2011 Review

What? another year passed already

To start on a "more" serious note performance against targets

General items

• Continue reducing the stash of unpainted figures, the target is 5,000 by year end. So I have to trade/sell/paint at least 1,500 figures and more to cover what I buy in 2011. Given I typically paint around 1,500 items a year it should be feasible. – Well I got down to 5,048 before Christmas, but it rose again with the presents to 5,273 so I got close and I’ve still got over 700 allocated to sell.
• Tidy up a number of armies and dispose of any old surplus painted figures, especially WW2, which has quite a number of figures I never use. – Along with the unpainted figures quite a few painted Russian, German and British units have been sold.
• Upgrade more terrain, especially walls and hedges. – If I ignore the legation walls then a complete failure on this

Major Projects – 3 out of 4 is not bad

• WW2 US Airborne Brigade – done, just a few bits to finish off, as always
• WW2 British Airborne Brigade – carried forward to 2012
• Medieval German/Swiss Army - done
• Frundsberg and Pommaine “SYW” forces in preparation for a new campaign. - done

Minor Projects

• Terrain for the Siege of Peking game for Gauntlet – done, but it needed more terrain than I anticipated
• Italian forces for the “Big Game”, mainly a number of small units for Leros plus some Allied aircraft - done
• Continue work on my new Afrika Korps, my plan is to mainly complete it by buying discount figures and vehicles. – some bits purchased, but a major area for action in 2012 with the Alamein big game coming up
• Tidy up my figure database, I’ve not done a complete check for years now so I suspect it has some errors in it. – done, found a number of errors, but broadly correct.

In detail

• 1,547 items built/painted/repaired, so similar performance to last year. By period
• WW2 – 589 items – mainly made up for the new US Airborne Brigade, followed by the reworking of my Russian forces and then the extras for the Dodecanese big game.
• SYW – 458 items- this was all the big push on the Bavarian (Pommaine) and Frundsberg forces.
• Medieval – 158 items – all the Swiss army
• AWI – 120 figures – all old figures rebased and touched up.
• Terrain – 102, yes 102 items, virtually all for the Siege of Peking game.
• Sold - 1,326 unpainted and 290 painted items
• Revolutionary Wars – 64 items, French Grenadiers, Artillery and then the Bashi-Bazouks – I think this period will be busier in 2012 with the new Strelets releases.
• Colonial – 24 items – but I’m sure this will flare up in again in the Sudan in 2012

Gaming

Lots of good games during the year, both miniatures and boardgames. Particular highlights were:

• The Dodecanese big game by the Society of Gentlemen Gamers – another stunning effort in terms of terrain, figures and the style of play, OK there were odd bits that could be improved but it was my stand-out event of the year.
• A close second, based on the pure entertainment value was the SOTCW game at Gauntlet, so much fun spread over a couple of days.
• Runners-up were the Aztec-Conquistadores games at Fiasco and the Austro-Ottoman game of Olaschin 1696 at out local open gaming day in Broughton, Chester