A Few Bumps... and Counters

Yes, it seems that I've hit a few bumps in the road.  I was checking the statis of my Russian infantry order for Barbarossa earlier this week, when I realized that four packs of figs are missing from the order.  They were there when I was putting the order together.  Somehow, I must have deleted them, before placing it.  I must have check through it a half dozen times, and just can't get over making the error.  So I'm still five-plus weeks from getting all of those trays of infantry stands off of my painting table. A total bummer.

Painting progress on vehicles was moving along smoothly, until yesterday morning, when I ran out of my "Russian" green.  Would have finished up the last of 44 T35s, BT-7s and T-60s.  Turned out that my back-up bottle was a mostly used bottle.

No problem, off to the hobby shop, right?  Yeah, so now we are back to the shop not being able to get restocks of paint in.  This started before covid, and is still going on.  So off to the big city to Hobby Lobby.  Same deal.  Not in stock.  Been this way with them as well, as I tried to pick up an extra bottle a couple of times int he last two months. No dice.

Yeah, I know, internet, plus a week or two and $6.95 shipping will yield a bottle of paint.  I miss the good old days, when things were sold at stores.

Soooo, I cleared the miniature painting "fallout" that had collected on the game table from all of the painting, and started setting up terrain for a game.  Figured I'd play a game today.  Then got the text from work, that the test I was notified about on Thursday, is now due on Monday.  I was already scheduled out of the office friday, so now I have to go in today and build the test fixture.  No game.

Oh well, all is not lost.  I made use of the time yesterday and completed counter sheets for the Soviets for the Barbarossa campaign.  I had finished the Germans earlier in the week.  The Germans are done for the initial setup, and Soviets for the set-up and first few turns, minus the militia formations.  Here are some pics:

The counters just identify the units; they don't have any combat stats on them.  And the unit numbers are completely arbitrary, there are no historical unit numbers.  They are just for the Barbarossa bathtub campaign.  I've deviated from the original "Barbarossa 25" TO&Es, using several different Soviet Tank brigade TO&Es, and some different German formations as well.  

Also, the cavalry formations are missing, as I don't have figs for battalion sized cav formations, and don't want to paint a bazillion horses.  Not sure if they will be omitted, represented by smaller formations (maybe Cavalry Squadrons), or repalced with motorized infantry or something.

The counters will be used on the Europa map for strategic movement and to decide who fights where.  Generally, there are counters for all division, brigade, and battalion sized formations, as well as, some company and platoon sized supporting units from the larger formations. 

I'll still need to add counters for reinforcements once the game starts, but this is the majority of the beast.  A little progress amongst the bumps.

Hopefully see you again next weekend.

Great Weekends, Tiring Weekdays

The last couple of weekends have been very productive.  I finished painting 62 stands of 6mm Soviet infantry; assembled and primed 103 6mm Soviet, German, and French vehicles; got paint on about 70 of those vehicles, and got 2x 15mm and 6x 6mm Cold War jets to the decal stage two weekends back.

I added in maybe 18 "straggler" vehicles, later stuff that won't be seen in Barbarossa, just odds and ends that still needed paint, and this past weekend saw me complete 57x 6mm Russian vehicles and 4x German.  Not as dynamic as the weekend before, but not bad productivity, even if most were just solid greens or grays with some mud and dust.

6mm WWII Soviet infantry, 6mm CF-100, F-86s, and Hunters, 

a 15mm Hunter and Venom...

... and 6mm WWII German and Soviet vehicles, 

in various stages of paint at the time of the photos.

I could have, and probably should have played a game this past weekend, but I'm still hyped up on how fast the Barbarossa progress has gone, and just wanted to keep it going as long as the mojo flows.

I've got the second round of Soviet infantry ordered and in route, as well as some reinforcement for the Soviets, more "BT" series and other light tanks mostly, so those will hit the painting table soon.  Probably could have lived without the extra tanks, but decided to round out some extra units, just in case my battles get bigger than originally anticipated.

Otherwise, I need to paint some of the aircraft and need to order a few buildings to paint, and 6mm barbrossa will be done.

At some point, I will be picking up a large order of 15mm resin Russian Tanks from Gaming Models, will need to paint a half dozen Russian planes and add a few buildings to wrap up the 15mm side of Barbarossa.

Over these last couple of weekends, the weekdays have been in tremendous contrast to the weekends, with the weekdays filled with work and life stuff, and by the time I'm done with the "have to" things, I'm burnt out.  Can hardly keep my eyes open, let alone paint a miniature.  So nothing "hobby" is getting done during the week.  Even my forum and bog reading time is way down.

On a side note, I've been blowing through a lot of old paints, mostly colors for weathering that I've been using for decades.  I used up or found dried out, about 15 bottles in the past two weeks.  It saddens me to see my supply of Polly S, Polly Scale, ModelMaster, and old Pactra Military colors go away.  And my weathering has gotten outright crude in some instances, as I work through new paints, colors, mixes, and brushes to find my way again.  At least my painting table is gaining a little space.

That's it for now.  Until next time, be safe and stay well.

Four Months in: "The Plan"

As readers may know, I keep a list of miniatures gaming projects noting the status of projects with a list of steps and check boxes for each.  I find that this process helps me stay motivated and organize the many projects on the list (currently numbering about 240).

Last September, I posted about a plan to help me complete projects and play more games. I chose ten of the thirty-some periods/genres/settings in which I want to game. Those "periods" are:

1/3788 scale Star Trek

6mm 1950s Cold War

6mm WWII East Front Barbarossa

15mm East Front Barbarossa

15mm france 1940

15mm Cold War 1958

15mm Cold War 1970s

15mm Soviet-Afghan War

20mm Vietnam

28mm Post Apocalypse

The plan actually went into effect during the first weekend of last November, and after four months, has gone pretty well, with the recent 15mm African buildings project being my only straying from the plan (though made it possible to set up today's game).  Some of the periods have seen little attention, while others have progressed tremendously.  The following is a brief summary of the four months of progress.

One of the more neglected projects,  1/3788 scale Trar Trek, the only progress has been to pick up three USS Reliant models to use as New Light Cruisers with Star Fleet Battles rules.

6mm 1950s Cold War has a seen a bit more progress, including the completion of Russian and British support and engineering vehicles, 15 feet of railroad tracks, painted aircraft, and 24 buildings.

The campaign rules are finished for 6mm WWII East Front Barbarossa.  I've purchased most of the missing vehicles, and have the Russian infantry in process. 

For 15mm East Front Barbarossa, progress is more limited, but includes having the campaign rules completed, picking up some 1/144 aircraft for the Soviets, and having ordered a bunch of 15mm Soviet vehicles.

I expect that 15mm 1940 France would have been the WWII project to advance the most, but all I've managed to do is fumble around with campaign structure ideas, not settling on anything yet.

15mm Cold War 1958 has seen notable work, having painted a batch of vehicles, including JS-IIIs, Conquerors, and other assorted vehicles.  I also completed a company of  British Cold War infantry, purchased some aircraft, and have a painted Venom awaiting decals.

The 15mm Soviet Afghan War has mostly seen research and design work for various field fortifications, a Hill system, roads, walls, gardens, and wells.  I completed a couple of small field fortifications, and roughed out some ideas for a small campaign.

My 20mm Vietnam rules rules got some tweaking, and a new company of PAVN await basing on my paint table.

Lastly,  for 28mm Post Apocalypse, I flocked a few figure bases that had been sitting around since the middle of 2021.

Plus there was the "off list" completion of the Afican houses for 15mm Imagi-Africa.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the progress.  The plan seems to be more or less working, with three of the periods on the list of ten being very near "complete".  I can now play games with 15mm Cold War 1958 forces and 6mm Barbarossa figs, which I could not last November.  And 15mm Barbarossa is almost to that state.  I'm guessing that by the end of the year, only three of the periods will still be on the plan list.