this exact moment)...
So what realizations or decisions have I made after all of this blather...
I don't know... I mean, I had a LOT of thoughts and realizations... and decided I should probably reorganize a lot of these and make a realistic appraisal of what I'm really going to ever get around to painting and what I might use it for...
I LOVE campaigns... I'm just not sure how many more I'm going to be running, so... maybe I don't need to hang onto SIX or more armies for a given period or conflict!?
When will I get to this? I don't know... Ideally sometime soon...? this fall...? Maybe over the winter...?
I've had a lot more thoughts than that, but damn, this has gone on WAY too damned long and I just don't have the energy to type any more or articulate any of the other things I may have been pondering... I have better things to DO!! Like, y'know, paint miniatures!
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