Containing My Excitement!

Well, 2018’s been and gone!  So now that I’ve got 2019 to deal with, have I got a plan?  Nope!  I’m sure my wife’s got several, but hers don’t seem to include any wargames stuff.

Let’s get to the point!  January’s community painting challenge is all about terrain/scenery, something I’ve put off doing for way too long.  So I’ve dumped a load of stuff onto my desk and am aiming to try and work through what I can.

It’s not all scenery, since I need to get some figures prepared for later in the year.  And the Dutch CTLS light tank I finished in November is on the desk because it’s got some spots of varnish I’ve had trouble with, but I’m hoping to get that sorted out.  The two cottages are intended for WW1 and Franco-Prussian War games – they need scenic bases making as well as painting.  And I’ve still got some unit bases to do for my 19th Century armies, but I’ve almost caught up with them.  But the main emphasis for January is going to be on . . . trees!

There are more exciting scenery items to work on, but I need to sort my trees out.  In fact, it’s not trees that I need, but woods!  The rules I’m using for my 19th Century games (by Neil Thomas) mean that woods affect both movement of units through them and line of sight.  Since I’m using units with figures placed on movement trays, I decided I’d make some large flat bases to represent the extent of the woods, with the trees being removable.  This means I can just lift trees out of the way when units move through the woods, but the base easily allows me to see if units are still moving, or hidden, in woods.  So I’ve got some plastic tree bases to texture and paint (the two dark brown items in the picture) and then the bigger wood bases themselves.  The latter are rounded MDF shapes stuck to mounting board, which lets me chamfer the edges of the bases more easily before adding ground texture.  I’ve got four “wood” bases to do and about nine individual tree bases, the latter either being new or some old ones tidied up.  So, these need to be done, but they aren’t going to look all that exciting!

Over the Christmas period I’ve been sorting through several armies and deciding what to do next with them.  Because of this, there are a handful of additional figures I need for them, so I’ve already got them cleaned up and stuck on 1p coins.  In amongst that lot are a WW1 Austrian officer, two WW1 Germans and a 1920s Chinese Warlord soldier, with the bulk of the figures being WW1 Russians.  The green plastic figures are by Zvezda and most needed to have their arms stuck on.  Actually, most needed their arms sticking on twice, since they’re that fiddly that I invariably super-glued them to my fingers first time round!  I’m really just intending getting these primed (and maybe base-coated) to work on over a few months.

Given how exciting all of the above aren’t, I’ll probably go quiet for a while as I work my way through the scenery bits at least.  So it’s not just me that’s going to have to contain my excitement!