Review of 2013

I continued the good progress made in the first half so overall it was a very good year for output.

Looking at my performance against my 2013 plan:

Main projects

• • Make a medieval Burgundian/German force – completed except for some command stands.
• • Sort out the assorted Saracens so I can use Hail Caesar for Crusades games – core army now finished
• • A Jacobite army, mainly of Highlanders, but including some of the possible French reinforcements – completed the readily available figures, but I need to buy the Redbox figures to complete it.

Possible projects

• • Upgrade my WW2 Americans – if rumours are correct The Plastic Soldier Company will be releasing Americans this year, so it would fit in with a clear out and general tidy up of my US forces for North West Europe. – US Infantry are out, still waiting for the heavy weapons before getting started. – this will become a 2014 project.

Other activities

• • Complete the last bits of the British/US Airborne. – all done.
• • Tidy up the last bits of the DAK/8th Army – done, but I’ve still got bits and pieces still to do, mainly vehicles.
• • Late French armée d’orient (trying to make a few French demi-brigades with pretty uniforms and pouffes sound posh) – Four infantry units completed, just need some officers and guns now, but I’ll probably get another box of Strelets to make some light infantry
• • German/Italian/Hungarian forces for “Stalingrad” Eastern front winter game. – not even started
• • Try and play some large 1813 period Napoleonic games, especially as my armies were originally organised for this and this is the bi-centennial. – I played Lutzen and Leipzig, and would have liked to do either Bautzen and Dresden, but the opportunity did not present itself.
• • Attempt to rationalise the stash again - watch my trading lists. – Very slow progress and acquiring a modeller’s heap didn’t help. Started with 7,007 items and ended with 6,288 so not a credible performance, a bit over 700 reduction (10%).

Painting
Splendid output this year 1,794 items painted more than the 1,550 for last year, but as always it’s affected by the mix, particularly this year as there is a higher proportion of rebasing.
By period:

WW2	854
Medieval	395
Napoleonic	230
SYW (Lace wars)	176
Revolution	88
Colonial	49
Terrain	23
Ancient	19
WW1	8
Modern	4

• So WW2 continues to dominate, but this includes a high proportion of rebasing. The main effort was on completion of the DAK and other bits for the SOTCW Tunisia game at Gauntlet and then preparation for the D-Day+6 game
• Medievals covers the work on Burgundians and Saracens
• Then there are the Jacobites under SYW that took a fair piece of effort with all the tartan.

By period:

Infantry	871
Rework/Rebase	333
Cavalry	138
Vehicle Riders	105
Gunners	99
Vehicles	48
Tanks/AFVs	35
Artillery guns	30
Commanders	29
Other figures	29
Engineers	25
Terrain	23
Equipment	20
Wagons	5
Horses	4

• Here the extent of the Rebasing/Rework is obvious, it was all WW2 with the exception of a few Napoleonic Generals
• There are a couple of new categories to help me keep track - "Commanders" to ensure I separate out sufficient figures for these at the planning stage and "Other figures" to cover casualry bases and other non-combatant figures

Enough of the old year - on to the new