2025 Retrospective

The last calendar year has been one of the more enjoyable from a hobby perspective, at least since the late 70's and early 80's when the world was still young and full of possibility. 

Painting

From a painting perspective I managed to finish my AWI British with the last of the Hessians:

This allowed me to make a start on an AWI Continental Army in February, completing it in August; exclusively Perry from memory and comprised of 498 foot and mounted figures, 28 horses and 6 artillery pieces:

Unfortunately none of my AWI figures have seen the table yet, but that will hopefully be rectified in 2026 with at least a few games of Sharpe Practice and/or Rebels and Patriots. 

I then managed to squeeze in a bit of terrain in the form of some Najewitz Modellbau 15mm Spanish villas (more of this to come in 2026 as they are part of a Spanish village set), and some 28mm Grand Manner Napoleonic European terrain:

The latter is a source of particular embarassment as they really are lovely pieces but have been languishing in my pile for over ten years. I have at least seventy of them, so I immediately became enthused and primed a couple of dozen, only to have barely laid a brush on them since.

The last four months of 2025 saw me turn to what I shall always think of as my 'Arab Spring', with the completion of a 15mm Ghaznavid army:

Closely followed by a Daylami Dynasty army:

Thankfully both these armies have seen a game each, although both have lost. The curse of the new army? 

Perhaps, although both results were quite close and, in the case of the Ghaznavids at least, but for two rounds of appalling dice throwing on my part they probably should have won. Fun games both.

Apart from a dozen or so buildings and artillery pieces then, the final tally for 2025 is 1356 figures in total comprised of 1161 foot and mounted figures, 187 horses and 8 elephants. 

Not a bad effort and I feel quite happy with this result, especially as a fair chunk were 28mm figures.

Gaming

My gaming revolves around two hour or so sessions on every second Monday night with my friend Dale, and fortnightly Saturday Ancients DBMM group games. I would estimate that this equates to forty gaming sessions during the year, so I'm certainly not starved for table time.

The main difference however is that the DBMM games are always begun and concluded on the Saturday with most taking around three hours or thereabouts, so that is around twenty DBMM games completed in total. 

The Monday night games however span everything from WWII Naval through Napoleonics to a Midgard 28mm Dark Ages game we are currently planning, which gives me the variety I enjoy. Some games, such as General d'Armee, can span many evenings so I would estimate we have probably only played eight or so discreet games during 2025.

All up then, probably around 28 games during the year, and if I could remember to take  photos and write up a few more AARs that I so enjoy seeing on other people's blogs I would have had the definitive number.

Possibly the big realisation for 2025 is that I don't really enjoy solo gaming. 

Having finally laid claim to a gaming room I didn't actually get around to using it and have now had to surrender the downstairs to one of our expectant children, who has moved in with her husband and twin infants. 

I of course made the appropriate noises of complaint as I moved the shelving and completed armies back to my painting/hobby room, but have accumulated considerable goodwill toward my real aim which is to construct a purpose-built air-conditioned detached room either in the backyard here, or the next house if and we decide to move.

Purchases

I don't really want to think about these. The usual impulse buys of several gaming mats from Lithuania, a 15mm WWII US tank division which I will probably never get to, Mirliton Renaissance Swiss and Burgundian armies etc. etc. 

The purchases have definitely gone down dramatically from ten or so years ago but I can't resist the new and shiny, usually as result of something I have seen on another blog. 

I like to research and complete projects in one go as much as possible, which is presumably why the more recent purchases are still top of mind and are invariably completed ahead of much older ones, for which the enthusiasm has to be rekindled.

Projects for 2026

First off will be the completion of an Arab Conquest army, scheduled to make an appearance against some Norse Irish a week on Saturday. 

I really don't like such deadlines as I prefer to paint at my own pace, but I do seem to have made some progress over the past few days and have today just completed another thirty-nine cavalry.

Beyond that, I have some 15mm dark ages Welsh in mind and will then return to my badly stalled ECW project to complete the cavalry and dragoons. 

I'd also like to complete the 20 or so Foundry French artillery pieces I have had on my desk for the past three years, if only because it would then allow me to field a full 28mm French Napoleonic army against my already completed 28mm Spanish and Portuguese armies.

For which I'll need to build the wargaming room in the backyard, of course.

Happy 2026 everyone!

AWI Continental Staff and Townspeople

After seventeen months I have finally completed the last of my AWI figures with ten Continental staff and camp, and eight townspeople. The staff are a mixture of Perry and Front Rank to provide a but more variety, even though the Front Rank figures appear much better fed alongside their Perry counterparts:

I have ended up with two George Washingtons, one of them the Perry figure which comes with three boxes of plastic Continentals, and the other a more solid Front Rank figure:

Rather annoyingly, I have also ended up with two Benedict Arnold figures and three instead of the four Front Rank ADC figures I actually ordered, but I suppose he did switch sides so I can potentially field both of them:

Here are the remainder of the Front Rank ADCs:

And some Perry mounted officers:

I individually based some leftover foot figures in the hope they might come in useful in a few Sharp Practice games:

I also completed some Perry AWI civilians, an interesting mix of figures:

And a camp vignette:

The final count for the project came out as:

British:    595 foot and mounted figures

                60 horses

                11 artillery pieces

Hessians: 179 foot and mounted figures

                3 horses

                2 artillery pieces

Continentals:    498 foot and mounted figures

                          28 horses

                          6 artillery pieces

All up, 1272 foot and mounted figures, 91 horses, 19 artillery pieces and 8 wagons. Now to get them on to the table for a few solo games of British Grenadier, hopefully followed by some Monday evening Sharp Practice games.

AWI Continental Light Dragoons

While I ended up doing four regiments of cavalry for the British I calculated that two of nine figures each should be enough for my Continental army, so I settled on the 2nd and 3rd light dragoons:

The 2nd light dragoons or Sheldon's horse, named after their colonel Elisha Sheldon, were an accomplished regiment, detachments of which also formed part of Washington's bodyguard:

As with the 3rd dragoons, these Perry figures are one-piece castings with the horse and rider being single sculpts, although they all come with a choice of several arms which allows for quite a variation in pose and armaments:

It surprised me a little to find that the trumpeters were in reversed colours and I wondered how long that remained the case in practice, but it does make for a nice variation in uniform:

The flag is from GMB and sets off the command stand nicely:

An option for one of the figures is an arm brandishing a pistol which I think is my favourite pose:

The 3rd dragoons or Baylor's horse are almost the opposite in terms of uniform to the 2nd, so complement them nicely:

The trumpeter is again in reversed colours. If research ever discloses that this was not actually the case in practice, I suppose I can simply swap them between regiments...

Another GMB flag for the command stand:

That is the Continental cavalry now completed:

This just leaves ten Continental staff figures, which are currently on the painting table, and a dozen or so civilians to go before my AWI project is completed.

I have however managed to get slightly distracted along the way with some terrain pieces. I hope to have the second of these completed this week, and then it will be back to the final push to complete George Washington and his staff.

AWI Continental Artillery

The completion of six Continental artillery pieces over the weekend means I now only have two regiments of light dragoons, ten or so staff figures and a few sundry civilians ahead of me. The artillery is comprised of four 6 pounders and two 3 pounder pieces:

The 6 pounders have two different crews, one firing:

And the other aiming:

The 3 pounder or 'butterfly' guns also had an option for crew dressed in hunting shirts, which makes a nice variation alongside the regular uniforms:

I also completed some dragrope men on individual bases, to accommodate the rather strange requirement in the Sharp Practice rules to have five figures per gun rather than the more usual four:

For a slight change of pace I also started work on the Najewitz Modellbau 15mm Peninsular village. This is a large piece comprised of eight buildings and a scenic base. I have purchased quite a lot of Jens Najewitz's pieces over the years, but rather than invest in a 3D printer I bought them from a licensee in Western Australia who closed down several years ago. 

It is only now that I have finally got around to painting the first of them I realised there are a few missing pieces, including the onion dome from a 28mm Borodino church which, aside from painting an actual onion and sticking it on top, knew I was never going to be able to replicate. 

I contacted Jens directly who emailed me the STL files for the parts which I have sent on to a friend from my Saturday group to print. Anyway, here are the first couple of houses and the church from the Peninsular set:

I gave the houses quite a heavy drybrush of antique white although they look a little more yellow here than they do to the naked eye, probably due to the light. The roofs and floors are secured in place by sturdy pegs, to allow figures to be placed inside:

I am a big fan of Jens's designs, and they represent an absolute bargain for anyone with a 3D printer. Next up, the Continental cavalry.

Last of the AWI Continental Foot

The weekend past saw me finish the last three Continental foot units in the form of two more militia regiments, complementing the three militia regiments already completed, and a unit of skirmish figures:

First up is a twenty-eight figure militia unit which I have styled as Hobart's Regiment:

The figures are exactly the same as the other four militia regiments, with six command and six firing line poses which I have again painted in predominantly greys and browns:

The command stand is carrying a white GMB militia flag:

The last militia regiment is the Albany County militia comprised of 22 figures, the smallest of the five:

carrying a red militia flag:

The last Continental foot contingent is a unit of thirty-two skirmishers which can be separated and deployed as needed. These are primarily made up from the two Perry skirmishing riflemen packs but I also threw in a few spare line figures for good measure:

Including a few spare command figures which gave me an excuse to use one of the leftover GMB flags:

The rifle-armed figures are mainly attired in hunting shirts and were comprised of an interesting mix of skirmish poses:

Including a figure with a beard, which makes two bearded figures in total across all three AWI contingents:

There are also two prone poses, one firing and the other reloading, which makes for an interesting variation:

That is another eight-eight figures completed in this batch:

I now only have the artillery, two units of cavalry, some staff figures and a dozen or so sundry civilians to complete. The end of the project is now definitely in sight.