April Accomplishments

As some of you will remember, March was an abject failure on the hobby front.  Happily, in April I turned that around.  I painted a ton of models, played a few games and, in general, just got back in to my hobby groove.

Praetorians!

My ongoing goal is to paint twenty models a month.  I'm not too fussed about scale; I just want to make progress on my models.  In March I didn't get a single model painted, putting me twenty models behind.  In April I got forty one models painted, counting cavalry as two (horse and rider).  That not only got me caught up, it put me a little bit ahead.

The first unit painted.  These guys caught me up for March.

I got the twenty Praetorians done first.  This was four more models than I needed for the unit, I'm running my infantry in units of 16 for HC, mainly because that's how the bases I'm using work.

Auxiliary Optio, re-purposed as  a Praetorian Optio.

I also painted up the Optio from the Warlord Auxiliary Infantry box as a Praetorian Optio.  I simply love this model.  This mainly involved painting his feathers the same as the crests on the rest of the Praetorians and giving him a shield from that unit.  The only real problem is his breaches, but oh well.

Eastern Auxiliary Archers.  Models by Warlord Games.

I then completed these eight archers.  These were fun to paint, and I have another eight to do, so that's something to look forward to.  These guys have done great in one game and sat around sipping tea in another.

Light Horse.  Always my favorite unit type.

The final unit painted for the month was my six Numidian light horse.  These were also a fun unit to paint.  I really liked that the bases were large enough that I could put a lot of different plants on them.  The infantry are much more limited in that respect.

Two Hail Caesar Divisions.

That gave me two fully painted divisions for Hail Caesar, though at minimum size.  I did not get the command bases done.  I also need to get the movement trays textured and decorated, since I think they detract from the appearance of the units to a surprising degree.

This just looks awesome; though not a position I'd care to be in on a regular basis.

In addition to painting I got a couple of games in.  Jonathan and I got in another game of Hail Caesar, with Jonathan getting a well deserved win this time.  We are both getting a better grasp of the rules, which would be helped by playing more than once every couple of months.  We won't be able to get a game in during May either, so that's not looking to improve any time soon.

Gruntz game number 1 in mid action.

Even more excitingly, I finally played my first game of Gruntz.  I really liked the rules.  I need to finish painting my army and get this terrain painted, as well as picking up some more.  Still, for not having a single 15mm model a year ago, I'm happy with where this scale is at.  I'm definitely looking forward to more games, and more models to give it more tactical depth.

April was a good month.  I'm hoping to make May just as productive.