December 2024 hobby update

Well here we are another year done.  All in all its been a good one for hobbying. My Ovelist updates with summaries of the year for gaming and doing can be seen here and here respectively.  Let's hope 2025 is a good year in all ways for all of us.

Completed

There was a few things I really wanted to get finished before the end of the year.  Miniatures wise I’ve worked in four scales this month:

  • First of all in 15mm I completed the Cromarty Forge Village Defenders.  This was the last of my 15mm.  Readers will know how much I've enjoyed working on these.  If I had my own 3D printer I'd probably have bought all their STLs and have printed so many figures that they'd never get painted, which is one of the many reasons I won't get my own printer!  

  • Then I rebased a 32mm Sci-Fi figure.  This was one of the figures I completed in the summer, only to discover that the base was skewed and not truly round.  This jarred with my pedantic ways so I rebased her.  
  • In 28mm I completed the last four Victrix Dark Age Archers.  By taking parts from other Victrix sets I made two as Rus and two as late-Romans.  These were my oldest outstanding 28mm (from 2022) so it was good to finally complete them.  
  • And finally I painted a few Heroics & Ros 6mm British Second World War BEF.  I’d bought these as testers to see whether I still could, and also if I still got any pleasure from painting 6mm.  I’m pleased to say I could and I did.  Being so small I did them quite bright so they stand out.  I've yet to base them as I don't know where this will lead, a 6mm Fall Gelb project could well be on the cards.

I also spent a fair bit of time on some other hobby items:
  • I experimented making some quick grass patches.  You can see how here.  
  • I made a load of stamina loss markers for Midgard.  I used micro dice for my inaugural game but loosely based on James Morris shields idea, I used some 10mm round bases to knock up 60 markers.  I added magnets to all of them so they work with the unit bases that I also made this month.
  • Talking of which I made unit bases for Midgard for all of the Early Imperial Roman and Ancient Germans that I’d painted this year.  I'm rather pleased with these, and will try and post an article on how I went about it in January. 

In progress 

Apart from the 15mm Hetzer that's sat on the table for a few months now I haven't got anything else in progress.

Gaming

I had one last objective on my gaming Ovelist, which was to play using my 10mm Punic Wars collection.  I managed to achieve this with a game of Midgard.  The AAR is here.

Ramblings, Reading & Research  

I got a good bit of reading in this month:

  • First of all I read Osprey Men-at-Arms Germany’s French Allies 1941–45.  This was a nice little primer, which covers the French that fought for the Axis throughout the war.  As well as information on how the units were formed, it's got a good synopsis of the operations of the different formations.  This is sometimes missing from a lot of Men-at-Arms titles.  There's some nice colour plates and photos too.  
  • Then I read Hannibal: Enemy of Rome by Ben Kane.  I really enjoyed this.  It's perfect wargamer fodder and looking through the author's notes at the back he's referenced a lot of titles that I instantly recognised.  I've got the second in the trilogy waiting in the reading pile.  
 
  • Finally I read Elric: The Fortress of the Pearl.  In sequence this follows Elric of Melniboné, which I read last month, but it's the most recent novel written about 17 years after the preceding title. It's classic Moorcock, probably more thoughtful and less action-oriented than the original works, but nonetheless a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Incoming and Outgoings

Only a few things incoming this month:

  • Bases and RUB inserts from Warbases.  I managed to ignore Black Friday (month of Sundays more like) but did take advantage of a 10% discount offer from Warbases. 
  • Staying with Warbases I  had the good fortune to be online when news came up that they were selling off rules.  I was chuffed to acquire two items I'd  long converted - a hard copy of I Ain't Been Shot Mum (it's been PDF only for years) and a copy of Jon Hodgson's backdrops book at half price.  I also got some more bases.
  • My final purchase was December's copy of Wargames Illustrated.  This issue has a Midgard article from James Morris, a painting article from Paul McKay and a sprue of Warlord Games Winter Fallschirmjäger, so was well worth buying.  I'd stopped my WI Prime subscription at the start of the year as I just wasn't reading them, but it's far nicer to have it in a physical form.  It's a lot thinner than I remember it, which is something that obviously passes you by when getting it in PDF .  I stopped my physical subscription in the Duncan McFarlane era (money paid no binder provided typical DF) and space wise it was the right decision but I do like the physical magazine. 
  • And finally Santa in the form of my better half came up trumps with a couple of Osprey titles.  First of all Jamestown, one of the Campaign series, and a copy of the Rebels and Patriots rules.  The early settler era has long fascinated me, I've had some figures painted up for ages but never had  enough to game with  Having this title will hopefully resurrect this project.  Rebels and Patriots completes my collection of the Rampant series of rules.  I have to confess I've never actually played any but maybe this year?

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