Wednesday 30 December 2015

A look back at 2015, and a peek forward to 2016.

2015 has been a great year as far as my wargaming is concerned. LOTS of games. A quick count of games played reveals the following: 18th Century (25); Thirty Years War (3), Renaissance (3) and a single Crimean game. I managed more than the usual trips to war-games shows, and have been very productive in terms of my little men. (This is despite my health and general mobility being pretty dismal but Katherine has been very supportive). To be honest I also used the proceeds of my eBay sales (see below) to have a load of stuff painted for me. The AMG game at Partizan was by far the best wargaming experience I have had for many a year.  The main focus of this year's gaming has been the Seven Years War, as in a moment of madness I decided that refighting all the main battles in sequence would be a good idea. Mmmm?

Over the course of the year I sold all my VBCW collection as well as a half-finished and dormant collection for the 1st Carlist War. These sales netted me about £2k (long since gone). I am still toying with the idea of selling off more stuff so I can rationalise what I do to JUST the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, but there's nothing much left that I can easily detach myself from emotionally and sell, i.e. my Russian Civil War/Back of Beyond and Darkest Africa collections as well as the American Civil War collection which I purchased off Paul Stevenson a couple of years ago but has only seen the tabletop twice since. Perhaps I shall get rid of a few units as there are far too many to fit even on my table.

On the other hand I seem to have acquired, off eBay and my own and others painting efforts, a good-sized Austrian army for the Seven Years War and a pet project of mine started over two years ago has almost reached completion; I'm thinking here of my 1672'ish French-Dutch War armies. I've also expanded the Prussian and Russian SYW armies (like I needed any more) and built up a modest force of Saxons, several Reichsarmee units and almost the complete army of the Duchy of Modena, both for WAS/SYW.

In the new year I plan to produce (I have the figures and quite a few are almost done) a small (12 btns or so with cavalry and artillery) force of British, Hanoverians, Hessians and Brunswickers so we can attempt some of the battles in the Western theatre and hopefully trounce Robbie's Frenchies. Most of all though I look forward to another excellent years of gaming and all that entails.

7 comments:

  1. Colin, I have really enjoyed reading your exploits with Frederick during the year. All the best for 2016.

    P.S. Like the new look of the blog

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Mark. Blog changes is work in progress. Watch this space until my wife has finished vamping it up!

      Delete
  2. I've enjoyed all aspects of your gaming adventures this year, Colin, truly inspirational! But selling stuff...oh dear! But new stuff...hurrah! Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks David. I appreciate your comments and am glad you took pleasure from my ramblings. Yes, selling stuff, just a little to finance the completion of my existing projects........

      Delete
  3. Happy New Year Colin, its been a pleasure gaming with you and reading about the other games. All the best for 2016

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks John and the same to you. Thanks for coming up to play, it's been great and there are plenty more games to play in 2016.

      Delete
  4. Here's to as prodcutive a 2016 as you had in 2015.
    Happy New year to you and yours.

    ReplyDelete