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!

Two Grand Manner Napoleonic Houses Completed

After languishing in the pile for nearly fifteen years, I have finally got around to completing the first of many Grand Manner buildings I have accumulated:

This post should probably have been titled 'How to Disappear Down a Rabbit Hole' as I hadn't intended to make a start on them yet. A few weeks ago I started work on some 15mm Najewitz Modellbau 3D printed terrain; a rather nice Spanish town with eight buildings sitting on a sculpted base which I thought we were going to need for a game. 

I completed the buildings but the base is made up of twelve individual pieces and I realised that I would need to affix them to a large MDF base. 

I purchase all my MDF bases from a guy in Adelaide who offers free postage on orders of $75 or more. I then remembered I have a rather nice 28mm Medieval stone church with graveyard which I had purchased from Grand Manner ten or so years ago and which would also require an MDF base.

Thinking that this and a few other odds and ends would be good to get me above the required $75 I then set about trying to locate the church so I could measure the required footprint.

The problem is that I must have purchased over seventy buildings from Grand Manner and they are all in their original dense packing spread across five very large boxes, so I spent a few hours cutting my way through bubble wrap only to find I had now unpacked ten buildings from their Napoleonic Europe range. There was no way I was going to repack them again so I thought I may as well make a start.

The first of these is called a Lindenau house, modelled after one in the Leipzig area. This is I believe actually the rear of the house:

While this is the front and side:

The houses all have lift-off roofs with, in this case, two levels of interior. Perfect for skirmish gaming, but I debated whether it was worthwhile going to the effort to paint it and if I should just glue the roof in place. In the end I decided that since it was there I may as well put in a bit of additional effort:

All up, I estimate this model took me over twenty-four hours to paint, mainly because it was my first attempt at these and there was a fair bit of trial and error.

The second house is styled after a Holzhausen cottage, from the village to the south of Leipzig:

I was a bit quicker on this one, although it still took me around twenty hours or so:

These models are two of the smaller pieces and cost me around £50 each to purchase in the raw resin. They were however destined to become available only as painted models as the owner transformed his business into more of a painting service, and the cost for each was then around £240 when painted to a collectors standard. 

After painting them myself and given the detail I can see why, which makes me think the price that Mark of 1866 and All That is charging for his works of art is an absolute bargain. 

All the Grand Manner terrain is now sadly out of production, so I am glad I scooped up what I could even if it means they have been sitting untouched for over a decade:

I again painted up the interior, albeit doing a much quicker job on it:

That then is my first two pieces of Grand Manner terrain completed:

I have another ten or so of these central European buildings to go, plus a dozen or so Eastern European and the same number of Spanish buildings ahead of me. I also have a fair bit of Thirty Years war, WWII and Ancients to plough my way through, but they are such nice models each with their own individual character, that I am looking forward to it.

Speaking of terrain and storage, I finally cleared out one of our spare rooms, set up some shelving and moved some of my storage boxes with completed armies in:

This has freed up more space in my painting and storage room. I took the opportunity to also move in my long-unused table tennis table and throw a bit of terrain on it to try the area out for space:

Not much room either side and certainly not conducive to comfortable gaming, but it should be good for a few solo games at least. I have to admit I don't relish the idea of solo gaming as much as I do playing against a live opponent, but once the last of my AWI Continentals are finished I'll try out a game or two of British Grenadier.

I just need to stop any further distractions until I have finished the last ten staff figures. I still haven't found that church though.