Last week a kind person posted a picture of a Swedish-built Pansarbil 405 armoured car on the "AK47" Facebook group. Its an unusual looking vehicle and I decided I needed something like that for my AK47 armies but there didn't seem to be any 15mm models of STL files around, so I made my own :)
This week I've been up to something a little different.
I've been with the Waterbird Project on Lake Windermere, a replica of Britain's first seaplane which flew for the first time on Windermere in 1911. The
last couple of days have been the culmination of over ten years work on the
part of the project team, which led to a successful first flight (several short
"hops") of the replica yesterday, and then a much more successful and
longer flight over the lake today. Well done to everybody involved!!
Thanks to a comment by Jim Jackaman on Facebook I have already succumbed to my fierst distraction that isn't in "the plan". I've created a set of 1/2400 STL files covering medievalcogs and galleys on 30mm square bases for use with my "Lord of the Sea" medieval rules. I've put these up as a free download on Wargame Vault for anyone who is interested. There are ten different bases covering small, medium and large cogs, and galleys.
You can find the models here:
Medieval Cogs and Galleys 1/2400 - Long Face Games | Wargame Vault
The Plan for 2022
Hi everyone, and welcome to 2022! I hope its going to be a
better year for everyone than the last two. This year I’m going to try to be a
bot more realistic in my planning, so this is going to be a shorter list and in
previous years.
Narrow Seas - I will
get the campaign system finished along with modules for the North Sea and the
Channel. I will also aim to get at least one update of the Data Annex issued
Dahlgren and Columbiad – I will finish the Triple Alliance
scenario pack, as well as an update to the ship data tables for the ACW (I’ve already
added about 20 new ships but have others to stat up). I’ll also work up some more
ACW ironclad and gunboat 3D models now that I have a decent system to do that.
“Bumper Boats” – a fun set of rules for ancient galley games
to use with my 1/300(ish) galley models. This will just be a private project I
think and not entirely serious.
And, at this stage, that is it.
I fully expect that unplanned stuff will crash in to the programme (as I start i'm setting up prints for a 1/100 Bedford portee for my hypothetical "British Intervention Field Force" - see much earlier posts, and an Australian Centurion AVRE for Vietnam.....)_ , and may even become the main programme. I’ll also be putting together various scenarios and other bits and pieces for my existing rules, and I’m sure my 1/1200 Chinese ships will feature in there somewhere as MT’s models are released. So maybe some more medieval Asian naval action.
Oh, a couple more things. I seem to have become the lead Admin for the Naval Wargames (Historical) group on Facebook (I guess in these days of social media its a kind of successor to the Naval Wargames Society), which should be a fun "job". And I really want to get back into playing F2F games. I really don't like playing "miniatures" games using software. Hopefully covid will allow this to happen. I also have a small project for the 2022 Doncaster "Wings of Glory" weekend in September to finish - model aeroplanes are done so I need to finish the "terrain" and the rules variant for the game.
The Plan, 2021
With the end of 2021 comes the traditional review of “The Plan”.
So how did I do this year?
Models:
My 15mm Burma collection got a load of new vehicles as did
my Winter Skirmish collection (including a whole new Finnish “army”, but I didn’t
even start on the figures. Tweaking the Vietnam rules worked a lot better than
I expected though.
I also completely failed to get Mike’s old AK47 armies
sorted. BUT I did paint up my entire backlog of AK47 and 15mm Vietnam figures
(mainly the ARVN) as well as add quite a few new vehicles to my AK47 collection
thanks to the 3D printer.
10mm Vietnam – also a complete non-started
Sci Fi subs – again, I got nothin’
My modelling time did get side-tracked a LOT though, and
those side tracks became my mainstream. The biggest add was an absolute horde
of 1/1200 and 1/2400 Korean, Japanese and Chinese medieval and Imjin War ships
that supported my Asian naval rules sets, “At The Height of Battle” and “Those
Who Seek Death”. More on these later. In the last month of the year I also
started work on a series of 1/300(Ish) ancient galleys which are going to be
aimed at more “fun” style games than serious.
I also worked on a
load of 3D models of my own design, most prominently a series of 1/600
and 1/1200 ACW ironclads and gunboats. And before that some more hypothetical
1/1200 Victorian ers battleships and gunboats. The ACW sets I am particularly
pleased with and I’m very happy to see them appearing on playing tables around
the world 😊
Rules
“Far Distant Ships” hit the shelves early in the year, I
didn’t get to work on the Crimean aspects though. Maybe in 2022.
“Project X” was the big thing though. This was the release of
MT Miniatures novel line of 1/1200 Korean and Japanese ships for the Imjin War,
a first in this scale, and my accompanying rules At The Height of Battle”,
again another first. These have done well and Matt at MT is soon to release the
next fleets for the game covering Chinese ships of the 12th-14th
centuries, as well as additional Japanese and Korean ships based on some of my
3D models. I also completed “Those Who Seek Death”, a fleet action set using 1/2400
models.
The Narrow Seas campaign system stalled again, although I have
a generic system just about sorted. I need to work up the first one or two
theatre-specific sets of tables and other material, then the rest should flow.
I also didn’t manage to get far with the Triple Alliance campaign but that’s coming
on now. Sci Fi subs is on hold for the
moment but may accelerate as a subject game for the 2022 Naval Wargames
Weekend.
Something i've been working on since lockdown started getting on for 2 years ago is a solo board game covering ASW escorts on the North Atlantic convoys in WW2. Somethong aking to "B17 Queen of the Skies" but in a Flower Class corvette. This must have sparked soem ideas since, having announced the plan and sending out some early drafts I've found there is another "Print and Play" game on a similar theme thats just come out and a major board gme company publishing ANOTHER game on the same theme in 2023. So a boat that I've missed, but I'm still working on my game as its a fun project. Watch out for more on this in '22
Summary
Not a great performance against “The Plan”, but a successful year nonetheless, and I was really pleased to get the Asian naval rules and models out there. I guess I had too many things planned in, and not enough time as a job change affected many things from April onwards. Nex year I think I’ll focus on just a few targets – but will look forward all the same to having the pkan diverted by things that fly in from left field 😊 Look out for “The Plan for 2022” soon. Oh, and a very Happy New Year to all my readers.
The last few weeks at home and at Uni have been quite hectic so I've not had time to update the blog, but I have been busy on the modelling front. Here's a summary of some of the things I've been working on.....
