Looking Back at 2017

I tend to do this every year. Look back at the GAME PLAN for the year and see what I actually managed to accomplish. Not sure why I do this. I guess because I feel like it’s always good to have a plan and some means of assessment and self-reflection – a way to look at what you’ve been doing with your life and see what’s worked and what hasn’t and then make some changes to the plan to move forward in a more positive, focused way.

So, how’d we do…

Alternating Friday D&D

We played ten more sessions of the D&D 5E Primeval Thule campaign my friend Bruce was running…. Then it kind of fizzled over the summer. There were many reasons for this. Everyone was really busy. Bruce was burning out a bit after running this campaign right after running the Masks of Nyarlathotep. There was also a fellow that joined the group and… just wasn’t working out…

In the fall, I started running a role-playing game again, however, with a (mostly) new group: Tales from the Loop. It was supposed to be every other week, but it seems to be turning out to be once a month. We had to cancel the last game – two weeks ago – because two couldn’t make it and three others were exhausted. And the same happened just this evening – three were out and I was just too tired… I’d planned on running a short campaign until the end of the year. We seem to draw out the adventures and haven’t finished the first (of FOUR) I originally planned to run. I had planned on preparing a new campaign for a new game in the new year… but… Seems like we might just try to get together ONE MORE TIME and finish off the one mystery and then call it. Next I’d like to run Rogue Trader!

50 Games

I had a great plan to play a lot of games… a list of 50 games I wanted to make sure I played this year – one a week. I tried to encourage the kids to do the same so we each got to play a game we wanted to play each week throughout the year… We got off to a pretty good start, but things fizzled through the summer. In the end, I only played 12 of the games on my list. The kids had shorter lists – Finnegan played 16 of the 25 games he came up with, and The Girl managed to play 25 of the 37 games that ended up on her list!

Oh, we still played a LOT of games. According to BGG I played a total of 253 games this year… Most, but not all were with the family. The most played games this year were:

1. Loonacy /Retro Loonacy x27

2. Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)/Primeval Thule Campaign Setting (5E) x10

3. Just Desserts x9

4. Pax Renaissance x9

5. Race for the Galaxy x8

6. Codenames: Pictures x7

7. Kingdomino x7

8. Hero Realms x6

9. Monarch x6

10. Warhammer 40,000 (Eighth Edition) x6

11. 7 Wonders x5

12. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game x5

13. Splendor x5

14. Tales from the Loop x5

15. High Frontier (3rd edition) x4

16. Kingdom Builder x4

17. Star Realms x4

18. Abyss x3

19. Carcassonne x3

20. Dominion: Intrigue x3

21. Faustus Furius x3

22. Firefly: The Game x3

23. Five Tribes x3

24. For Sale x3

25. Nations x3

26. Only War x3

27. Secret Hitler x3

28. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game x3

29. A Study in Emerald (second edition) x3

Saturday Afternoon Games

The plan was to organize longer board games on Saturday afternoons to play with Finnegan and other friends while Amanda was out taking The Girl to her Saturday dance classes. I did pretty good with this January and February, and April through June… but then it fizzled as summer began and renovations with it… Hopefully I’ll be able to get it going again in the new year…

Skirmish Saturday Night

Just didn’t happen… NO campaigns, no one-offs… I played very little miniature games in the first half of the year, and then only a few games of 40K in the 2^nd half of the year. I think this was due to me being super focused on the Vimy Project for the first three months… and then… just tired and busy doing other things…? Renovations…?

Vimy

Didn’t happen.

For half a year I was super-focused on this one project - I got all the miniatures ready and then as I was gearing up to finish off the terrain… Amanda decided she NEEDED to have a new kitchen THIS YEAR!!! …and that kind of killed it right there…

There, I admitted it… that’s actually what happened. I didn’t run out of time. If she hadn’t decided to get that ball rolling in March I totally could have pulled it off. She’d probably be a little cranky if knew I’d mentioned this… Luckily, I don’t think anyone that knows her actually READS this blog… I’m not blame-throwing and I’m not super bitter about it or anything (okay, I might have been – just a little bit – at the time). To be honest, I was a little relieved. All the late nights trying to get it all organized WAS taking a lot out of me and a lot of other things I should have been doing were falling by the wayside.

One day I will finish up the terrain and set it all up. Not going to be this year…

Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend

I didn’t really do one this year. I think Brent came over on the afternoon of my birthday and he and Finnegan and I played a couple games of Pax Pamir and then I played a game of Race for the Galaxy with the family… and that was it.

Family Day Weekend

Two weeks before my Birthday, however, was the Family Day long weekend in February and I organized a weekend FULL of playing boardgames with family and friends.

Summer Skirmish Weekend Campaign

As I wasn’t planning a skirmish campaign for February, I thought I might organize one over the summer… didn’t happen though…  

ToonCon

The whole family did make it out to ToonCon again – and it was at a new location that was WAAAAY closer to our house – like a 15-minute bike ride (as opposed to a 45-60 minute ride – depending on wind direction and energy levels of younglings). There’s a full report of the weekend here:

ToonCon 2017

Things I didn’t plan for…

While I was still working on the Vimy project - and for a while after – I got pretty excited about the English Civil War again and for breaks between units of Great War Canadians I cranked out units of English, Irish and Scottish pike, shot and cavalry. I only ended up playing two games of The Pikeman’s Lament… then the interest died off in the summer.

I got so much of the ECW stuff done, I’m a few units away from finishing all I need for a few forces of English and Scots – enough for a small CAMPAIGN. I would like to get back to those this year…

Then, in the summer, I picked up the new edition of Warhammer 40,000.

I played the original Rogue Trader when it came out back in 1987 – 30 years ago! But kind of stopped just before second edition came out… Sold my copy of the rules and most my minis (STILL kicking myself over that…!). I picked up miniature for it from time to time – because they’re fun – and between editions used ones could be picked up realtively inexpensively on ebay. I also picked up used copies of 4^th and 5^th editions (really cheap after the next edition came out). I picked up 7^th edition when I found out a friend and his boys had picked it up and were building up forces. I tried to get my kids excited about it and tried to play a couple games, but it just fell flat.

I read a lot about 8^th before it came out and decided to give it another shot. The rules seemed a lot more streamlined – compared to 7^th – and so we tried out a few games and it wasn’t so bad. The kids are back into it, and now it’s my major focus for painting and planning. Who knew?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

December Boardgame Round-Up and Game Plan 2018  

(Maybe an Astra Militarum Super Heavy Tank!?)

So… Vimy…

Not happening this year. Sorry.

I want to thank everyone that has commented on this blog and been so supportive of the project.

Though time has been running short, that wasn’t really what killed it. I probably could have gotten it done – though it might not have been as pretty as I originally intended. It wasn’t even the lack of enthusiasm – I could have worked through that. I sat down with my mostly finished plan and started pricing out the materials I’d have to run out and get to build the terrain and WOW prices of building materials have gone up since I last bought any in quantity! It was going to cost a LOT more than I’d originally budgeted for (and my original budget for the project was going to completely blow my year’s toys spending budget as it was). That was the final nail in the coffin. (Well that and the kitchen renovation that Amanda’s suddenly decided MUST HAPPEN THIS YEAR!!! But that’s a whole other story…).

So it’s not happening for the 100^th anniversary, which is a bit of a shame… Not saying it’s never going to happen. When I made peace with the fact that it wasn’t happening this year It felt like a great weight had been lifted off of me and with it the general disinterest and loathing for the project. I’ll return to this some day, but it’s not going to be this year.

I may or may not do a Passchendaele battle in the fall. I have all the figures! I wouldn’t make any terrain boards – just a bunch of shell craters and pill boxes and distribute those over a table covered with a brown cloth (a little less costly and labour intensive!) I had thought of doing it for ToonCon, but I’m also planning a jet bike racing game using Faustus Furius and jet bikes from Ramshackle Games (from the Jet Bike Construction Kit Kickstarter) and I’m not sure I really want to run TWO games at the con… We’ll see…

For now… I need to do something else. I’ve been working on some English Civil War figures to try and finish up a couple of companies for Pikeman’s Lament (and/or En Garde and/or Flashing Steel). I’ve also been eyeing up my fantasy and medieval stuff and planning units for Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant and Song of Blades and Heroes. Yesterday another package arrived from Magister Militum with some more Lead Adventure Post Apocalyptic figures (for some more Mutants and Death Ray Guns action!). And I guess since I won't be so insanely busy building terrain, we should get back to some BOARDGAMES! So, I’ll be keeping myself busy. 

It's also getting warm again this week (-1°C forecast for today and daytime highs above freezing for teh next week!) and i want to get out RIDING! 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

ECW Dismounted Cavalry!

Countdown to Vimy – (less than) 5 weeks to go!

A bit late (again) but I was just finishing some stuff up...

The Plan for this past week was to:

#1 Finish The Canadians!

CHECK!

They’re done – and with that I have finished all the miniatures I was planning to use for the project. I haven’t even bothered to post individual pictures of each battalion. I probably won’t. But I finished off the last three battalions of the 6th Brigade and 3 machinegun teams and 4 mortar teams.

Just for giggles I thought I’d set out the entire Canadian Corps (so far… I don’t have the 10^th Brigade done – as they did not take part in the action on the 9^th as they were being held in reserve for an attack on “The Pimple” (as strong point just north of the ridge) the following day).

#2 Finalize Terrain Plans

Well, I did get the table cleared off and the existing terrain up on it…

And I did try to make a plan of it

And started trying to figure out how to tie it all in to the rest of the ridge.

But I can’t in all honesty say I have “finalized” any sort of plans. If I’m going ahead with this, I best get on with it!

If…

At this point, I have to be honest, I’m sick to death of this whole thing. For some time I’ve just been going through the motions of trying to get it all done and posting updates on this blog hoping somehow I might get excited at that prospect and it might rekindle some spark of enthusiasm.

On one hand I just want to throw in the towel and say “fü¢k it, it’s just not worth it anymore….” There are a hundred other things i'd rather be doing. But on the other hand I feel like I’ve put so much work into it and come so far, I should see it through, right?

Should….

Seriously, that’s the only thing keeping me going at this point – guilting myself into forward motion with “What the hell did you buy and cast and paint all those stupid figures for if you’re not going to finish it now, moron!?”

Maybe I just need to take a little break (a VERY LITTLE one – as time is running out!). I wish the weather was still like it was last week - I’d take the kids and go for a day-long bike ride and get some fresh air…

Alas the weather has taken a turn for the worse… we’ve has a few days of snow – and WIND – and the temperature has plummeted from +5°C into the -20s (°C).  

Maybe we'll just play a few more boardgames... 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Vimy Terrain!

(or… maybe something completely different…). 

27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg), CEF

Finally the last brigade of miniatures for the Vimy project are rolling off the line! This isn't the last of the Canadian Corps. I still have the 10th Brigade to paint, but as they took no part in the attack on the 9 April 1917, I'm not going to bother with them for now... I also have  a lot of artillery pieces to paint up at some point. Not sure when they'd ever be used. I picked them up thinking if I had time, they'd have been fun to paint up and sit on a nearby table to show SOME element of the guns involved.

The 27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg) was part of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division.

All ot the figures used for the 6th Brigade are from Irregular Miniatures.

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

27th Battalion (City of Winnipeg), CEF – figures from Irregular Miniatures.

The formation patch for the 27th Battalion was a blue circle (blue for the junior brigade within the division and the circle for the senior battalion within the brigade) over the blue rectangle of the 2nd Division. 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A figure comparison of 28mm British/Canadian Great War infantry miniatures (now that I have samples from every manufacturer… I had hoped to do this today, but the lighting isn’t great (as evidenced by the crap photos above!) and it’s a bit nippier outside that I’s expected, so I may not get to it until tomorrow.

Countdown to Vimy – 6 weeks to go!

The Plan for this past week was to:

#1 PAINT BRITISH AND CANADIANS! AS MANY AS POSSIBLE!

I did get one battalion done. Originally I thought I’d use it as one of the British battalions, but then realized I don’t think I ever did the 85th Battalion – a labour battalion that was thrown into the attack when the advance on the 4th division’s front ground to a halt. 

I may or may not even include the British battalions now. I did do some work on the terrain plans and looking over them I’m wondering if I’ll even have ROOM on the table for all the Canadians (let alone some spare British battalions). I’ve even considered only fielding battalions of 12 for the Canadians (which will be closer to the battalions of 10 I have for the Germans…? If I do end up needing the British, I have a few battalions worth of early war British – in caps – which may be a bit anachronistic at this point in the war, but whatever – it will make them easily identifiable…

I also happened to finish up a German Mortar team that’s been haunting the edges of the painting table for months now!

Despite having some time off from other activities this week, I didn’t get nearly as much done as I’d hoped…

I did do some assembling early in the week – The remainder of the Irregular miniatures British/Canadians finally arrived and so I had to get them stuck down to bases and while I was at it I got the Irregular mortars based and then I did the guns and then I started doing other guns while I was at it… which was ridiculous, because I’m totally not going to need them and thus not even going to try and get them done… a good chunk of may painting time was eaten up priming and gooping figures. It is a very time consuming process.

Basically when new figures arrive I glue them to their bases, then wait a day. Then I paint the first coat of black (primer) and wait a day. Then I paint the second coat of black (paint) and wait a day. Then I goop the bases and wait a day. THEN I can get to painting! I have tried to rush the process in the past, trying to do both coats of black in one day or even gooping immediately after the second coat of black – but I’ve found that if it isn’t left at least 24 hours to cure the black layers rub off easily and I’m constantly having to touch them up. If I do the first coat of black before the glue is entirely cured, I end up with figures popping of their bases. So, I have learned to be patient and try to have other figures to paint while I’m waiting. This week those figures were post-apocalyptic DISTRACTIONS!  and a Few More Distractions... 

This week:

#1 Finish These Canadians!

#2 Finalize Terrain Plans (and maybe get cracking on terrain!)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

February Boardgame Roundup 

Last of the Canadians!! 

263rd Reserve Infantry Regiment - 79th Reserve Infantry Division

This will likely be the last of the Germans for a while. These, along with the three regiments of Bavarians, should be all I need for the Vimy game in April. There were a few other battalions thrown into the line from the corps reserve on the day, but I figure I can use recycled casualties from the front line battalions to represent the late arriving reinforcements.

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

263rd Reserve Infantry Regiment – this unit, as with most of the Germans, is made up of my own figures that I modeled, made moulds of, and cast myself. They’re not particularly pretty, but they are all mine.

3 Machine-gun teams from Irregular Miniatures.

The 79th Reserve Infantry Division including the 261st, 262nd, and 263rd Reserve infantry Regiments.

The division is made up of three regiments (261st, 262nd, and 263rd) of three battalions of ten figures each, plus a command element of three figures. Ideally each regiment would have a machine-gun and mortar element attached, but I don't have quite enough mortars at the moment (painted, that is... I may finish up one or two more, but they're not a priority at the moment) so they are pictured here with extra Machine gun teams.

The battalions are smaller than the Canadian battalions - 10 compared to 15. This was largely a time-saving necessity, but also I figured the German battalions would have been whittled down by the "Week of Suffering" - a week-long campaign of constant harassing artillery and machine-gun barrages. The Canadian battalions, by comparison would have all be brought up to - or beyond - their established strengths with fresh drafts of reinforcements in the days before the attack (my great-uncle Bertram was one of those!), I may, ultimately, cut down the number of Canadians I end up using. With 15 figures per battalion it might get a bit crowded. Also as the Canadians have four divisions of three brigades with FOUR battalions of FIFTEEN figures each... the Canadian figures would outnumber the Germans four to one!!

I will hopefully get a few play-tests in later in March and try out different strengths for the Canadian Battalions.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Canadians! Conveniently the rest of the Canadians I ordered from Irregular Miniatures arrived just this afternoon – so I should be getting those based up pronto and hopefully have a good chunk of the final Brigade of Canadians done by the end of the week! 

Countdown to Vimy – (Less than) 7 weeks to go!

The Plan for this past week was to:

#1 PAINT GERMANS! AS MANY AS POSSIBLE!

CHECK!

Mostly complete 263rd Reserve Infantry Regiment earlier on the weekend. Just need to finish up the bases on these now.

I have finished up the rest of the 263rd Reserve Infantry Regiment – which finishes up the 79th Reserve Infantry Division. I do have three more battalions that were thrown in from the reserves that I COULD finish up… but I think they’ll be last minute items, if I get around to them at all. As they’d show up later, I’m sure there will be enough German casualties by the time I need them that I could just recycle miniatures… I should likely get to posting more pictures of these later today.

This Week:

#1 PAINT BRITISH AND CANADIANS! AS MANY AS POSSIBLE!

Still have 60 Canadians and 30 British to paint. I’d like to finish up as many as possible over the next week. Luckily there’s a school break this week so all the kids regular activities are cancelled which means I basically don’t have to leave the house for a week if I don’t have to… gonna get me some PAINTING done!

March

Build Terrain!

April

Make more wire and barrage markers

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

79th Reserve Infantry Division!!

Great War Germans

After a good solid evening of painting I’m feeling back in the saddle and a bit more positive about the prospects of getting all this done one time…

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

This is what I managed to finish up last night. Some were worked on over the last week – a bit, here and there…

Command figures from Great War Miniatures - these will make up the command element for the 79th Reserve Infantry Division.

Assorted German casualty markers – also from Great War Miniatures.

A few of my own castings – enough to finish up the 262nd Reserve Infantry Regiment.

262nd Reserve Infantry Regiment – all of my own castings.

79th Reserve Infantry Division so far – including the 261st Reserve Infantry Regiment and 262nd Reserve Infantry Regiment. I still need to finish up three battalions to complete the 263rd Reserve Infantry Regiment. Add in a few machine-guns and mortars and the 79th Reserve Infantry Division will be complete!

I guess I COULD paint up some artillery – the two regiments of the 79th Reserve Field Artillery Brigade… but as they will not be on the table, I likely won’t in time for the BIG GAME! Mind you, The Divisional command will likely not be present on the table either, so….

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

MORE Great War Germans!

(or some minor distractions!) 

Countdown to Vimy – 8 weeks to go!

Just under two months to go...

The Plan for this past week was to:

#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.

They’re mostly still on the workbench… Partly painted. Some more than others... 

There are a few casualty and command types that are more or less finished and just need their bases finished. The rest.. well... they're LESS finished.

#2 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.

CHECK!

I did repaint 45 collars to convert figures I’d painted for the 261st Reserve Regiment into elements of the 1st and 3rd Bavarian Reserve Regiments and painted up 9 or so others to finish off the three Bavarian regiments (only two of them are shown here). See more here: Bavarians

#3 Work on (and maybe try to Finalize!?) Terrain Plans

Little work was done on this…

(By "very little" I mean "none")

#4 Begin refurbishing rest of 4th Division’s Terrain…?

I've been trying to get motivated to do this for weeks, months ever, and I’ve finally come to the realization that going back and forth betweek paintng miniatures and building terrain is not in any way efficient. To be effective at either I need blocks of dedicated time and get into the Mode (Painting Mode or Terrain-Building Mode). Therefore Iv’e decided I’m going to try and finish up painting ALL the miniatures in the next couple of weeks and THEN have a month and a bit of solid terrain building.

Distractions!

There were a few figures that snuck on the the edge of the workbench and got a little paint on them... including some Lead Adventure Miniatures I’d ordered from Magister Militum (during a moment of weakness in January) arrived and I sort-of-kind-of painted a few.

I also spent a bit of time early in the week re-basing a few old biker minis so I could try out Faustus Furius... Then played the game... then wrote a report for it... You can find said report of the ensuing shenanigans here: Faustus Furius MMLIII

This Week:

PAINT GERMANS! AS MANY AS POSSIBLE!

I have 70-80 infantry, 3 machine-gun teams and possibly a few more trench mortar teams. Ideally I’d like to get at least HALF of that done this week – preferably MORE!!! 

Rest of February

Finish Germans – 4 more (10-man) battalions of units in reserve plus machine Guns and mortars.

Finish British (2 battalions – 30 figures) and Canadians (4 battalions – 60 figures – plus a few machine-gun and mortar teams)

March

Build Terrain

April

Make more wire and barrage markers

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully some painted Great War Germans!!