2013 In Review

And so we come to the end of the year and the now customary review. From a personal perspective 2013 has seen a number of highs and lows. Settling in to the new house, enjoying our first Summer in the country and getting our third pony (little Ianto) has been lovely. I've been away visiting some lovely places around the world including Atlanta and Tromso, and on the work front I got promoted - yay! There have also been some rather unpleasant lows for us but with luck they are now behind us (mostly at least) and are not worth dwelling on more, especially in a wargaming blog :)

Ianto - Mr Cute :)

Gaming wise I'm pleased to say that I've got more games in this year than the last 5 at least combined, having joined the Berkeley Vale club in October 2012. I've played all sorts of games; colonial and western gunfights have been popular but I've also run several Sails of Glory and Wings of War games, and played in Muskets and Tomahawks, various WW2 games, A-47 (first edition of course), Russo Japanese using Square Bashing and lots of others. I also sorted out my X Wing collection and we've run a few good games of that. Looking forward to bringing in the Correllian Corvette into the games next year. 

On the show front the Naval Wargames Show in June was a great success and I will be organising the next event, again to be held at Exploson! on June 21/22 2014. I've also run or take part in a number of Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory demonstration and participation games around the southern UK (including Penarth, Devizes, Reveille and Colours) and ran my "Cod War" parti game at Salute - it was great to see a friend on Shapeways producing bespoke models to accompany the rules. The long awaited release of Sails of Glory is happening as I write, with Kickstarter backers receiving their sets around the US and Europe. I have put a lot of effort into supporting Ares with rule development and advice on the models, and this should continue into 2014 as Wave 2 and the first "special" releases hit the streets. It was a long time coming, but I think the wait was worth it.

Sails of Glory at Berkeley Vale

Now, how did my 2013 plan go? Lets see.....

1)      More games – see above. Although the plans I had to run a  few mini campaigns here in Gloucestershire didn't come off overall I've done well here.

2)      Medieval Naval – all the cogs I had at the beginning of the year were painted successfully. I then bought another 40, of which 10 are now done. With a stock of 100+ I think they can wait now :)

3)      Wings of War – played loads. Bought an airship. Still love it.

Our game at Thornbury IPMS Show - won the "best of parti game show" award :)

4)      X wing – All ships, including the large stock of Micro Machines, sorted out. A few more games of this would be good though.

5)      The Sudan – Apart from games of BFE2 at Slimbridge this part of the plan was a non-starter. The Bashi Basouks have at least been undercoated now. Plans for a colonial campaign at Slimbridge may see this take off though in 2014/15.

General Mitch McMog reviews the troops - alas no manoeuvres have been conducted this year!

6)      WW2 Coastal – Apart from a few uncompleted models painted up I didn't get anywhere with this either. 

So I'd say that was a 66% success rate on the plan. On the plus side though I did bring "War Rocket" into the plan and get my entire collection painted and based in quick time, and I managed to renovate my Babylon 5 collection (rashed after our previous house move 6 years ago) as well as my DBA Vikings on the strength of watching the TV series on Lovefilm (can't wait for season 2!)

So now here I am, planning the last game of 2013 - probably a playtest of the development of my medieval rules - and thinking about the plan for 2014. More of that tomorrow, but I suspect Sails of Glory and the new "Armada Invencible" game from Zvezda (got the first two model releases for that today) will feature in it.

Oh, and one last model to paint up before midnight. Something I've been waiting for for months!

The new Zvezda 1/100 T-35. I raided Antics today for a second one :)

EDIT: just for the record, my last game for 2013 has been a playtest and development of my set of medieval tactical rules. They seem to be coming on nicely :)