Hi all,
It’s been a while since my last blog post. A change in personal circumstances has kept me pretty busy lately but I have managed to find some time to devote to my hobbies. I thought I would write a more reflective post to end this, my first year of the blog.
Here are all the miniatures I painted in 2017. There are 117 minis from four major projects, some of which I have blogged about before, others which may be new to readers.
The year started with finishing my Imperial Assault Rebels. I would love to use all these minis in a full-scale wargame like Bolt Action or Beyond the Gates of Antares, so there are just enough figures to do that. I’m interested to see what comes of Star Wars Legion, but I don’t see myself buying and painting all the same figures in 35mm scale. If I can get away with using these (and the many other IA figures I already have), I will. I have also been playing a bit of the Imperial Assault campaign solo thanks to the new app which takes the role of the Imperial player. It’s given my collection a new lease on life so I highly recommend it.
The next project I worked on was of course my Ninja Turtles for 7TV. I have blogged about these before, but I have a project I am working on at the moment which has connections with this one (more on that later).
Following that, I got back into superhero gaming with my Heroclix repaints for Super Mission Force. I devoted a lot of time to creating stat cards for my heroes, and these are the minis I painted this year to go with my old repaints. I’ve had few games of this system so far and really enjoy the flexibility of character creation and the dice pool mechanic.
Finally, a project I started in March was a force for Test of Honour by Warord Games. I was seduced by its low price point but I didn’t get much further than assembling the plastics (which was quite time consuming). At the time, I also ordered some Samurai and Ninja minis from Perry Miniatures and set them aside for future use. The release of the new Ninjas of Iga set from Warlord really reignited this project for me just before Christmas, and so I spent a marathon painting session painting 2 forces for ToH – an all-Ninja force and a more traditional mix of commoners and Samurai. I need to finish off painting the Samurai for this force, but they are currently half finished on my painting table so shouldn’t be hard to do.
The Test of Honour project has its roots in the TMNT project, as the force is based on the Foot Clan! I’m really enjoying the IDW TMNT comic series, and the Secret History of the Foot Clan mini-series gave a lot of backstory for the Foot Clan’s origins in Feudal Japan. I have taken some of the concepts and done my own take on this using what I had available and I am pretty pleased with how they have turned out. I can mix and match the commoners with the Ninja, or separate them into two forces. I have some lanterns coming from Warlord Games to finish this set off (they’re a vital component of night missions and they look great, too).
So, all in all it has been a challenging year for me personally and professionally, but my hobbies have continued to give me a much needed creative outlet. I have been pleased with what I have been able to achieve considering how busy I have been, but now that I have so many projects done, I will be trying to shift focus onto more gaming! I’m keen to get Test of Honour on the table as soon as possible and I have a selection of Japanese terrain that I will be using. I will be sure to keep the blog updated with the results of these games.
I also wanted to take the time to acknowledge the readers of this blog, as the feedback has been really encouraging. I started this as a way to document my hobby projects, as restricted time to play meant that I couldn’t share my hobby work very easily. This blog has given me another outlet and so I’m grateful for the support and encouragement I’ve received. Thanks, everyone!
Hope you all have had a great hobby year and that you achieve everything you set out to do in the New Year!
Happy Gaming!
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