A milestone

...and quite an interesting one. We had the 400th member in the FB IABSM group late yesterday. One lucky member won a £10 TFL voucher (I'll probably do a £25 for the 500th).

Quite an achievement for a group that's only been going for a year and a bit!

This blog (given my shocking lack of posts lately) is under 10K views short of 3/4 million, which is not bad, I suppose. Apologies for yesterdays missed post - I was engrossed redrawing the club logo, doing prep work for Monday's AGM and starting to plan what I'm doing over the next few weeks.

Hang on - milestone. (Even if not for this blog.). That means Kate!

Happy New Year

...from the Hyatt Place in downtown Minneapolis, where I am killing time till I can head for the airport and home.

Battle reports on a couple of games that happened while I was out here to follow, when I get back and fully awake, but for now.... a quick review of 2017 and plans for 2018.

Operation Get S**t Done progressed... well, a bit. I did make a reasonable attempt at not buying loads more stuff (barring a couple of big KS pledges): major purchases were SP2 forces for the Peninsula and needed buildings and scenery for the club IABSM campaign, and a Nights Watch force for the club Game of Thrones campaign.

The year was made a little fraught and interesting by Amazon deciding to shut LOVEFiLM down, and the ensuing work involved in making it probably the tidiest shutdown ever. I considered a number of options as regards continuing working for a different bit of the company, but in the end the lure of a chance to essentially take a sabbatical for a couple of months was too much to resist. So...

I'm essentially a full time wargamer and writer till, probably, Easter. Top of the list, obviously is to finish the Dux Britanniarum Compendium, followed by several other things. Also, to get back into the habit of blogging regularly, which will, I hope, include being publicly accountable for my time over Q1 of 2018. Given the number of people who very kindly describe this blog as inspiration, I clearly need to get off my duff and live up to that.

Additionally, I'm going to be trying much harder to avoid buying stuff I'll never get to play, and finishing off as much of the Cabinet Of Temporal Insufficiency (to quote Jeff Knusden) as I can. To this end, a bunch of the SP2 lead pile is already at the painters...

Catch you soon, folks!

Operation Get S(tuff) Done progress....

Just so no-one thinks I've been slacking since the last update, you understand:

• Realm of Battle boards finished, Purity Seal'ed.
• Total Battle miniatures narrow latex roads painted and flocked to match the RoB boards. Wide ones still to do.
• Fair bit of 3D design work done working out the kinks in my process for doing buildings. Waiting on the print head coming back from the CEL Robox folks for a minor warranty fix, then I actually have FOUR commissioned jobs to do. 
• Made some initial steps on Sekret Project HQ. Not mine to tell.
• Sorted out the 15mm WW2 stuff after too many IABSM games with hurried cleanup left thing in wrong boxes! All infantry bases now labelled on the back edge with printed details of nationality/company/platoon/section. (And if you think nationality isn't necessary, I found two American sections in the German support tray last time!). Still debating what to do with Big Men given variable Level/number in scenarios.
• Got re-elected Chairman of Peterborough Wargames Club. (Still no-one else mug enough to take over :D)
• Found a graphic designer (right under my nose) for Sekret Projekt C.

If anyone wants the force labels as a big Excel spreadsheet, let me know and I'll clean it up for consumption by people who aren't me :D

Basically, each sheet has enough print, cutout and glue labels for all the infantry bases (but not Big Men) for a battalion (with intrinsic supports) for US, GB or German as per TFL's "Battle For Liberation" with (at least in theory) correct company/platoon numbering. The latter was a headache: as I understand it:

• US: Companies lettered across a regiment, so A-C company, then D is support company, then E-G + H, etc: platoons numbered 1-3 within each company, sections 1-3 within platoons.
• GB: A-C company, platoons 1-6 are various battalion supports, then A company has platoons 7-9. B has 10-12 etc: sections 1-3 within platoons
• German: As far as I can tell, companies are numbered across a regiment, so a battalion may have 1-3 or 4-6. Zug 1-3 within company, Gruppe 1-3 within Zug.  Anyone with better info, help!

Anyone who knows better, I welcome corrections. Just hoping not to need to relabel TOO much! I'll provide the ability to pick which set of battalion companies you want the battalion to start at for German and US.

New Year resolutions

Happy New Year, all. Let's hope 2017 is a GOOD year :D

So. New Year Resolutions.

I only have one, and I make no apologies for the language. It is:

Get shit done.

Too many outstanding projects, secret and otherwise, that need doing. Time for Operation GSD. I've already made a start, as Anne's out of the house for the afternoon so I can make a mess (as long as I clean it up!)....

That's the rest of the Realm of Battle board grassed and drying, top right. Just needs an ink wash on the rocks and we're done. My Total Battle Miniatures roads are on the stocks - the narrow set have their Bitter Chocolate undercoat drying as we speak. (Plan is to paint the ends last.)