January 2024 hobby update

It's been a very busy month all round, and the hobby front has been no exception.  Therefore, this is quite a lengthy update. 

Completed

I completed the following this month:

• Verrotwood Cultists.  I really enjoyed doing these, you can see more here including the concept of the Cult.

• 20mm Second World War Late-War Grenadiers.  There's more of them here.  

• While doing the above I gave some attention to the rest of my late war winter Eastern Front forces  I've touched up the paintwork where needed and added more texture to the bases of both the Germans and Red Army platoons.  

20mm Red Army and Waffen SS

• I've also weathered and thereby finally completed one of a pair of Jagdpanzer 38s that I built about 20 years ago.  At the time I gave them a very basic finish with the information readily and freely  available being a fraction of what it is now.  I've only done the one as I want to add camo to the other before weathering. 

In progress

• Victrix Unarmoured Late-Romans.  Like the batch I completed last month, these six are completed apart from the shields.  

• I've spent a fair bit of my hobby time cleaning up and fiddling about with bits of grey plastic.  I'm quite sick of it if I'm honest and it's given me a new appreciation for one piece figures.  I've been working on:
• Verrotwood Cultists.  I've started on my second cult to battle the Wisentii.  This has given me a use for the Frostgrave Wizards frame I got free when I bought A War Transformed from North Star, so it wasn't a completely wasted purchase then. 😁
• 28mm Second World War German infantry.  I've assembled a sprue of Warlord Games Afrika Korps and half a sprue of German Grenadiers that I  got free at Salute.  I'm doing these as SS/security troops for my partisan games.  
• Dark Age Archers.  I'm down to the last few sprues of these Victrix models and I'm trying to work out how best to use them for the late-Romans and Norse forces that I've been building from them.
• I've repainted some of the rubble terrain I made a few years back and of course when you look at your terrain you realise it's never enough so I started on some more.

Ramblings, Reading & Research  

The Second World War has been my main focus this month.  If I had to choose one period it would be this conflict without question.  Being of the Airfix and Action Man generation, I honestly can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in it.  With an older brother and growing up in the 70s , "THE  War" as the adults referred to it, loomed large in their lives and consequently mine.  There was no ban on playing with war-related toys in my childhood, it was positively encouraged.  

I started wargaming the period in the early '80s using 1/300th, but currently I have forces in 15, 20 and 28mm scales across myriad theatres and campaigns.  I've been looking at the collection and mulling over whether to move on the lesser used bits and how to ratify the collection. 

My non-fiction reading this month has also been all Second World War.  I've been rereading selected parts of "In the Firestorm of the Last Years of the War" which is the history of the IInd. SS Panzer Corps.  I say selected as I didn't read the Normandy and Market Garden sections.  I’ve read plenty about these campaigns in the past and my brain is overloaded with project ideas as it is!  I've been particularly interested in the 10th SS Panzer Division's actions in Germany and then on the Eastern Front at the real tail end of the war.  They were in the real shit shows that don't get the focus they should. 

I also read about a third of "The Korsun Pocket".  It was then I realised that I’d read it before!  I know what happens so decided to spend my time reading something else.  That something else was Osprey Campaign "The Balkans 1940-41 (2)" which was my only purchase of the month and is covered below.     

I’ve also spent a fair bit of time reading Chain of Command and comparing it with Bolt Action and Battlegroup.  I hope to start playing some games next month. 

Incoming 

I’ve been very restrained/sensible again this month.  "It's my second month without any miniatures purchased", which sounds similar to what an alcoholic might say at a meeting 😂. I suppose it’s a bit like that.  I almost slipped off the wagon a couple of times with that old chestnut of “I’ll just buy a few samples” but sense and bitter experience prevailed.  I’ve been down that road too many times and inevitably it ends up on eBay, which is a waste of time and money.  

I watched a very good YouTube video on the excellent Table Top Minions site about this (here) and at the moment there’s no pleasure for me to be had by adding more things to the pile.  I'm happy to be working through the outstanding stuff and revisiting and improving some of my early work.  I want to get to the stage I was at a few years ago, when I could buy some figures and they'd be done and ready to use within a couple of months or so rather than the year or more that's the current state of play.  

I'm still on my quest for the perfect small scale larger scope game and that's the only new project I can see myself doing in the near future.

As mentioned above my only purchase has been: 

• Osprey Campaign The Balkans 1940-41 (2).  I picked this up for a decent price off eBay.  This is a typical Osprey Campaign.  It gives an overview of the actions, there are some nice photos, maps and illustrations and it’s a good starting point for further study.