War of 1812 - 54mm British Infantry

Tonight I finally finished off 3 units of British infantry for my War of 1812 project. I started these early in December and spent most of the past month painting them. First up is a small unit of 8th Foot Grenadiers.

Next up are two regular units of infantry: 49th Foot with green collars and cuffs and the 89th Foot with black collars and cuffs.

None of the figures have their matte sealer coat as it's too bloody cold out to spray, so that will have to wait for another day.

Next to come off of the table are either two small units of Glengarry Light Infantry or a large batch of Hittites.

I now have to figure out how transport these figs. They're tall and pretty heavy so can easily fall over. And I need to make some unit bases to move them around as shuffling a dozen figures around is cumbersome.

2013 Year in Review

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you had an enjoyable and safe holiday. Now that 2013 is over and we're into a new year I have a chance to assess my gaming for the year. I'm going to break it into two groups: miniatures and boardgaming.

Miniatures

Compared to my three previous years of writing this blog, 2013 was an excellent year for my miniature painting with a whopping 606 painted. This was mainly due to the large number of 15mm figs I painted. Painting the 15mm figs is a lot faster than painting 28mm or 54mm. Going over my goals I set out at the end of 2012:

1. War Rocket: this goal was partially completed and I didn't end up picking up the Valkeeri fleet till the Black Friday sale in November.

2. Forge World models: Not completed as I didn't get to any of these this year.

3. 15mm Sci-fi: didn't get any of this started and I haven't even found a ruleset I want to use yet though I do have a few I need to look at. I basically set this project aside for most of the year.

4. 15mm Terrain: er, yeah about that…

5. 15mm NKE: finished them and I'm well on my way to having their opponents completed!

6. 28mm Samurai: as I only set out to get a few bases done this year I'm going to say mission accomplished as I got a couple done.

7. 1/200 Robotech: er, yeah about that…

Overall not very good, but that being said I did start a new project: 54mm War of 1812 and I'm moving through that at a decent clip. So my goals for 2014:

1. War Rocket: complete the Valkeeri fleet

2. 15mm Ancients: finish my Hittites and do a few more NKE so I can maybe play using Hail Ceasar.

3. 15mm Terrain: just get more done. I've got some more buildings to do up.

4. 15mm Sci-fi: find a ruleset I want to use and maybe rebase my vehicles as I think the basing is crap.

5. 28mm Samurai: do at least another 4 bases including some Samurai bases.

6. 54mm War of 1812: complete decent sized armies for both sides able to fight in the majority of battles that took place.

7. All Quiet on the Martian Front: comes out soon and I'm going to have a ton to paint up so I'd like to get everything done I'll have for this.

Like 2013, I'm not going to set myself a goal of painting a specific number of figs.

Boardgames

In 2013 I played 96 matches of 29 different board games. My top 3 played games were:

#1: Elder Sign - 14 games

#2: Arkham Horror - 11 games

#3: C&C Napoleonics & Race For The Galaxy - 8 games

I usually get together with some friends once a month to game but this year we didn't do that very often so for 2014 I hope to get more game nights in.

On my painting table right now are 3 units of 54mm British infantry which should be completed in the next few days and I've still got a batch of Hittites waiting to be completed.

Firefly!

My only gaming related present I received this year was a copy of Firefly from a friend of mine. Yesterday I got a chance to try it out and it was awesome.  In the game you play a captain of a Firefly class ship, your fly around the 'verse, get a crew, carry out various jobs and try to complete an overall story. The game just exudes the Firefly theme.

The components are excellent and the cards are well done. The game only covers the Firefly series and not the Serenity movie. This is Gale Force Nine's second board game (the other being Spartacus) and in my opinion they're batting 2 for 2.  My only beef with the game is how long the approximate playing time is compared to what's stated on the box. The box says 2 hours, it took us about 4 hours. I suppose you might be able to do it in 2 hours but you'd have to be racing through everything and you're not going to enjoy it like it should be enjoyed.  If you're a fan of Firefly, you're going to love this game.

Eldritch Horror & Forbidden Desert

Last night I went over to a friends place and got in a few new game plays. First up is the new Fantasy Flight game Eldritch Horror.  If you like Arkham Horror then you'll feel right at home playing Eldritch Horror.  But this time instead of trying to save the creepy little New England town of Arkham, you're trying to save the world. Players travel all over the world solving various tasks to collect clues, close gates and wipe out monsters.  As it was our first time playing it we didn't do so good and the world was consumed by Azathoth. Erg.

Probably the thing I found the most different from Arkham Horror is the way the rules are set up. There's a rules booklet and there's also a reference guide which basically further breaks down and explains the rules in more detail. Kind of odd why they went that route.

I'm expecting FFG to start cranking out expansions for this game quickly.  For Arkham there's both small and large box expansions. The large box expansions (with the exception of Miskatonic Horror) added a whole new board and a pile of new cards. I can see expansions for Eldritch Horror following the small box route as there is only one world so it wouldn't need new boards. I can see FFG following the Mansions of Madness expansion route where each little pack would have a new Elder God with it's corresponding cards and a few extra cards such as gear thrown in.

We also got in a few games of Forbidden Desert. This game is a cooperative game where players race to find parts for an airship so they can get out of the desert before they die of thirst. This game is very similar to Forbidden Island and also bears a lot of similarity to Pandemic.  We got in two games in a little over an hour.

War of 1812 - 54mm Natives

Tonight I finished a large batch of Native Americans for my War of 1812 project. There figures are soft plastic and are manufactured by Armies in Plastic and sold by All The Kings Men. This is the first time I've actually painted soft plastic and I'm really rather impressed with how they turned out.

As the weather has turned especially cold, I'm not going to able to get any priming done, so all I've got on the table is some 15mm Hittites. The next batch of 54mm figs will be a small cannon and crew and a small unit of British Grenadiers.

War of 1812 - Canadian Voltigeur

Today I finished up two small units of Canadian Voltigeur.  The pic shows both units combined.

The Voltigeurs were light infantry units raised by Lieutenant Colonel Charles de Salaberry in Lower Canada on the eve of the war and distinguished themselves in battles such as Chateauguay and Chrysler's Farm.

Next up will be a pile of Hittites and the next 54mm figures will be a large number of Indians.

War of 1812 - 54mm Militia

Today I finally finished off some more figures for my War of 1812 project. First is a unit of British/Canadian militia. Figures of course are All The King's Men.

Realistically you could swap out the British officer and standard bearer with their American counterparts and the unit would be the same.

Next is a pair of mounted British generals.

I'm still not really satisfied with my pics. Maybe I need a better camera or something.

Since this post covers a unit of militia, I'd like to point out an excellent article I found linked on The Miniatures Page about the "militia myth" and the involvement and sacrifice of Canadian militia units in the War of 1812. Thanks to Armand (Tango01) for posting the link and to Robert Henderson for researching and writing it. Here's the link: http://www.dorchesterreview.ca/2013/10/01/the-myth-of-the-militia-myth/

Next up is a pile of Hittites(chariots and heavy infantry) and two small units of Canadian Voltiguers.