Happy New Year 2024/2025

 Happy New Year, where did 2024 go? It's been a busy year, both hobby and otherwise.

First up, last year in numbers. I managed to paint

• 181 infantry
• 63 cavalry
• 3 Bigger beasties
• 2 tiny ones
• 17 objectives and general scatter terrain
• 1 bigger piece of terrain
• 4 markers

Thus beating my stated goal of 240 models, with some margin (and a decent portion of those models were cavalry, which really should count for 2...). So how did the projects I had intended go? Well...

The French ran into a bit of a blockage, and I will have to pick them up once SAGA Age of Chivalry has finally arrived (tentative release: 12th of January), when I can take a look and figure out what they want for figures. (Still, I have painted almost all the figures I had assembled, so I count that as a win).

The Undead got down-prioritized, but still managed to acquire a decent start with 4 SAGA points worth of resurrected bodies (3 points of Warriors and 1 point of Mindless, the Undead special Levies). Not too bad, should get a decent speed going once things clear up.

The English got a severe case of feature creep, and are nominally not finished. But the only things missing are 12 infantrymen (Warriors, styled as Burgundian allies... that I need to figure out some good heraldry for) and 6 Mounted Knights. They already have 48 Archers (so I can run them as pure archers for SAGA) and 15 Men-at-Arms, as well as the Warlord, so are more than ready for play.

 The Italo-Normans are... not quite finished, but I've got 7 points and a Warlord ready, so once again, ready for play. The only thing missing is more ranged units (both Bows and Crossbows, for when they substitute in as Crusaders of Spanish), and a few armored infantry (just in case). Still, that's 33 figures in total. Thankfully, I found a good way to paint them that's fairly quick...

Also, they were finished as the Warband Challenge for SAGA Thorsday (excellent youtube-channel and SAGA community), so got painted as 1 point per month. With that done (and nailed), the last ones can hopefully be done in rapid succession.

 As for everything else... there were some big things (a Mammoth mech for Archon Studios, and a Slann from Games Workshop).

Some individual things (Ching Shih and Julie d'Aubigny, community miniatures from Bad Squiddo Games)

And even some uniformed things (after I had listened too much to Sabatons Field of Verdun) (Wargames Atlantic French Infantry)

 All in all, not bad, and I managed to avoid stalling out by switching around what I was painting.

 Now then, that was 2024. What forf 2025?

First up, no definite limit on how many minis I'm going to paint. Instead, I have plans to paint things that do not divy up into individual minis like that, in smaller scales (13.5mm Epic Hail Caesar, with 10-20 figures to a stand, for example, or Warmaster in 10mm, with 8-10). I also have many more larger models that I want to get to, and they obviously take longer than a single 28mm human (that Slann took forever...).

But of course, there are a few projects I intend to get to.

First up, the 4 from last year, since they're not quite finished: English and French for the 100 Years War, Undead, and Italo-Normans. Two of those should be fairly rapid, at least. The Undead have a dragon that I'm not sure quite how to paint...

Then, expand my actual SAGA collection into new ages with Saxons (for Age of Invasions) and the Teutonic Order (for Crusades), since they recently got a nice buff in the new FAQ... the Saxons should be easy and fast, but the Teutons... not so much (with all options, I'm going to need more than 100 models... I'll try to deal with them one unit at a time, and get them game-ready ASAP). Possibly, I'll also sneak in some Irish, once again on the theory that they "should be quick to paint".

 Outside of SAGA, there's some opponents for those Frenchmen (I've also been listening to Sabatons Stormtroopers...). Dead Mans Hand is a recurring game at the club during the summers, so at least one gang of cowboys (or close enough) seems appropriate. And the Pirate gene is itching again, so I might get to expanding my Blood & Plunder collection some more (just need to pressgang some people to play with). And somehow, I accidentally acquired some models for Flames of War, and the flame for it almost rekindled. We'll see what happens if those manage to get some paint.

And of course, there's going to be plenty of random and semi-random minis sprinkled throughout. I have some ideas for following more artsy theme-months (such as Smaugust, painting a dragon for August). We'll see how that works out.

Once again, Happy New Year.

/Fool, Out