Review of 2017 - toys and projects

Most of my painting output in the past year has been 1/32 scale figures - a trend I expect to continue.  Having the Leipzig game in late September provided some (much needed!) focus and I was able to add fair numbers of Austrians and Russians....

Hungarian infantry regiment

...together with oddities like the CTS North Koreans.

I also bought - on impulse - a collection of 18th Century figures from a follow blogger across at Portland Little Wars.  Added to the few figures I had already painted for this era these chaps give me a pair of decent-sized armies.

 The whole collection as purchased

Rebasing under way!

I also built and refurbished more 1/72 aircraft - mostly for Little Cold Wars games...

...and the 2mm figures were revisited and tarted up for use with the new Command & Colours AWI game.

In other news, I have begun work on the follow-up to Little Cold Wars and the playtesting will drive a few games over the coming months.

Sea Hawk - part 4

It's complete at last!  Behold the mighty Sea Hawk resplendent in it's rather striking yellow & black Suez campaign stripes.

 

See - it even flies!

dh Venom

This has just clawed its way out of the Partizan ‘plane purchase pile. Of a similar era to the Canberra and Sea Hawk seen here recently I think this is a Venom rather than the earlier Vampire. I’m not sure of the kit manufacturer, though for reasons unknown I want to say Frog. I might add to the markings later as looks a bit bare. Any thoughts?

Sea Hawk - part 3

With the basic paintwork complete it's on now to the yellow and black Suez invasion stripes.  What could go wrong?

Having masked the outer border it was on with the yellow paint.  Many many coats thereof.

Trust me, it didn't look this good in the flesh.

With the yellow dry more masking was applied to facilitate the black stripes.  This didn't go entirely as planned and a fair bit of touching up was required.

Coming next - the 'Hawk in flight!

Canberra in camo

This large lump of plastic has finally clawed it's way out of the Partizan 'plane purchase pile.  I've never previously owned a Canberra in anything other than 1/300 scale but a Canberra is a thing of beauty in any scale.Which is lucky as I have another one...

No idea what make the kit is - though I remember Frog made such a thing.  It does look a bit tatty but that rather adds to it's charm in my eyes.

Review of 2017 - games

Though my recording of them has been rather haphazard, the number and variety of games played during 2017 lived up to the eclectic standards we have come to expect.

Highlights included the 54mm Leipzig game,  the Kakstadt Gap game and it's sequel.  On average I managed a game a week.

Hordes of Austrians at Leipzig

Games took place in at least eight periods:
Ancients
Medieval
AWI
Napoleonic
Wild West
Great War
WW2
Korean War
Cold War

NATO airstrike at Kakstadt

... eight genres:
toy soldier games
air games
naval games
card games
board games
committee games
multi-location games
lawn games

Awfully amateurish Agincourt at COW2017

...and seven scales:
2mm
6mm
15mm
20mm
25mm
54mm
1/1200

Xmas books

Not a bad haul this year.  The two fiction (below) I was after as I've read and enjoyed other books by this author.  The Cambrai book may relate to a battlefield visit and'or game while the rather scholarly tome will yield more information on a country I visited three times in 2017 and want to know more about.

How did you do by comparison?