was ist das?!

What is this... some World War 2 minis on the horizon?!

Yes, two platoons ready to go for Chain of Command, and possibly Bolt Action. The germans are going to be the first up in the paint queue. I never really got into Flames of War but I had a bunch of models from years ago sitting in my basement (the ever present lead pile!). Of all of them, the only ones I had painted were a company of US 82nd Airborne, with some tank support for Market Garden. I've been very interested in that campaign for many years, ever since the computer game "Close Combat 2: A Bridge Too Far" came out. I used to spend hours and hours playing that game against a buddy of mine.

Anyway, I saw recently that the Late War sale was going on at Battlefront and decided to jump in and buy a few more things to round out my collection. I didn't think I would need much since I wasn't interested in actually playing FoW, and was looking for a platoon level game to play with the models, rather than a company sized game. Oh well, think again. I ended up placing multiple orders and buying a ton of stuff. Shocking, I know!

But for now - I've got to kick the WW2 bug and get ready for some gaming! I'm hosting some Mordheim games this weekend so had to pack up the Germans and whip out some tables for the day. Here are some shots before the action:

A 4x4 densely packed table...

...a more sparsely packed table with wide open streets:

...and oppopsing views from across the table of a smaller 3x3 table for "overflow" in case I've got more than 4 folks at once looking to get a game in:

I try to host one big Mordheim weekend at least once a year. This year we are going to do a big tournament over the summer, but everyone was interested in having a practice day this weekend. So here we go! Last time I got 6 tables ready, but it seemed like only half of them were ever being used at once, so I'm not going as crazy this year.

In other news... I finished painting up my second horde of Goblins for Kings of War. These were definitely a bit more tedious than the first horde! I can see that part getting old quickly. The good news is, I can probably base my first 1000 points around only 2 hordes, so it will be time to start painting up some characters, trolls, a giant, etc. soon.

I got a Kings of War day in recently and tried to have a rematch against my buddy Greg who whooped me over the holidays... but he does not know what a "rematch" is and brought an entirely different army. And beat me again. Damn you Greg! Luckily another friend, Nino, stopped by as well and I was able to eke out a narrow victory against him, so, partially vindicated!

The key to the whole game and my "win," which I feel guilty even describing as such, was Nino rolling double "1's" on his Nerve tests after beating me in combat. He did it not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES IN A ROW. I don't think he was too happy. 

2018 recap & plans for 2019...

As I was trying to figure out what my goals will be for this year, I remembered one more thing I painted last year.

I have been getting into 15mm models in a big way over the past several months. It all started as I was trying to figure out a way to make my annual Mordheim campaign a little more "portable."

I usually host at least one big Mordheim campaign every year, but all of the terrain takes up a huge amount of space. I took the minis "on the road" one year and ran a campaign across the country at a friend's place but there was no way I could bring all the terrain.

This game came out on Kickstarter and I thought it would be an awesome way to get a collection of 15mm medieval fantasy minis all in one go. The idea was to buy this set and leave it at that:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1162110258/time-of-legends-joan-of-arc

But of course that wasn't going to happen.

I had been looking into using smaller minis and testing the idea of using paper terrain from Dave Graffam. I considered 10mm and 15mm... I love Pendraken 10mm models and they would give the best space savings, but as part of my "testing out" process I've totally gotten obsessed with 15mm models!

I first dug out some old models that had been sitting in my lead pile for many years. I bought them as Reaper models in their "Shadow Corps" line, but I guess they have sold the range because I see them listed on the Magister Militum site now an Reaper no longer sells 15mm.

Here were the first test models I painted - I included some Flames of War models for scale comparison:

An Orc, a Dwarf, and an Undead Skeleton champion. I liked painting them a lot, and decided to try my hand at painting one of the hundreds of ancient Greek era 15mm Xyston models that have also been sitting in my lead pile for years as a human fantasy barbarian type... He's a Thracian. I hadn't painted any 15mm models since doing a small airborne company for Flames of War a few (err... more than a few) years back.

Since I enjoyed it so much, I expanded the Orcs into a small warband. They are on round bases, so hopefully that wouldn't be a problem with using them in Mordheim. But if not, I can play some pocket sized games of Song of Blades & Heroes!

I almost finished a Dwarf warband before the end of the year too, but they are still off to the side of my painting desk right now.

And then, the REAL buying began. I can't help myself! I ended up researching all manner of 15mm manufacturers of 15mm models, and started piling up a collection from Battle Valor, Splintered Light, Venexia, Khurasan, and Copplestone. I'm still planning on getting a bunch of stuff from Blue Moon, and the old Demonworld models available from Ral Partha Europe!

And the sad part is... I still may end up getting a collection in 10mm too. I have a problem.