Happy New Year and 2012 Plans

Hi all,

I hope everyone out there had a merry Christmas and is enjoying the new year. I got some gaming in over the holiday break, but sadly, no pictures. I did get some painting done, but none of my painting was sci-fi! Amazing how time can really get away from you when the holidays come around!

Anyway, I've been busy planning out my gaming projects for this year. Like all wargamers I have way more projects than I can ever get done. I guess it's a form of ADD that most gamers have. There are just so many things you want to do but only so much money and time to do them. So you have to "talk" it out with yourself and decide what you can really do. So that's pretty much been what I've been doing lately.

Last year I was totally into 15mm Sci-fi and that genre absorbed all of my time and resources and I have a lot to show for it. This year I've decided to take a different tack and add a couple of projects outside of sci-fi and in the process expand the scope of this blog. Originally this blog was to cover only my efforts to build up a Colonial Marine company and that project is pretty much done! I have two complete platoons collected, painted up, based, and ready for action. I also assembled a very sizable OPFOR (my LRL rebels) for them to fight and I've even built a smallish "allied" army to fight with them (my US Army Strike section). I still have some colonial militia figures to work on and two more Army squads to finish (and maybe another Ares mecha too!) that I might work on later to bulk out my Liberty forces. But I'm feeling a bit tired of doing just sci-fi and I've decided to do another project in the mean time.

That project is to collect and paint a set of modern armies to fight with. Back in 2008 Russian and Georgia fought a short and vicious war over South Osetia and I followed the war very closely. I've always been a "closet" Russian fan so I was fixed to the TV watching the Russian Army clash with the Georgians. It was scary to watch, but it was fascinating to see all that Soviet era equipment in the flesh so to speak. I was a soldier in the US Army back in the late '80s and early 90's and I saw some action in the Gulf War. So it was pretty wild to me to see all that old Soviet era gear on TV duking it out. Since then, well every few months anyway, I've trolled the net looking for source material on that war and have been making plans to assemble useable armies to game with. I was never able to get anywhere in the bigger scales like 20mm... just too costly really. But that's changed since I've gone to 15mm!

Lately I've purchased some second hand Soviet troops and equipment and I've found a reasonable source for Soviet gear. So now I'm slowly assembling the beginnings of a Soviet/Russian motor rifle platoon (BMP) which might be expanded out to a full company. I've also assembled a rather large, if poorly equipped, force of US, British, and modern Chinese miniatures. So I'm also in the process of assembling an infantry platoon from each of these powers. So with these forces I plan to let 2012 be the year of modern warfare!

I'll probably start with a South Ossetia War rematch that pits Russia against the US and Georgia and then I'll expand that out to a WWIII style confrontation with perhaps Russia fighting China with the US and her allies siding with one or the other of those two powers! Terrain wise I'm moving away from my wild green jungles and forests to something more mountainous, evergreenie, and perhaps snowy!

Lots of ideas, so little focus! How's that for wargamer ADD???

For now I'm just going to focus on building my BMP platoon with say three BMP-2s and the associated motor riflemen. To fight them I'm going to complete my Stryker platoon with say four Strykers and three rifle squads and a mg squad. However my grunts will moonlight as Bradley troopers too since I have a full platoon of prepainted Bradleys. I also have three M1A1 tanks that are prepaints that are ready to go as well. Yikes! I might have to grab a platoon of T-80's to balance them out!

Rules wise I see myself sticking with Force on Force/Tomorrow's War and I'm going to try out the one page FUBAR rules too! I've already played a game of FUBAR (a AAR is coming later) and I really like the game. It's a simple break from the more heady Ambush Alley rules.

Model wise I have most of the infantry I need. My vehicles will be primarily QRF Russians and US, and I'll be grabbing some of the cheapish Command Decision miniatures too. I have a few of them and I've been rather happy with the quality of them.

Anyway, stay tuned and I'll have my Strykers and BMPs up and showing off.

Also, 2012 is the 70th of the Philippines/Bataan Campaign of 1942. I've collected a nice little group of US and Japanese troops and vehicles that I'll be gaming with over the next few weeks. Because of this I've decided to expand the scope of this blog to cover 15mm skirmish in general instead of just sci-fi. But don't worry, I'll probably be cranking out sci-fi stuff over the coming months. After all, I promised Kyoteblue over at TMP that I was going to fight out a battle in his imagination nation of Ifat. That will probably be my first sci-fi project for the year: painting up the Sultan's personal guard! After all, someone has to defend the good sultan from mercs with attitudes!

Anyway, I have a lot of plans for the year! It's just going to be a matter of coming up with a plan and staying focused. That's what I did in 2011 and I have a lot of painted metal to show for it. I hope this year will see me with a nicely painted modern force for my gaming (and your viewing) pleasure.

So happy New Year and see you around the range!

Time now Charlie Mike!