I have been remiss...

I usually acknowledge the new joins to my blog.  By usually I mean, of course, the one other month that I've done it.  I forgot the other day, when I was doing my monthly retrospective but now that I've remembered I want to give appropriate props.

Seven new people joined my followers this month.  This probably seems quite trivial to most readers but here's the thing; these are the first followers I have that I don't actually know in person.  I started the blog for my own edification.  It helps me stay focused and motivated and to track my changing interests.  It keeps all of my hobby stuff in one place.  I can look at my painting over time, I can see how my interests change.  All of the blogs I like to follow are in one place, allowing me to quickly see what has been updated.  The blog served a bonus purpose of giving me somewhere to put battle reports from our local club.  Prior to this month all of my followers were people I actually game with.  The fact that others have shown interest is flattering but it also increases the pressure I put on myself to actually try to put up quality content.  This is a good thing, of course.

The first person to join (actually the last day of February, but I'm running the show here and can do what I want) is Lee Hadley of Big Lee's Miniature Adventures.  I've really enjoyed Lee's blog.  He has a wry sense of humor, a variety of interests and, awesomely, lives close enough to the Bovington Tank Museum to visit it. Go visit his blog and watch the video of the Tiger tank driving around; it's pure gold.

Monthly Retrospective 2

Another month down and not as much to show for it as I would have liked.  Still, I like to take a look back to catalog the progress; it helps me to keep motivated.

I only got twelve models painted.  That's way below my, frankly tiny, goal of twenty.  Even if I add in the models from last month it doesn't average out to 40 in two months.  So, a bit of a failure there and it makes me somewhat sad.  On the other hand, I finished my Haradrim army for Lord of the Rings, so that is something to celebrate.  I'll hit them with some matte varnish this afternoon and be done with it.  This actually slowed me down because I didn't have another project queued up to work on.  I'm still doing conversion work on my Elves and I'm still assembling the Celts.  So, lesson learned.  Have projects ready to go on the paint table.  Second lesson:  paint consistently during the month.  Not exactly ground breaking, I know, but there you have it.

A question of Scale

I'm considering issues of scale.  My favorite scale is 28mm.  I love the balance between detail and size.  There are a lot of manufacturers out there for all periods/genres.  The only real drawback, from my standpoint, is cost.  Other than that, this is the sweet spot for me.

The two other scales I'm willing to consider are 20mm and 15mm.  There are a ton of minis for all historical periods as well as fantasy and sci/fi, available in both.  Honestly, I'm not even looking for fantasy in anything but 28mm.  It's when looking at historicals and sci/fi that I have to give this some thought.

The largest WWII mini game is played in 15mm.  I think, for my purposes, WWII will be 15mm and 28mm.  I'll have to decide if I'm actually going to play Flames of War before I buy any more 15mm stuff.  There are several promising sets of rules for platoon or lower combat that would be great with 28mm.

Looking at other historical periods, ancients, medieval, Napoleonic, ACW, I can see the attraction of giant armies in those periods, I'm just left cold by the models.  I have several blogs in my blog roll from players who game in those systems.  I'm trying to find the attraction for them but I just am not seeing it yet.

So, where does 20mm come in?  Modern and Sci/fi.  There a ton of nice model makers out there working in 20mm.  Nice vehicles, good infantry, nice terrain.

Here's the thing.  I don't really care about collecting different scales in and of itself.  That's not the issue.  I have every intention of collecting WWII in both 28mm and 15mm.  It's the terrain that causes me issues.  I love terrain and want my tables to look great.  That means a lot of stuff, because let's face it, people don't normally fight over empty ground.

If I buy the, really tempting, stuff in 20mm, then that is a whole different set of terrain I need to collect as well, and that is what makes me hesitate.  So, if anyone can tell me what they love about 15mm as well as reasons to take the plunge on 20mm, I'd appreciate hearing it.  I'm still early in my collecting so I have not committed myself to anything.

Look what arrived in the mail

Last week I finally received my order from Warlord games.  After picking up the Hail Caesar rulebook, and looking through it, I decided that I was going to take the plunge and pick up a Roman army.  My wife ordered this for me for Valentines day.

The year of rules

This is the year of rules.  I'm laying down the law...  No, not that kind of rules, I kid.  I realized that I had made a decision which will affect my wargaming this year, and therefore my blogging, but that I had not shared it with you.  This seems a little perverse, and not in a fun way, so I'm aiming to rectify that.

For years I have played GW games.  This was driven by several factors.  Availability, good IP, model quality, opponents, rules standardization.  I came into the hobby through Warhammer.  I picked up LotR when an enthusiast moved to town.  I never got into 40k.

 Now let's be clear, I've always wargamed, from when I was itsy bitsy.  I remember the fall of Saigon.  I was three years old, sitting on my parent's floor.  The helo's were pulling people off of the roof of the embassy and I was playing with my father's Civil War game.  I had the little dudes lined up and the artillery was taking great chunks out of them, as represented by my chubby little fingers.  So, one of the iconic events of our age and I don't know if I remember it because of the images on the TV or the little plastic playing pieces.

I am not saying these are the same figures, though they look this good in my memory.

Wordle

I saw this on Sidney Roundwoood's blog, here.  It seemed like a bit of harmless fun, so I went ahead and did it as well.

We'll see how things change over time. 

Wordle is located here.