2023 – The Year That Was

Well, another year comes to an end and, as do all of them at the moment, seems to have flown past. It didn’t feel like such a productive year as last year but we’ll see as I pull the review together.

The year was broken up by 6-8 weeks work on the house (I hate plasterers…), two family holidays (Cornwall and France) and various family things curtailing hobby activity a little. The biggest downer was the building work starting the same weekend as Ayton in May. With so much to do and clear there was no way I could justify a long weekend away so reluctantly I had to miss my first Ayton…

So. Let’s begin.

I continued the push to add to (and move towards some sort of completion) my C18th ImagiNation project. However, having taken advantage of the Fife and Drum/Minden Black Friday Sale, I picked up a unit of French, and having a craving for red coats I decided to paint them as the Irish Clare Regiment.

Lovely figures to paint but the flags were a bugger to do.

For the first few months I was still planning for Ayton. We were returning to the C19th Colonial setting so I decided to rebase my Spencer Smith FPW ImagiNation troops. I left them as gloss varnished but based them as per all my other figures.

Having completed the core six regiments of Braunschweig troops last year I wanted to complete the same core six for Altefritzenburg. I had four already so two more needed.

At the very end of last year I’d started my version of Tim Hall’s famed Braunschweig Kuirassiers… and they sat part done for over a year! But I finally completed them in November! Just over a year after I started them…

I’ve also worked on a few vignettes and odd figures to use in upcoming skirmish type games.

And finally, I’ve resurrected my 6mm ImagiNation project having sold it all to Paul Bright and then re-acquired it plus lots of extras. After much deliberation I’ve moved everything to 60mm frontage bases. Pete at Baccus was very pleased having berated in the past for choosing 40mm!

Gaming has been a little limited. Again. I managed a couple of AWI games at the Tyneside Club early in the year but then missed Ayton, and then it was summer and holidays and time flew. And I’m crap at getting to my local clubs at the best of times… But November did see another little gathering in Ayton which I managed to attend. I rolled out my 28mm Dark Age stuff to playtest Paul Bright’s new rules, and then dabbled a little with DBN as Alex Testo put on his Eylau refight.

It was a good year for shows though. I made Vapnartak, BOTH Partizans, Border Reiver, and Battleground. I didn’t really buy much at any of them though compared to some years… But prior to attending the May Partizan I lucky enough to be hosted by Dave Hall who apart from providing excellent food and drink put on a small skirmish using his lovely terrain and excellent C17th collection using Legends of the High Seas. It was a fun game, more so because I won after some quote outstanding shooting by my chaps. Most enjoyable evening.

I also had great plans to work on the background for my ImagiNation, complete nice uniform ‘plates’ a la Henry Hyde, and even started creating some counters to use in a campaign… I should really revisit this…

That’s probably about it. Other highlights have been my weekly Zoom sessions with the Virtual Wargames Club. Always fun and inspirational.

I feel like I’ve missed something out but for the life of me can’t think. It’s my age. Or the vodka…

Actually, yes! After sitting with a friend for over three years, the 15mm Macedonian Pikemen I sent him to paint finally came back! I was in no rush for them but it was nice to get them. I did all the basing and started adding a few more. Whether I’ll ever get this to a usable pike army is another matter…

Anyway, hope you’ve all had a great 2023 and it was full of hobby goodness. I shall try and make some plans for 2024 and get those up here soon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!