Review of 2022 - part 2 painting breakdown

Painting output was 1,206 items, which dramatically lower than the 2,236 last year, but does contain significantly less rework. There was also quite a bit of work behind the scenes sorting out my printing problems, but overall I felt that I achieved far less than I should have. Now breaking it all down.

Period		Notes
WW2	581	Plenty of Resin tanks and vehicles, but especially French and Japanese. Then yet more German infantry as if I didn't have enough but also more Australian, Italians and DAK for the desert.
WSS	204	British and French Horse and Dragoons
Revolution	122	Cisalpine infantry and more French infantry for Egypt 1800 along with limbers
Napoleonic	100	Spanish Cavalry and Limbers, reworked Austrian Artillery plus French engineers
SYW	90	Jacobite and British Cavalry for the "45"
Medieval	51	Crusader baggage and Saracen light horse
WW1	24	A French field kitchen feeding poilus, a pair of Lanchester armoured cars and two replacement Austin hulls
ACW	14	28mm Wild West Lawmen and Outlaws<
Colonial	12	Boer pom-poms and crews
Grand Total	1,206

Type		Notes
Infantry	433	Mostly WW2, plus French in Egypt 1800 and WSS French dismounted dragoons
Cavalry	314	WSS British & French, SYW British & Jacobite, Saracen Light Horse and WW2 French
Tanks/AFVs	85	All resin printed, the majority were French, Japanese and British (BEF).
Gunners	56	WW2 Japanese, British, French, German and Italian plus some Boers
Rebase/Rework	51	Napoleonic Austrian Artillery and limbers.
Vehicles	50	All WW2, mainly French, some Japanese, including French and Russian Motorcycles
Riders	45	WW2 vehicle crews, plus the Napoleonic Spanish Cavalry using different riders and horses.
Other Items	37	Crusader civilians and WW1 French Field Kitchen
Horses	34	Crusader baggage mules and horses for the Spanish cavalry
Artillery	30	As for Gunners
Limbers	21	Napoleonic Austrian & Spanish, French for Egypt 1800 and WW2 18/25 pdr limbers
Commanders	15	Mix of War of Spanish Succession, Jacobite and Crusader
Engineers	13	Napoleonic French Sappers
Equipment	9	Mainly MMGs and mortars to go with the WW2 infantry I painted, plus a WW1 French Field kitchen
Ships	7	WW2 Cargo ships & German Raumboot and a single British Fairmile.
Wagons	4	All crusader wagons
Aircraft	2	An early Spitfire and a Horsa glider
Grand Total	1,206

Finally a big thanks you to all those who commented on my blog through the year, your comments help to keep me motivated.

Review of 2022 - part 1 progress against plan

I am posting this entry slightly earlier than planned as I caught Covid and had to skip some of my family visits to return home. Overall a bit of a mixed year with less progress than hoped

Looking at my progress against the detailed plan:-

First and foremost my plan is to meet with as many friends as possible, assuming that retrictions come to an end, other than that I'll be working on three themes. - - Beacon Wargames club is well established, we've had a good year and additionally been running Saturday games every 6 weeks or so. There have been less shows than pre-Covid and family comitments and changes to them have prevented me from attanding some others I had hoped to attend.

Game specific projects

• Pegasus bridge and Horsa glider for a D-Day game - Both the glider and bridge are fully assembled and painted, but I still need to create a sufficient large river for the bridge to cross. I have failed to find the same clear flexible plastic that I used for a coastline some years ago.
• Continuing to build my War of Spanish Succession forces, as quickly as Strelets release them - Up until December I had finished everything in the stash, but with the new releases of cuirassiers I still have more to do.
• Rebase/upgrade the whole of my Anglo-Zulu War armies including the Boers - not started - I just couldn't settle on a basing approach - carried foward to 2023.
• Attempt to rationalise my terrain - not started - due to family taking over the garage I missed the opportunity to have a sort out this summer - carried forward to 2023.

Reducing the existing stash, I'd like to make at least a 10% reduction - Completed - I had a purge in Q1 and sold some surplus on ebay and have sold some more in Q4. The stash has declined from 6,630 to 5,820 so a 12% reduction.

• Paint the already printed WW2 French vehicles - Completed, and then painted the extras I subsequently printed. Then I painted all the replacements for those that subsequently "exploded"
• Extra Afrika Corps and Italian figures to convert my Rapid Fire troops to use Batttlegroup. - Completed
• French Goumier Platoon - Completed
• An Australian Platoon plus supports for the desert/Crete, etc - Completed.
• WW2 German Gebirgsjaeger and remaining two platoons of winter infantry - I completed one Gebirgsjager Plationn and another that I had missed in Zeltbahns. But I still have to do the two winter platoons - carried forward to 2023.
• Cavalry for the Seven Years War/Jacobite Rebellion - Completed
• Napoleonic Spanish artillery and more cavalry - Completed
• 1800 French in Egypt - double up the unit size from 12 to 24 - Completed although they were painted as new units instead
• French Revolution - Cisapline legion troops - Completed
• More Crusader baggage and Saracen cavalry - Completed
• Imperial Croat cavalry and Polish pancerni - not started - carried forward to 2023.
• WW1 odd bits and pieces - not started- carried forward to 2023.

Exploiting the 3D resin printer - I've learnt about post production problems, I have lost numerous vehicles due to the models "exploding". So far so good with all my later batches with far larger vent/drain holes. I have also learnt how to slice and merge models using 4D builder, although I don't have a powerful enough graphic card to do complex manipulations.

• Completing my Japanese forces for Pacific/Burma, by printing a selection of suitable vehicles to hopefully cover various 1941-1945 campaigns. - completed - a whole range of tanks, vehicles and guns have been printed and painted.
• Gradually replacing poorly cast or moulded models with new resin prints - underway - in an eaarlier print run I printed replacements for my existing Somua S35's, and then I had to reprint them once they "exploded" A later print run included M10s and Sextons to replace my exisitng Armourfast and PSC versions - this will probably become an ongoing action when I plan the next print runs.
• LVTs and any other extra vehicles so I can carry out Pacific beach landing games - Completed - LVT's printed and painted - although I am tempted to create some waterline versions of the LVTs
• Test printing of 20mm figures - Discovered the best approach was to print with a base, so I've learnt how to add those, but the bases do seem to be subject to warping. I also need to try printing then with a more flexible resin, do reduce the risk of damage to fine parts, although this may not the be water-washable resin I have used up till now
• Components for buildings, doors, windows, shutters etc. - not started - carried forward to 2023.
• Try some 1/100 moderns for NorthAG - Completed - printed a sufficient selection of West German vehicles for a Battlegroup Northag game, but I still need to paint them and source the infantry - carried forward to 2023.
• More vehicles for "Setting the East Ablaze" - underway - Lanchester armoured cars completed. , The Austin armoured cars that "exploded" have now been reprinted, and I still not found any suitable trucks

Replacement BEF armour

These Morris CS-9s, Mark VI and Matilda 2s were reprinted to replace those that exploded during the summer. In fact I removed much of the stowage from the trashed versions to use again.

and that finishes my output for 2022, but with still more in progress.

Crusader baggage

Something for my Crusaders to defend, their bagge train. Comprising both Strelets Crusader Transport sets and some extra resin printed mules.

A little extra for the French in Egypt 1800

Just like the camel drawn limbers (link) when I saw the Perry figures for the artillery train, I had to add them to my French army. This used up a couple of my old Airfix RHA horse team, a pair of resin limbers and drivers created from the Hat Napoleonic French artillery outriders with bicorne head swaps. Uniform details came from Yves Martin's book (link)

Saracen light cavalry

This fills one of the gaps in my "saracen" army as I had no javelin armed light cavalry. THese Hat Andalusian figures meet that need. The two units are based up so I can deploy them as skirmishers by turning the bases thruogh 90 degrees.

Thanks to Graham for the figures.

Not more WW2 Germans

It seems I can't get enough of them, but they have different uniforms from the rest so I had to do it. I've painted up a couple of platoons, about two weeks apart but the cold weather delayed my painting and picture taking.

First was a Gebergsjager platoon, wearing their windproof jackets. The colour when I painted it looked right for reed green, but it drier much darker. These are a Caesar figures and it took two packets to make up the platoon. I sold off the Handshar figures that came with them.

Second is a late war platoon wearing the camouflage shelter quarter, again Caesar figures.

In both units a few extras figures from other sources were mixed in, modified with Green stuff to look similar.

A few pictures from Recon

Saturday was an early start off to Pudsey to join the Lance & Longbow guys to refight Stoke Field 1487. It's a small but friendly show and I only took a few pictures.

First off Yarkshire Gamers battle of Forli with an impressive array of figures

Proper pike blocks

Landsknecht pike

Swiss pike

Loads of eye candy

A Zombie game set in the UK, had an interesting chat wiyh the chap running the game and I would have liked to play it. Much better terrain than the usual Zombicide games played at the club, with lots of fine detail.

Finally a very blurred picture of our game. We played through twice and both were a close finish with either side winning once.

More pictures can be found on
Yarkshire Gamers blog (link)
Wargame Amateur blog (link)

The traders didn't do so well from me as I only bought 4 pots of paint as nothing caught my eye.

On the Workbench - December 2022

Another year is coming to a close so I need to try and finish all the bits I have started

• Horsa glider - this is now almosted finished, I need touch up some parts and add a base
• Pegasus bridge - finished painting, but I still have not sorted the river/basing.
• Saracen light cavalry - well underway
• Bunkers for Battlegroup Westwall - completed to a basic level for yesterdays game
• Replacement BEF vehicles - base coated
• Crusader baggage - undercoated
• 4 units of WSS Austrian Cuirassiers - now removed from sprues
• 4 units of WSS Bavarian Cuirassiers - if time permits

Now off to Recon at Pudsey in the morning and hope that nothing tempts me. I should be on the Lance & Longbow game playing Stoke Field 1487, come along and join in.

French Revolution reinforcements for Egypt

These are the Strelets French Light Infantry in Egypt. I had originally planned to use the figures to double up my existing French units, but I forgot that I had already done that. So they became a selection of more unusual units.

The rear pair of units are French Line in the early blue cotton uniform. In the front from Left to right are Maltese Legion, French Legere in the early cotton uniform and the Greek Legion.