282 Days

 Last November, in the Before Times, I posted about starting up an Instagram account and getting a #hobbystreak thing going.

This past Saturday, for the first time in 282 days, I did not do anything miniatures related. I broke my streak.

Two hundred and eighty-two days. That's pretty impressive, I have to say. I've never done anything approaching that in my miniatures gaming hobby, and I've been at it for nearly 30 years!

Unsurprisingly, I got a lot done. I still have unpainted minis on my shelves, but their numbers are massively reduced. Once I finish my current project of WWII Eritrean Colonial Infantry for my East Africa 1940 project, I still have:

• Sisters of Battle
• Genestealer Cult
• Death Guard
• 28mm Gempei Samurai
• Some Warlords of Erehwon warbands

And that's about it! Each of the 40K projects are small, about 30-40 models a piece, and the Warlords warbands are even smaller (with the possible exception of the Goblins).

This is a massive shift from when I started back in November. In that time I've painted up three forces for Sharp Practice (two AWI, one Napoleonic), two 6mm Sengoku samurai armies, a WWII German platoon plus support, jump-off points for  Chain of Command, several classic Grenadier fantasy models for Warlords of Erehwon, and an assorted miscellany of other figures, plus taken on a handful of painting commissions.

Honestly, without those commissions I'd probably be done with the above list, or very close to it. My original intention was to break my streak in late July anyway, since I thought I'd be going to Gen Con, and my initial schedule had me getting everything except the Erehwon figures completed by then. But it's all good; I'm always happy to help other folks get painted figures on the table, and the cash helps pay for more minis (not that I'm buying too many of those these days), paint, and other supplies.

I'm optimistic I can get the rest of the above-named projects done by the end of the year. After that, I want to get back into experimenting with 2mm Napoleonics, as well as a special "black & white" WWII project and working on lots of terrain. I'll probably continue with my painting commissions as well.

But on the main, I'm anticipating 2021 will be my year for terrain projects the same way this has been my year for figure painting. Hopefully by then I can start hosting games in my house again...

Anyway, I'm really proud of the streak I hit and the progress I made, and after taking a few days off I'm itching to start up another streak. Let's see how long I can keep this one going, eh?

I'll leave off with photos of some of the projects I completed during my 282-day streak:

Hobby Streak Progress Report

It's been a little over a month since my last post, when I was just getting under way with my "hobby streak" project. As of this writing, I'm coming up on seven weeks of managing some kind of hobby-related work each and every night, without a break. Even though I've fallen off my initial projected pace, I'm really pleased with my progress and seem to have found a rhythm that works well for me.

Partly this is because I reorganized my display shelves and projects, consolidating my plans. I'll be painting fewer figures, which keeps me on pace to hit my goal. Even better, by pacing myself I've managed to heal up from the incipient carpal tunnel pain that had started plaguing my painting hand, as discussed in a previous post. Phew!

So what do I have to show for my seven weeks of work? Oh...nothing much...except for two full Sharp Practice American War for Independence (AWI) forces, that's all!

The Continental and British forces are each straight out of their respective sections in the rulebook, the "Sundry Rebels" and the "Mixed Regular Force" lists, respectively.

Both forces are loosely based, in terms of units modeled, on the orders of battle from Brandywine, 1777. I selected from the list based on some of my own family history—the colonies my ancestors were living in during the war, and the regions of Britain they'd come from, as the case may be.

The Continentals

The list calls for two Rebel Militia units and two State Line Troops as the core companies. The Militia hail from Maryland, while the State Line are from Pennsylvania. Joining them are two units of Riflemen.

Supporting units include a light cannon and a company from the 4th Continental Light Dragoons; this latter unit was a must-have, as my direct patrilineal ancestor James Larkins rode with them! Unfortunately, as I got started painting, I realized I'd ordered the wrong type of model. The 4th Dragoons were still wearing confiscated British infantry jackets in 1777, and wouldn't switch to green jackets and Tarleton helmets until 1780 at the earliest. So it goes. These will do for now.

Here's the complete force, by regiment group:

Weirdly, two of the figures do bear the earlier uniform. I think I ordered all at the same time? Anyway, it would be perfect for representing the unit during the transitional period of 1780–81, when not everyone had the new kit, and it means I only have to order and paint six of the older uniforms when I get around to it.

The Hated British

The core mixed British force consists of companies drawn from the 1st Light Infantry Battalion (painted as elements of the Royal Welch Fusiliers) and Fraser's Highlanders of the 71st Foot. In support is a medium artillery piece, a company of Hessian Grenadiers, and a unit of the Queen's Rangers Hussar (Loyalist) cavalry. There's also a unit of Woodland Indians I painted up to either serve as allies or in special scenarios and that I'm quite happy with.

All in all, I'm really looking forward to seeing how these forces play out on the table. If everything goes well, I should be getting a game in by mid-January; I might do a solo test game before then to really nail down the rules, too.

I'll also hopefully (finally) get around to that long-delayed Malifaux game mentioned in the last post and that got repeatedly put off due to holiday scheduling conflicts. Might even get my Epic Titans on the table for a game of Adeptus Titanicus before the next couple weeks are out. We shall see.

As always, if anything comes of these plans, I'll be sure to post pictures and summaries of the games here!

Hobby Streak!

The last couple months have seen me painting more frequently than I have in years. Possibly decades.

This was partly due to taking on a couple commissions in addition to my regular personal painting. In fact, I was painting so much, I started to develop carpal tunnel pain in my painting hand! As my day job requires me to do a lot of typing, this was seriously worrisome.

So I'm hanging up my commission painting cap for a while (though I will probably still eBay painted figs from time to time) so I can take it easy and go at a slow-but-steady pace that isn't going to mess up my precious hands.

Because...

I'm gonna flippin' do it, man. I'm tired of staring at the unpainted figures on my shelves. I figured out that if I complete around 30 figures a week, I'll get nearly everything finished by the time Gen Con rolls around next year. Why Gen Con as my goal? Simply because it's sort of the beginning of a new "fiscal year" for me, both professionally and in terms my hobby. So it seems like a reasonable goal, and the math worked out pretty well.

I recently discovered Dana Howl's excellent painting tutorial channel on YouTube, and through that I found out she's been posting a #HobbyStreak photo on her Instagram every day for nearly a year. Talk about inspiration!

It's so inspiring, in fact, that I've started up an Instagram account linked to this very blog. I'm one week into my own personal #HobbyStreak and feeling good. The carpal tunnel has gone away (thankfully!) and it's already been really gratifying to see new painted figures appearing on my shelves again. Woohoo!

Hoping by around the first week of December to have two AWI forces painted up for Sharp Practice, at which point I will ideally get a game in soon after. I'll then move on to some 28mm Napoleonics (inspired by one of my recent commissions)—also for Sharp Practice—as well as 28mm Genpei War-era samurai for Ronin. That should close out the year, at which point I'm turning my attention to my patchwork of unpainted WWII platoons...

In sadder news, I was supposed to play Malifaux this week for the first time in a very long time, but it was cancelled at the last minute due to my opponent coming down with a cold. We've rescheduled for two weeks from now. I took pictures of the table so I can set it up again, but figured I'd share one here as a teaser...

The Decline and Fall of 2mm Napoleonics

A couple months back, I posted about my burgeoning interest in 2mm Napoleonic wargaming using 3-D printed figure blocks from Forward March Studios, and (brimming with confidence) promised more details soon to come...

Well, I can definitely say I gave it the old college try.

I ordered the figures and buildings from a couple different professional 3-D printing services and got out an old sheet of acrylic plastic I'd bought for wargaming, determined to paint it up to look like the rather clever sheets featured on the Forward March blog. I got my copy of the Et Sans Resultat rules and read through the rulebook. I assembled a list of units and devised a basing scheme.

Forgive the poor late-night lighting...

That single base is as far as I ever got.

In retrospect, the whole process was a lot more hassle than I'd anticipated, from printing problems to the whole acrylic sheet thing not really working out to the assembly of bases and labels to overall dissatisfaction with the scale. This latter point was really brought home to me when I recently completed a painting commission on some 28mm Napoleonic cavalry. Damn but those figures look fine, and I can see the appeal of the scale (even if I'd want a good-sized table to play at that size, even for something on the level of General de Brigade).

Not saying I want to get into 28mm. Not saying that at all. But returning to my 2mm last night, I just...couldn't. They're way too abstract. I realize minis wargaming is, essentially, just using three-dimensional counters at the end of the day, but these are a little too close to the "wargames counter" experience for me to get really excited about it from a minis wargaming perspective.

Besides, I recently discovered the Pub Battles line. That's basically the experience I envisioned when I first started thinking about this whole crazy 2mm project, and looks like something definitely worth checking out—might as well just go "full wargame" at this point, eh? (And hey, maybe I can figure out a way to integrate my 2mm blocks into the Pub Battles system?)

Regardless, it'll be a while before I find out—those Pub Battles games are expensive and a bit too bespoke for a casual purchase. I'm not that much of a hardcore wargamer! Something for next year, perhaps.

In the meantime, I found that, between my own projects, commissioned projects, and my day job as a writer and editor, I was straining my hands and experiencing some incipient carpal tunnel pain! That's a big uh-oh in my line of work, and obviously something has to give. I just finished one commission and will be finishing up the second over the next couple weeks. After that, I won't be doing any more commission work for the remainder of the year; I'll check back in with my hands next year and see if I want to pick that back up.

(Not that commission work is a big income stream for me or anything. Just a nice way to earn some supplemental hobby cash, and it can certainly lie dormant for a while.)

Even with my own projects, I'll be taking things (even more) slowly. I have an interesting DBA project I've been working on in fits and starts, and I'll be returning to that shortly, as it's pretty easy on the ol' paint hand. Pics to follow once I'm done (sometime around Christmas at the rate I've been going...).