Again with the delays...

 Welp, still here although hard to tell that recently!

Seems to be one problem after another and sometimes compounded - work getting worse with personnel shortages and technical issues, a bit of personal bad times as memories of my lovely wife that I thought were secured came flooding back, and assorted other things.  But, I am struggling my way through them...

The table, showing some actual progress which has not occurred for a few months - working on Infinity miniatures and some terrain for Warcrow.

Apologies to those bloggers that I try to visit; and I will attempt to keep in the swing of things here again.

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Working on some terrain

 Something a bit different - 28mm terrain:

Assorted conifers from Bachman, tree bases from Charlie Foxtrot, foreground ruins, runestone, and stela from Fenris Games, and the dark grey resin buildings in the background from Fogou Models.

Not much else getting done as cascading crises at work keep me otherwise occupied!

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Great War naval, the return

 The naval project, hinted at in my previous post, is indeed Great War naval in 1/2400.  This marks a return to one of my original historical projects, as I first dabbled with these dreadnoughts in the mid 1990's using the fine miniatures from CinC.  Another attempt in this century was made with 1/3000 ships and again with 1/1800, but nothing really stuck and many of these ships were accidentally discarded.

But, the world turns and so does my attention, and here we are back with 1/2400, this time with GHQ ships.  I am trying to guide this project along a few lines:  one, as a solo project I am going to try and not get too carried away with purchases (we'll see!); two, also along the lines of a solo project I am going to try and purchase these ships as they come on sale from GHQ or other sources; three, limiting the theatre of operations to the Baltic (and maybe the Black Sea); and lastly to not be too concerned with historical squadrons and just get a game on.

First up are some Russians:

GHQ lists them as BB-class, but in reality they are pre-dreadnoughts.  Slava and Tsessarevitch are survivors of the Russo-Japanese War, and Imperator Pavel is only slightly more recent.

A mixed bag of cruisers:

And a few German heavy units:

The shift away from purely historical encounters starts straight away with these selections.  SEYDLITZ, as far as I know, did not engage in any combat missions in the Baltic during the Great War, but I certainly will put her in harm's way.  And SEYDLITZ will not be the only one, as I intend to get the Russian Gangut-class battleships in action as well, eventually.

Next item on the list is rules.  I have some in mind already, old ones and newer ones to try out.

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A Brief review of 2023 and preview of 2024

 I am a bit late with this but let's move right along...

I can say with some confidence that 2023 was the year that I finally shifted my gaming gears out of neutral and got moving again across the tabletop.  Now, my gaming total was not as impressive as some, but more miniatures games were played than several of the previous years combined.  Here is the list:

        15 games of BattleTech

         4 games of Warhammer 40K 10th Ed.

         1 game of Infinity N4 

The boost that I needed occurred in the summer, when my local game store organized a 4-round BattleTech league.  The organizers made sure that I (and others in our little group) did not play against each other during the league.  This marked the first time in more years (maybe decades) than I can remember when I played a game against a total stranger.  Usually my gaming is with my sons or our little group, and playing against others was a bit of an eye-opener for me - for the better.

The games of 40K - against my sons - made me realize that I need to learn the rules better and focus my army along a different path.  The new edition of the rules seems to make large figure count forces, like my Orks, harder to play, but there are portions of the rules that I do not fully utilize which will make a difference once we get back to it.  Despite getting massacred in each game, it was fun.

Infinity is another game that I am still struggling along the learning curve.  It is quite different from 40K and other games but I think that once I figure out the basics it will be a lot of fun.

Concerning the Pile of Potential, I will admit that not much was painted in 2023.  I do not have a grand total but it was definitely less than 100 from all genres.  There were several bagsful of purchases especially for BattleTech, along with my 15mm Greeks.  However, I did make a considerable dent in the Pile by selling/trading approximately 700 figures in 2023.  A couple of projects went away, including my WW1 land forces and the last of my Tékumel fantasy figure collection.  Most of these were unpainted figures as I continue to sort through boxes of stuff.

And now for looking ahead at 2024:

A few changes from the previous posting of The Chart are evident (as marked in red above):

    40K slips down a bit as I rethink my troop choices;

    Goblins still in the top tier, especially as the new Fantasy Battle rules will launch soon - my sons and I are looking forward to them;

    BattleTech gets a big NO in the terrain department as we are finding that playing on mats is fine but terrain is best.  My oldest has started a BT terrain collection at the local store, and I have plans for my own collection;

    OGRE is warming up as there is to be one last crowd-funding campaign to start manufacturing the missing units from the current selection;

    The Greeks saw some progress, mostly in purchases as I finally acquired all of the Greeks I 'should' need;

    And Naval is getting under steam again but more on that later.

Gaming-wise I expect 2024 to continue with many games of BattleTech - my sons and I meet almost every Saturday now, since the league - but that might taper off as WFB comes about.  I have much to paint for my goblins but my oldest son's dwarves are waiting.  Warcrow will eventually ship later this year, and the solo projects might see some attention.

The Pile of Potential will continue to see reductions, but not nearly so drastic as previous years as most of the low-hanging fruit has been harvested.

Purchases in 2024 need to concentrate on terrain.  BattleTech, Warcrow, 20mm SCW, and others all need terrain.  Some figures will come in of course - I foresee a need for rank and file goblins for one - but those are secondary to terrain.

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Battletech stuff part 1 - Comstar

 Slow progress here, with work picking up tempo, holidays, and not feeling well recently.  I did get a bit done with some BattleTech figures:

Decal time for some proxy Comstar vehicles - from Death Ray Designs.  Takes a fair bit of time do apply them especially the checks, but they really make the vehicles stand out on a table.

And the decals are mostly done - I missed the checks on one of the tanks!  The mechs in the background are almost completely finished, just some basing details and varnish to go.

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