2021 was another year largely disrupted by the continuing COVID crisis. I even caught COVID myself, in early December, and was very under the weather for a few days. Despite that, it’s actually proven to be a bumper year for me wargaming-wise. Here are a few of this year’s highlights.

Gaming

Another great year as far as actual gaming is concerned, with 47 tabletop battles fought. This is actually the highest number of games I’ve ever played in one year, beating last year’s record of 42 games by 12%.

That works out at almost one per week on average, a figure I’m pretty happy with considering I don’t belong to a club and rely on a small circle of good gaming friends to provide opponents.

The main focus was Pike & Shot: 47% or 22 games, with the play-testing for The Siege of Norchester scenario book for For King & Parliament being responsible for fifteen battles.

The moment my Commanding General and a Brigade Commander died in the same combat right at the start of playtesting the Skirmett’s Orchards scenario from “Norchester”. Not my finest hour!

After that, Ancients, with 32% or 15 games, all but one using To The Strongest, with the other being Infamy!

Finally, there were a smattering of Napoleonic (4), 19th Century (3) and WW2 (3) battles.

Interestingly, just about half of them (twenty-three to be exact) were fought remotely using Zoom in the first half of the year when we were all still in lockdown. They were nearly all grid-based games (either TTS or FK&P) as they particularly lend themselves to gaming over the ‘Net.

The gaming table set up for an online session: Marian Romans versus Gauls IIRC.

Not sure that I have a favourite game, but very pleasing was the opportunity to get some of my 19th Century figures back onto the tabletop after over twenty years: see the section on Re-Basing, below, for more.

Painting - Overview

Not a particularly good score in this year’s Painting Challenge but I think this is mostly because I’ve produced very few terrain items compared to previous years. I’ve also been gaming more and, as always, it’s a matter of balancing what free time I have between the painting and the playing. This year felt about right.

Painting - New Armies

Three new armies were started in 2021, all in 15mm.

A long term project, I now have three battalions of 15mm early period French Napoleonic infantry completed. I’m not pushing these particularly: they are a side project for whenever I need a break from painting hordes of something else. The main problem, as ever, is that I am yet to find a set of rules that I like sufficiently enough to inspire me to move Boney’s boys onto the main production line: something else to be rectified in the new year.

AB Figures painted mostly with Contrast paints. Those cockades will be the death of me!

The other two armies are both for the unofficial Eastern European version of For King & Parliament from the Tales From A Wargaming Shed blog, and are connected in as much as I have built a Zaporogian Cossack army with Tatar allies. I would say that this army (or armies, dependent on how you look at it) are just about finished now, or as finished as any wargaming project can ever be!

Amusingly, when I started the army as an opponent for friend Bevan’s Poles (currently on his painting table) I imagined I would be painting hordes of light cavalry, but it turns out that these Cossacks were of the infantry variety not the mounted sort, hence the Tatar allies to provide decent horse. These are the Cossacks that fought on foot from behind war wagons.

I’m sure you’re supposed to do your research before you buy your figures but, in this case, it turned out to be quite fun to do it the other way round: I now know much more than I used to about the Zaps, including the fact that they mostly fought on foot!

Painting - Re-Basing

My 19th Century armies have spent a long time languishing in their boxes, so it was a real pleasure to find a set of rules (Neil Thomas’ Wargaming 19thC Europe 1815-1878) that inspired me enough to get some of them out and have a play.

A couple of games later and I realised that part of what had been preventing me from using them had been the weird basing system I had used when I built the armies some time ago: a consequence of using home-brewed rules based on a cross between Johnny Reb and Trevor Halsall’s 19th Century set.

With more 19thC games on the horizon, there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet and re-base…so I did, starting with the Austrians, Prussians and French. Lots of wars between those three: Franco-Austrian (1859), Austro-Prussian (1866) and Franco-Prussian (1870).

In all I re-based over 800 infantry, almost 200 horse and about 20 guns/wagons: a horrible experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. The fear of breaking the models as you take them off their old bases (there were a few casualties) combined with the monotony of flocking making the whole thing very tedious and stressful.

But at least the figures look good now, and It has been a real pleasure to get them on the tabletop again after 25 years! Just goes to show that my adage about never selling any figures ever still holds true!

Back on the tabletop after more than twenty years!

Publishing

Norchester: A Second Scenario Pack for FK&P

With last year’s Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario pack for For King & Parliament selling well, I managed to follow it up with another: The Siege of Norchester. This now gives FK&P players 24 different games to play, each of which can be played on both sides and with or without the set deployments given. If my maths is correct, that gives 96 possible combinations before you have to play exactly the same game more than once. As the Lone Ranger said “my work here is done” and I need to find a new project to work on.

Less pleasing was the fact that I made little progress on my next IABSM theatre supplement: the Allied forces in the Far East. I did spend a lot of time researching the basic British and Commonwealth lists, which are finished, and have worked my way through specific lists for most of Malaya, but the sheer volume of what I need to do has slightly overwhelmed me. I shall re-approach the subject in the new year and see if I can get any further.

Looking Forward to 2022

So what do I want to achieve in 2022, what are my new year resolutions?

First up I’d like to hit 52 games in a single year i.e. an average of one a week. Might be tough, especially if lockdown lasts a long time, but it’s a good target to go for.

Secondly, I’d like to finish the IABSM Blitzkrieg Allies in the Far East theatre book for IABSM, and produce some kind of scenario or campaign pack for To The Strongest.

Thirdly? Well thirdly I’d just like to keep on painting and adding to my collection. I’d like to get an opponent for the Cossacks done, add a Crusader army to my TTS roster, and keep on filling in the gaps in my other forces.

Have fun tonight (COVID allowing!) and I;ll see you all next year!