End of June Update

This month's target was met about a week or so ago, which was nice. I am now looking forward to next month's objective. I have identified some Wargods of Aegyptus figures that I would like to get painted and some 6mm figures for variety. My plan is to paint all of my remaining Totanem (children of Ptah), which amounts to one unit of warriors, one hero and a stone colossus that I bought last year at Salute. Having seen the retail price for the colossus now that it has been released, I think I got a bargain. I also plan to paint the figures I had set aside for my Border Kingdoms army in our Warrior Heroes campaign. My original goal was to use Normans for this army, but there are none on the market in 6mm that I like, so I am going to go with more Wars of the Roses period figures from Baccus. This has the advantage of adding to my Wars of the Roses collection so that I can fight larger battles with those armies too. I recently bought Warmaster Medieval Armies and would like to try those rules. The army lists are a bit of a nonsense for this period, but the game is fun and I can always write my own lists if necessary.

Other options for the month include rebasing my 15mm Vikings for Basic Impetus and patching them up. I have had most of these Vikings since the late eighties and it shows. The paint jobs stand up well enough, but the paint is flaking and the figures look decidedly like grizzled veterans. I have a ton of 15mm Saxons and Normans to paint so adding them to the queue would be useful, and I could use them as opponents for the Vikings. I also have a half-painted Qin Chinese army that I bought to fight my brother's Han Chinese. We had planned to use Armati for this battle but my brother lost interest in Armati after a poor showing at a tournament, so I put my figures to one side. Now I am tempted to dig them out and try Basic Impetus with them too. I think I actually have enough unpainted Chinese to produce a couple of Warring States armies. I doubt any of these 15mm chaps will be the subject of a monthly objective because Steve has no similar figures to oppose me, but I may well treat them as a personal subobjective. With two armies on the table, Steve can hardly refuse to play me, can he?

Thinking back on the drive for thrift, I am quite pleased with what I have achieved so far. The challenge is now 6 months old so I thought I would pen a few words on that. Steve and I have managed to paint a bunch of old lead without buying too much new lead, which is a good thing. I have certainly curtailed my spending quite significantly, which is also a good thing, and I have dealt with a number of projects that had previously languished through lack of focus. This is brilliant. Adopting this project-oriented approach has really helped in getting things completed. Mind you, I have not really noticed any diminution in the lead pile, but that is probably because it was so large to start with.

One thing I have done each month is define a realistic goal. I have not posed any difficult challenges because I felt that over-facing myself would be counter-productive and kill my motivation. Therefore I have looked at what I wanted to achieve and what I could achieve, and have set my targets based on that. On the whole this has worked well. I have had moments when I did not feel like painting at all, and others when I felt like painting all the time. This has balanced out and I have been able to make steady progress. One thing that has really helped, has been playing a game with the new figures each month. By using them almost as soon as they are ready, I have been more motivated to complete the next project.

So, I now face the next 6 months. Steve and I have agreed to expand our Warrior Heroes campaign with new nations. We plan to paint and add a new army every couple of months to the campaign. This will give us more options for the campaign and will help to ensure that there is a continuous stream of battles. At the moment, there has been an unpleasant outbreak of peace among two thirds of the participants. We need to deal with that. We also have the annual Wargods tournament in November to work towards. I cannot decide which army to take and may well opt for some unpainted units just so that I get more lead painted. There are also numerous rules sets that we both want to try; rules are our real downfall. We keep seeing cool rules and getting them, although my thrift drive has led to me spending less on rules too.

If you have managed to read this far, thank you for reading. Pictures will follow as I tackle the July objectives. In theory I could have them done in early July, but I am still looking for a new job and working on my thesis, both of which take up rather more of my time than you might think.