Thoughts and Observations, Old and New

I guess this is my annual review post, though maybe a little less to the point than in other years.

The Old

Looking back over 2019, I spent a lot of time not getting much done.  It started out well enough, with a surge of post apoc games, but I got caught up in casting early in the year, and then CinC's pseudo-closing launched my 6mm Cold War project prematurely, and that was pretty much the year.

I bought and painted a ton of Cold War hardware, and researched my brains out, trying to set up the OBs and TO&Es for my target Cold War hot dates.  The project consumed 90 percent of the gaming time through the year, but has yet to yield a game.  It did result in  a mix of much factual data, a little frustration, and the realization that I will have more fiction than originally intended in my earlier 1950s and 1960s Cold War games.

One thing that came out of all my research was the realization that my 1958 games will be set around a scenario very different from the originally anticipated traditional onslaught of the red tide.  Not sure exactly how it will manifest yet, but WWIII in 1958 is going to look different than my pre-conceived notions had lead me to believe.  Researching the Cold War has been an absolute blast though.  A strangely nostalgic journey, very eye opening at times, and really, changing my world view a bit.

I finally got 6mm Imagi-Africa rolling, but it took a year or more to do a couple of month's work, so the real calendar continues to pass faster than the game calendar, which is kind of backwards.  The game has taken on a somewhat different personality than I originally expected, which is cool, but has resulted in more time adding miniatures and terrain, and less time playing than I had intended.

Otherwise, our Star Fleet Battles campaign is still creeping along, very enjoyable, just not as frequent as we would like.  I still can't figure out how to force the Hydrans to fight a proper fight with my Lyrans, and stick around long enough to take real losses.  Probably the most curious thing, is how tactical victories have shown themselves to often be strategic losses, and how often we both seem to feel that the other side has won a given battle.

Maybe the biggest single take away from the last year was that I just didn't find time to play nearly as often as I thought that I would.  I've really got to change that. 


The New

I want to get my post-apoc gaming going as an intermittent thing between the larger campaigns, but I need to finish more bits to make that happen, and just keep getting interrupted, running out of supplies at the most in-opportune times, and most recently brought to a screeching halt by one of the cats. 

I discovered a couple of days ago, that one of the cats got downstairs on my table, knocked over my paint water, and then stepped on my still wet pallet from applying a wash on my post-apoc diner.  The result was a chaotic spread of dark brown feline footprints all over my table and supplies that were setting about, and the diner model itself.  The diner was about 80 percent painted, now it is about 10 percent painted.  Could have been a lot worse, and only the second time in 25 years that something like this happened.

Anyway, I need to get a few buildings done, and a couple more factions completed, and things should start rolling again.

The Cold War will roll forward.  My wife got me a number of 6mm miniatures to fill in some gaps in vehicles and buildings for Christmas.  The buildings in particular will help me to address my biggest shortage, which is the terrain for Cold War Germany.

I've been getting the bug to do some WWII gaming as well, and think I will squeeze in some 1940 stuff this year.  This should involve mostly playing, as opposed to building.  Going to have to clean some dust off of some stuff though.

SFB and imagi-Africa campaigns should move along more smoothly.  I might add a few Klingon ship models to facilitate a few more miniatures games there, and may need to add the occasional bit to Africa, but don't see a lot of building in the nearer term for that campaign either.

No doubt many periods will continue to be neglected in 2020; colonials, fantasy, Vietnam, Soviet-Afghan, Arab-Israeli, etc.  My palet just fancies too many flavors.  I do think that my near-future/alien invasion project may get off the shelf later in the year.  We'll see, but I've been itching to paint my "grays" for some time, and have a lovely idea for their conveyance, such that they might pay Earth a visit.  They will no doubt come in peace.

My first scheduled game is in a couple of weeks with an old friend.  We'll be playing a 15mm Cold War battle  set about 1978.  We'll see how it goes.  

As always, big plans, too little time.  Hope everybody had a great 2019, and has an even better 2020.