Review of the Year 2011

It's time for the annual review of the year and I'm pretty pleased with the overall result, despite having not completed everything on the 'things to do' list in 2011. The big result has been the completion of my Back of Beyond Oil Prospectors army which took up a quarter of the last twelve months but was actually finished, give or take a  few optional figures. I've even played a couple of games with the army in the club campaign and almost won one of them. Blimey.

The second success story was the AK47 dictatorship army which is 95% complete and only needs the bases painted to be done and dusted. In the end I just couldn't find the time to wrap it over the last couple of weeks, which is partly my fault as I got side tracked into the amphibious units and terrain rather than cracking on with the bases. This will have to be tackled when I get back from France and hopefully completed by New Years Day.

The third project big project that I grappled with this year was the 20mm Rapid Fire battlion for the DCLI. I'm disappointed with myself for running out of steam with this as I only have some carriers and a few support weapons to finish off for the force to be complete. I really should try to get it done at some point in 2012, as I've always wanted to try Rapid Fire and have a potential opponent lined up too.

A few projects were also started but didn't really get off the ground, including the 28mm armoured train for the Back of Beyond Bolsheviks, although I did finish the train for the club participation game. I re-based my old 15mm Essex Picts for Impetus but didn't get on to painting the new bases. This is something that I can squeeze in to a spare weekend as good practise for basing other figures in the future.

I also started building some terrain bits and pieces for AK47, which I'm going to add to in 2012 with more railway and road sections at the top of the list. I've enjoyed the terrain construction that I've tried out and have lots of ideas for scenery that I can scratchbuild in 2012, most of which will be for AK47 but with some bits for Darkest Africa on the 'to do' as well.

Finally, I managed to prepare and base a good selection of 28mm gladiators and half of my 28mm Nkonde villager army for In the Heart of Africa, the last of which I'm planning to continue into 2012 as the 'big project'. As quite a lot of my holiday time is spent away from home, I reckon that cleaning up and basing figures is time well spent and a good way to move the leadpile in the right direction, even if half of these projects end up stockpiled for subsequent painting.

Overall, it's been a pretty productive year and much better than the previous one in terms of actually getting things done!