2012 half year review

So half way through 2012 so a quick review of progress is needed (it’s a good moment to reflect on my targets and progress). Compared to plan in order of importance

• WW2 DAK – completed quite a few vehicles, but all the figures still need to be painted.
• WW2 British 8th Army - for the Alamein game I now know I’m only involved with 51st Highland Division, which needs very little extras. Therefore my main thrust has been to complete as much of the armour needed to be able to refight the scenarios in Monty’s desert battles.
• Dervish Army – only started this recently, but got off to a cracking start, hopefully I’ll have enough to play some in a game in a month or so. My only concern is the lack of cavalry, but I’ll probably use a mixture of Strelets mamelukes (the plainer ones) and the commander figures from Waterloo 1815’s Dervishes.
• Revolutionary Wars British for Egypt – well I’ve got the new Strelets figures so I just have wait for a window in my painting schedule.
• Sort out the assorted Saracens so I can use Hail Caesar for Crusades games – not even started yet
• Work on the British Airborne brigade – done with the exception of the AT and artillery, as I need the Waterloo 1815 British Paratroopers with Pack Howitzer, and it just missed my last order from Harfields
• Clear out the rest of my medievals to make a Burgundian/German force – not started yet
• Upgrade more terrain, especially walls and hedges – again not started.

In numbers it looks like a slow half year with only 594 items completed, compared to my norm of about 1,500 items, split by period:

• WW2 – 388 items, numerically dominated by the British paratroops completed back at the beginning of the year, but also large numbers of desert vehicles
• Colonial – 118 items all Dervish infantry
• WW1 – 41 items, let myself get distracted with the Russian artillery guns
• WSS -24 items, adding the limbers to complete my armies -again not in the plan
• Terrain – 23 items, a camp, barbed wire and a single building

Overall there is a higher proportion of vehicles, which take more time, but now I just need to focus on the main tasks.

Of course what I failed to explicitly include in my targets was keeping the stash below 5,000, but typically it has crept up to over 6,600 items and I can’t see how culling will immediately help, so it’s on with the painting!