Now that the illness is on the brink of defeat, with a slight cough being the only remaining rear guard, I have finally found myself with enough energy to do some more hobby. To kick things off I decided to do a full inventory of my outstanding projects on my to do pile, and I've planned out my next sequence of painting logs and organised my storage accordingly, this is the result.
Taking Stock
I'm still only half way through Project Log #5 at this point. However, apart from a full Late War British Flames of War Army, it is down to lots of small projects, single miniature and a lot of Gaslands cars, most of which will probably end up as a birthday gift to a niece rather than undergo the conversion and painting process, at this point I have more than enough to field almost any team I want.
Project Log #6 will be the final push for my lead pile, the sum total of all that remains. While I am going to avoid adding to it as much as possible, it will still take me some time to reach the point where I can officially make a start on it. Unlike my current backlog it is heavy on armies rather than single miniatures, which is going to be a return to the hell of batch painting unfortunately.
Horus Heresy
Way back when I was convinced that I would get into the Horus Heresy gaming I picked up a copy of the the Burning of Prospero to serve as my starting point for a Marine army. I'm still equivocating over which chapter I'll go with, alternating between Dark Angels and Imperial Firsts. Since my interest in it has dropped significantly I'm probably going to save this one until last, as I've had my fill of painting power armoured lads.
Warhammer 40k
In spite of my annoyance with Marines in general I'll probably end up starting and finishing my Chaos expansion first, as my current Chaos army could use a refresh and expansion with the new models from the Shadowspear boxed set and general release. Since 40k is still one of the games that I play fairly regularly I'd also like to get more variety in what I can bring to the table sooner rather than later as well.
I'll also paint the Ultramarine sneaky Marines at some point and add them to my all-Astartes army, but my enthusiasm for them is fairly low, so they'll probably feature middle to last in the priority stack.
I've also got some Gretchin that my parents gave me for Christmas and a 25th Anniversary Marine, which will make a nice display painting project.
Spartan Games
While I sold off most of my old Dystopian Wars stuff I kept the Australian fleet boxed set to paint up at some point, more for display than gaming. I also kept most of the Firestorm Armada stuff and will get to it at some point, mostly the new wave of Terran and Dindrenzi models. I've also got some Planetfall Terrans, which will also be a very simple project to complete. Most of these I intend to use as palette cleansers between major painting projects.
Flames of War
It turns out I still have a lot of Flames of War left over from a bygone era, which I couldn't bear to sell, so still remain in the lead pile. The particular kits I've got are mint early war pre-plastic stuff, so would probably fetch a tidy sum on ebay, but I covet them too much myself. I've got a full Rifle Company and Armoured Squadron for early war, complete with some fearsome Matilda IIs to provide a slow by heavily armoured spearhead to the force. I also have some off brand Vietnam ANZACs that will make a nice APC mounted rifle company with gunship support, mostly for display purposes as well as some small pieces of terrain.
Everything Else
There are a few smaller scale army projects that fit into this pile. I have a second attempt at some UCM from Dropzone Commander, mostly for display purposes as the game is pretty much dead at this point. One of the more interesting projects is some zombie apocalypse survivors and some zombies to menace them. I am planning on using these to test out a home brewed single player war game with AI driven zombies.I also have some metal WWII German Grenadiers and British Riflemen, about a platoons worth for each. I also have a small bunch of Private Military Contractors and generic insurgents, which I am planning on using for a half formed close quarters firefight game.
The Story So Far
Illness aside, I've been pretty busy since my last blog post. The most significant feature of this period is that I've been on a bit of a Gaslands kick, and have converted a lot of cars.
I've decided to put a moratorium on any further Gaslands war until I get access to a 3D printer for a wider variety of conversion bits. Still, I have more than enough cars to field any kind of team I want. Unfortunately I still have a huge pile of Matchbox and Hotwheels sitting on my shelf that need attention, though at this point I'll probably get rid of most of the leftover cars at this point, as I mentioned earlier.
I also produced a couple of tutorial videos on my usual conversion process for Gaslands cars. My approach is fairly simple and crude, but it is relatively quick for getting cars on the table.
The terrain is also will and truly done, not much more to say about it other than, I'm happy that I won't have to do any more of it until I finally shell out for an urban Realm of Battle board.
Finally, I've made a start on my next project. Getting through my Necromunda gangs, starting with this Goliath test miniature.
That is pretty much it for now, for the rest of the year it'll probably be a continuation of the death march through #5 and #6 looming on the horizon sometime in 2020.
Oh, my regular opponent has thrown his metaphorical hat into the blogosphere, I encourage you all to read him here.
