AWI updates
Time for another update from Jasper and Jeroen!
Jasper L: Jasper told me it is time for another blog post. And a lot has happened in the meantime. Early January I got into a painting flow. Unfortunately for this project, the painting subject was a Malifaux crew. Then I dived right into some terrain building. I also had a Dead Man’s Hand game planned, so a great excuse to finish one of my western gangs.
Early February was PolderCon and it was a great event. It was there that I picked up my latest guilty pleasure: Strange Aeons. I started collecting models… While I waited for the models to arrive, I worked on creating simple, but, I think, really great roads and rivers. Finished a Dreadball team. And the Walking Dead Kickstarter went down in February as well. Now I am busy painting the models and cars I picked up for Strange Aeons and I have never been so productive with finishing models and terrain pieces as the past two months.
But what about the AWI-project? Ehhh, I played a couple of games of Muskets and Tomahawks, as well as Land of the Free. I worked on some details of my indians. Finished terrain, usable for the periode. It still all looks good for August, but the pace and focus has dropped a bit. Nothing to worry about though. The next update will be better, I promise!
Jeroen S: The dark winter months offer many opportunities for painting. After finishing the militia in December, most of my painting time in January was spent on a few regiments of 15mm Carthaginians. I generally have two or three different projects that I paint more or less at the same time (Don’t we all? Jasper O.).
It’s nice to take a break from a project to continue on another when I feel like it. This way, projects get finished and the variation in miniatures and colour schemes ensures that I don’t get bored easily with a project which is half finished. There is nothing more deadly to a project for me than the idea that I ‘have to finish something first before I am allowed to paint something else’, because that will result in no painting at all. Keeping the number of projects is key, as this actually gets armies finished to a degree that games can be played.
Since the AWI project has a deadline this brought me back to focus on this project faster than usual. I did paint a few British commanders in January and then started with the Prince of Wales American Regiment. This is a loyalist regiment of 24 models who wore red uniforms, so I used the Perry plastic British to represent them. Also, I used the more ranked style movement trays described in a previous update to add to the formal look of the unit.
The enthousiasm for AWI got an extra boost at the start of February. I visited PolderCon. The second edition of this new Dutch event offered again a lot of partipation games. One of the games I participated in was a very nice looking game of Land of the Free. Several gamers in the Dutch AWI project have started with this game and from the participation game at PolderCon, I can understand why. It doesn’t take a lot of units to play and still gives an ‘army game’ feel. The pace is quite fast and the rules are easy to grasp. There is some bookkeeping involved, but in a simple way, so this is easy to overcome. I am now convinced that the Hanging Rock scenario has to be played in more than one ruleset. The original idea of the scenario was to use Black Powder, as the ‘Rebellion’ supplement offers a good scenario description and order of battle. But the scenario will also be adapted for Land of the Free in due time.
Of course, I played several other games at PolderCon, which will inevitably become my ‘other projects’ to distract me from AWI in the coming months. Focus, focus…!
Mid-February saw another tradition started. The ‘winter painting retreat’. It involves six wargamers, one holiday home (selected based on the size of the painting space on the kitchen table), several daylight lamps, a lot of paint, miniatures, cold beer and snacks. In other words, all the ingredients for a weekend of chatting with friends whilst painting miniatures and making decent progress on a project. Perfect for the AWI plans! I brought the half finished Prince of Wales American regiment and nearly got it finished during this weekend. By the time of this update, I just have to add flock and tufts to the bases to finish the unit. Just like PolderCon, this will be a yearly returning event.
February ended with a visit to Tactica in Hamburg. It was the first time I went to this show and I can really recommend it. The quality of the demo games on the show is very high and there is sufficient opportunity to watch, play and buy. At about three hours drive it is easy to make it a day trip if you live in the Netherlands.
All and all, progress on the AWI project is good. I’m roughly halfway through the project. Next up are the British Legionnaires; taking a break from redcoats to paint green ones.
