A New Dawn, Inspired By Old Times

It's a really interesting time for me and quite exciting, because I have realised that I have less years ahead than behind me.

Now that may sound morbid and far from exciting, but allow me to explain...

I have always been extremely enthusiastic about my hobby, to the extent that I collected and played just about every type of model, period and scale. In fact I would say that over the years it got quite out of hand, because I amassed more than I actually got on the table.

I am still fanatical about my hobby, but recently I've had to deal with that system shock which is turning fifty and realising you are in the traditional sense, 'old'.

Couple this with the fact that two of my oldest and firmest gaming buddies and friends are returning to the place where we all cut our teeth on toy soldiers, with the promise of some good quality gaming,  yarning and general good times, and you'll appreciate that I have been thinking of ways to maximise table time versus time spent looking at piles of unpainted lead.

Roger and I had planned several projects and indeed had begun to get them sorted, but when I acquired the 40mm ECW collection recently, we both got hooked on the idea of becoming more focussed on a single new project rather than a shotgun approach which has it's roots in our teenage enthusiasm to play everything, buy everything and well, everything!

We noted that we come from a club background where many of the members were competition gamers who bought assorted armies to a given points cost, but we also liked large games, and so there was a sort of toxic mix of a desire for loads of armies, all with way more figures than is practical.

Understand, it's not the cost, it's the pure practicality of juggling 9 balls apiece, and never actually getting new projects onto the table.

So, Roger has a massive Napoleonic collection to which he is bonded almost religiously, and I have a seriously decent sized fantasy collection which is my metaphorical conjoined twin, so they are 'keepers'.

We both love ECW (pike and shot in general to be fair) and so the fact that I have a good start with the 40mm painted forces, this is were we will focus our attention.

I think we'll end up making a plan for where we want it to go, lay down some plans of acquisition for new forces and probably end up with a rather nice basis for a display game. The beauty of 40mm is that it has 'gravitas' and the ECW is a great period to play massed battles, regional campaigns and even skirmishes.

This focus (and believe me, we can be very, very focussed) will hopefully mean that we will get some really good quality gaming done as we head towards retirement - something like this:

Beyond that, I have begun to paint my pre-slotta (metal based in real speak) Chaos army for Warhammer 1st ed.

I want it on the table in a good time, so I am using a fast technique which will look good but not take forever to complete, with a high gloss finish, as many vintage fantasy armies had.

Here's the first 4 hours work...

An interesting point, is that there are two variants of the Vandamar - Warrior of Chaos model. The differences are subtend revolve around differences in the right hand and the left elbow detail. Subtle, but there, nonetheless.

Those figures are 150 points on their own, so a couple of hundred models, plus a Jabberwocky, Chimaera, Hydra and other nasties will be more than enough.

More pics as things progress.

TTFN