Taking a cue from the Drunken Samurai Painting blog I thought I would try to lay out a plan for what I want to accomplish around building and painting in 2021. I will hopefully post my actual results next January to see how well I did.
Gaming
I might as well address the elephant in the room first: I am pessimistic about the pandemic lockdown so I am not counting on playing any games at my FLGS before October (if not the end of the year). The best I am hoping for is just a few games at a trusted friend’s house.
If I am lucky we might be able to squeeze in a couple more games in our Kill Team campaign. It would be nice to start our Dragon Rampant campaign also.
Warcry
I played a four player game of Games Workshop’s Warcry in November (the one and only time I have played anything in person since the pandemic lockdown started) and quite enjoyed it. Since I had already painted the Horns of the Briar Queen warband for Underworlds the logical choice for my first Warcry warband were the Nighthaunts.
I will be able to use the Chainrasps from the Underworlds warband in Warcry (although since I am not willing to buy an entire box of Chainrasps just to get a Dreadwarden I will have to proxy him with the Briar Queen). After reading about the faction I decided that the Warcry box for Nighthaunts was a good value so I picked that up in December.
My goal is to get two Myrnmourn Banshees, two Grimghast Reapers and the Extoller of Shyish completed in the first half of the year. Since the Glaivewraiths seem to be overcosted I decided to prime one of them to use for testing a new color scheme that is slightly different rom the Underworlds models.
If I am able to get in a couple of games this year and enjoy this faction I may pick up a box of Spirit Hosts at some point (probably not this year though).
Bolt Action
I had been sitting on a box of Soviet infantry for a couple of years without doing anything with them but last year a friend of mine was selling the starter box at a great price and since I had been wanting to get an Allied tank for What a Tanker it was a no brainer to buy the set since it included a T-34/85.
In December I completed 80% of the first LMG/rifle squad plus a few small supporting pieces like command models and a flamethrower unit. This year my goal is to complete enough models to field a 1000 point list, the only way that will happen is if I include the T-34/85 since it will clock in at around 275 points.
I don’t expect to get in a game of “normal” Bolt Action this year as I am not sure anyone in my group has enough points painted but I would like to get in at least one game using the unofficial Firefight skirmish rules.
Poseidon’s Warriors
Last year some friends painted up ancient naval fleets for Poseidon’s Warriors in 1:1200 scale so I painted up one test model as I thought I might want to build a Rhodian fleet. The test turned out well so I would like to buy the additional 15 or so ships to fill out a complete fleet and get those completed this year.
Of Gods and Mortals
Last year a few people in my local group picked up this game and one of them wrote up rules for additional pantheons beyond what are in the rule book. The game is really intriguing and since it is miniatures-agnostic it should be relatively inexpensive to field an army.
I was interested (as always) in playing a less popular faction so I was looking at the Sumerians, ? Unfortunately it proved a bit harder to find models for the rest of the army relative to more popular armies like the Macedonians so I haven’t bought anything yet.
One of my friends pointed out this really neat stone giant sculpt by Duncan Louca that would work quite well as Anu the sky god:
That led me to another set of Duncan sculpts, a neat set of hags which would work well for Dimme-Kur and Her Sister:
Depending on how this year goes I would like to get a small OGAM army together this year.
Flames of War
I haven’t played this in a couple of years but I did start working on one of my primed Sherman Fireflies this month and just need to apply decals and varnish it. This year I want to finish the other Firefly and the three Sherman Vs as well as the HMG platoon (four stands).
Tanks: the Modern Age
A friend and I each picked up a starter set of this at the end of the year because it was on sale cheap and we were both interested in trying out some modern armor. This is a light “beer & pretzels” version of Team Yankee in some respects but with the low model count buying a full box of TY models is overkill. We swapped sprues so he has four T-64 Soviet tanks and I have two American Abrams. I want to get both done this year but not sure yet if I will model them as the older M1 or the newer IPM1 or the M1A1.
Fallout: Wasteland Warfare
I am not sure when I will get to play this but do want to finish the remaining models from the 2-player starter set (all of which are currently primed): two mutant hounds, a Deathclaw and a Zetan.
40K Kill Team
I have a couple of Plague Marines primed but don’t really need to paint them as I have enough models for a full team plus a sideboard. I would love to start another faction (Adeptus Mechanicum intrigues me) but realistically with everything else I have lined up it won’t happen this year.
Miscellaneous
I always like to have a few palette cleansers on deck and will definitely finish at least the two models I just primed: Max Graves (who will make a great Roland Banks for Arkham Horror: the Card Game) and Comet the Chimp.
