Stuck at Home; Keeping myself sane

Last year I started a few new projects, and I have a couple of ideas for projects this year. So this post is a round up of how each of the projects are going and what I have planned for this year.

So last year I started the year with a few new project ideas, some of those are near completion, whilst others have fallen by the wayside some what. The first of those projects was Flames of War armies, both a US and German army, based on the contents of the Hit the Beach starter set.

Both of these are coming along nicely, and I’m happy to say both armies are nearly finished. I’m in the last stages of completion on both of these. For the Americans I have 6 Sherman Tanks to finish and then all that needs finishing after these are the infantry. I added mortar and HMG platoons to the Hit the Beach infantry units, all of which need a lick of paint. With regards to the Germans I have a few half tracks and 4 Panther tanks to paint and this army will be finished.

My Lord of the Rings project has been rather slow going over the last 12 months. I have managed to get some bits and pieces painted but nowhere near as much as I wanted, so this will continue to chug along this year as well. I did open the year by painting a unit of Gondor infantry. I’m hoping to get more units painted this year, and that’s what I plan to concentrate on, as last year I mainly painted character models.

Another project I started last year was to paint up miniatures for both SPQR and Mortal Gods. For both of these I managed to finish a small unit of infantry. For SPQR I managed to paint up the Roman infantry from the SPQR starter box. I’ve now started on the Celts, already completing the limited edition Druid, and making a start on a couple of hero models. For Mortal Gods I’ve painted a unit of Phalanx and the Macedonian command, along with two Macedonian Heroes. I’m currently painting up King Philip and Alexander. The aim for this year is to finish the starter models from both box sets, and purchase the Roman and Celtic hero boxes later in the year.

My Bolt Action projects have been ticking along for a couple of years and will continue to do so this year. I main aim is to build and paint more US infantry, as well as finish the few Germans and British I have left. I also need to do more work on my Chinese army. I plan to purchase the German WW1 infantry, Partisans and the Boxer Rebellion boxes to make Chinese Nationalist infantry. I managed to paint a unit of Communist Chinese for the Korean War campaign and will add to this later on this year. Another purchase I’ll need to add to my Bolt Action project, is a vehicle/tank for the US and some jeeps/LRDG trucks for the Brits. I was supposed to pick these up last year but for one reason or another I didn’t get around to it. I did manage to pick up a T-34 and paint it for my Communist Chinese.

Towards the end of last year I did plan and start research for a small skirmish project set during the English Civil War. I planned to build a 1/72 warband and plan a campaign set in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, which is close to where I live. I’ve talked about running a ECW campaign for some time, but never really gotten around to it. So around Autumn time last year I finally bit the bullet and ,made a start. I carried out the research for the campaign, and picked up some 1/72 hard plastic miniatures. The aim this year will be to paint enough for two small forces.

The big project I planned this time last year, was the Asian/Chinese town game board using the modular tiles by Sarrissa. Most of last year was spent building and painting terrain pieces. This included a number of buildings, and a couple of bridges. Now while I didn’t finish this project, or start any work using the modular tiles I did get quite a few of the building I plan to use built and painted. So this year the aim is to make a start on the modular tiles and get as much as that done as possible.

Another project I started last year, around August/September time was two armies for Team Yankee. The first was a Soviet army, which is nearly finished apart from a T-64, BMP and two T-80s. The other army I started was the British, which I decided to base on the 4th Armored brigade which was stationed in Germany and served during the Gulf War. I started this project with the British Army starter set, and plan to add some additional units such as an M109 artillery regiment, which would be my old unit 2nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery. The starter set is nearly finished apart from 4 Challenger tanks and a Chieftain.

So what are my project plans for 2021, well I pretty much only have 3 potential projects for this year. The first is a Qin army, which most people will know as the Terracotta army. I have some miniatures from Studio Eye in the states. I was fortunate to visit Xian in China where the Terracotta army is and since then I’ve been inspired to build an army. The second plan is to build a small force to try out Saga Age of Magic game. My plan is to used the old Celtos miniature range to build a barbarian style warband for this game. The final plan I have is to build a small warband for the forthcoming Baron’s War rule set. This will be a small force just to play skirmish size engagements.