Seasons Greetings and Cunning Plans

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and I am hoping you are planning a big New Year of gaming!




What a year of gaming it has been, the Goulburn Valiant Stormer's Club has grown and regularly has two or three game tables going at any one time, Highlights of the year included;

Rhino rejoined the club after a 8 year Hiatus with a bang, building multiple armies and having a blast gaming with us again, it has been a real pleasure.
Tarty and Ralph for reintroducing ancients to the club with the most excellent Ancient rules "Impteus" and my first taste of it in our Argentoratum refight.
The Late Roman Campaign.....finally someone has some armies so I had an excuse to paint my Late Romans, Germanics and Sassanids.
a few fun Pulp games always a laugh and a great way to get the creative juices flowing, I must say that "Carry on up the waazoo" was the funniest thing I have played in wargaming for a very long time........accents were compulsory......
And Finally the loss of a fellow Club Member and gamer Ross Skimmer, came as a great shock to us all, we played several memorial Rapid Fire Games in his memory. He will be greatly missed by all.

A big thanks to the boys for a most enjoyable year of gaming, laughs, cunning plans and coffee at the GVS!

I went back and looked at my goals and aspirations at the beginning of 2012, I didn't even come close to achieving what I set out to do, mainly sidetracked by the clubs Fall of the West Project and campaign and other shiny new releases by figure manufacturers!!!!

2012 Goals and Aspirations

1. AWI 8 batns British and Germans based for British Grenadier (Perry and foundry)(24 fig batn) (NIL)

2. 7YW buildings ready for casting in resin (Done two of five planned)

3. FIW British 5 batns to complete (front rank)(32 fig btn) (Part done one)

4. French 7YW 8 btns to complete, French 7YW 5 regts of cavalry, French Guns (Front Rank, crusader)(32 fig btns, 24 cavalry, guns) Part done 3 btns, two cav regts and guns

5. finish Pontic Army, imitation legionary's, two pike blocks some light Infantry (foundry and gripping beast) Completed, but not all photographed, must do this after I rebase in Feb....

6. Sassanid heavy cavalry and horse archers (A and A minis) (30 cav) Part done, horse harnes are completed just ding the individual jammies, horse archers basing now and should be up by Friday, next week as i have run out of tufts.......

7 French 1805 Napoleonic (continue the refit and rebasing, finish the heavy cavalry division and another Infantry Division Elite minis)(72 cav, 270 inf) NIL done, on the backburner till at least July 2013

8. 1809 Austrian napoleonic (a divison perhaps maybe plastic)(240 inf) Nil done

9 1812 Russian napoleonic (plastic perhaps!)(240 inf) Sold unpainted to Rhino at the club.

10 Russian 7YW (Sash and sabre) inf brigade, Gren brigade, arty and light cavalry (32 fig btns, cav 24) Completed 2 batns of 42, part done the light cavalry and arty.

11. 20mm modern germans (60 inf, six buildings) Completed, and done 10 veh also for them.

12. 28mm Baron Wars (60 odd cav and 180 infantry) started the first units

13 Hanoverain 7YW (Wartime)(140 inf) Part completed two btns, this needs attention!

14 20mm ww2 Germans (continue my refit) still going, did build 21 plastic kits though and resorted them a few times, completed some artillery and pak guns, completed 3 vehicles also.

15 continue refit Napoleonics and 7yw still happening, re-basing and touch ups as the need arises.


But I did go through my three period blogs and ended up with a reasonable effort, and I know I don't photograph everything so I will only list what I counted that was blogged at least......


So final numbers that were blogged

218 ...........28mm Infantry figures painted
45 .............28mm Cavalry
162............20mm Infantry
15 ww2 vehicles
1 aircraft

So this year I have many plans.........

2013 plans not necessarily in order

1. Sassanids finish the beggars, been putting them off as the jammies are tough to do and I want to do a top notch job.
2. Late Romans only a few more units to go, two units of cav and three units of Inf, this army has ended up twice as large as I intended, but that is what happens when you have club campaigns.....and finally someone has a army to play against!
3. Large scale 54mm and 75mm medieval, Greek and Roman figures (just for the cabinet....and maybe a painting comp.....) been dying to get to these for some time and this year I plan to finish a bunch of them.
4. Lewes Royalists, Greg (unlucky general) and I are building towards the goal of doing this at 1 to 15 in 28mm.....as a participation game in 2014 .........crazy but true. Been going overboard on the research which will be posted on Project Lewes next year as I progress.
5. Rebase my Republicans, Imperials, Pontics, and Celts to Impetus, a large job, a possible easter project.
6. Paint the rest of my WOTR army, more cav and billmen, and possibly rebase to impetus!
7. AWI British, close to my heart, I know I promised to do these last year on my 18th century blog "Fine and Dandy" but as no opponents have popped up yet ( I suspect they are awaiting the Perry plastics......) they have taken a back seat.....
8. Continue my 7YW French, British, Russians and Hanoverian's, lots of painting and lead in the cuboard for these too.
9. Continue the refit of my 20mm Germans, lots of vehicles to paint 30 plus, my 9th SS (for Arnhem) Lufwaffe fld div, and fallshirmjager need lots of work to bring them up to speed.
10. Start my Greek wars army. I have a large unpainted Immortal army to do, and I want to really go to town on the conversions, based for impetus also.
11. Napoleonic French refit and paint more for the Australian Napoleonic Congress!
12. Continue making masters for my 7YW building range, have a thing for Dovecotes at the moment......
13. Napoleonic and Dutch wars ship completion. I have a bunch of these to complete, damn rigging is painful for me.
14. WW1 1/72nd aircraft, I still have a number of these to complete.
15. French 20mm ww2, I have a number of figures and some tanks to paint and refit, trucks and guns to paint to complete this 1940 army.
16. Spanish and American Dreadnoughts, something I have had laying around for some time.
17. ECW complete the final three units and two guns... A project that has been on the go for 4 years, I doubt 10% of it has been officially photographed and blogged(some has been in battle reports) ....the display cabinet shelf is full so no new purchases required...unless someone brings out something that takes my fancy.....a great spectacle army for my Birthday parade in March I think!

So all I can suggest to myself is to ...............get cracking!!!!

cheers
Matt