Goodbye 2018

I've left it a bit late for my usual review of wargaming year but I've done a quick wizz through of what I've done over the last twelve months. In January, February and March I painted shedloads of  1/600th planes for Bag the MiG and MiG Alley, although I still haven't completed all of the extra things I need for the latter, so a game has yet to materialise but is on the cards for 2019. I also assembled some modern fast attack craft in 1/700th, which are still in a box somewhere, and added some more 1/600th aircraft for my Flashpoint Taiwan project.

In the Easter holidays I played several games of Target Locked On! which I enjoyed and made up for not being able to get to the club for any games due to the kid's evening activities on a Tuesday night. I then started on a Wings at War: Desert Spitfires project but this was hijacked by the arrival of What a Tanker, which proceeded to occupy the next couple of months with building, painting and weathering 1/72nd scale plastic kits. I really enjoyed this but only got a couple of games in before the holidays started in July. I'll definitely be back to WAT in 2019 and hope to set up a club game at some point, using my Germans and Russian tanks. I did also paint some 1/600th Soviet Cold War aircraft just because I fancied a bit of a break from all that clanky tanky stuff!

In the Summer holidays I played a solo 'What If?' mini-campaign of Broadside and Ram with my unpainted but assembled 1/2400th French and British ironclad fleets. I thought this was really fun but it didn't get me any further along in terms of painting the things, which is also something I'd really like to get sorted in 2019. I also did some scratch building to produce my own 1/2400th scale version of the USS Dunderberg  and USS Onodaga, both for my French ironclad fleet. I was really pleased with my efforts, even if they weren't anything amazing! I am hoping to get the British and French fleets painted in 2019, together with the Danish and Prussian ironclads for 1864.

In the Autumn I decided on a whim to finish off the 1/600th scale Alto Cenepa project by completing the aircraft for both Peru and Ecuador, which had been sitting in a box for years. These were finished by October half term so I set about converting the Wings at War rules to the conflict, only getting so far before I decided to try something similar but less complicated first. The aircraft and terrain targets are all completed for the Alto Cenepa clash but I've yet to organise myself to set up a game of Target Locked On or Air War: C21, which was the original idea.

This 'other project' turned out to be the Football War using Desert Spitfires as a rules template, with my own twists and turns based on background research. The rules I developed, Cavaliers and Corsairs, may even be published in 2019 but I still didn't finish the planes for them in time for the Xmas break. This was partly due to being side tracked yet again by my 15mm post-colonial Sandbox Skirmish project, which appeared out of nowhere when I found a second hand art frame in a charity shop and then turned it into a desert terrain skirmish board. I'll crack on with this project as well in 2019.

That's it really, give or take a few minor diversions along the way and virtually no wargaming at the club for work and family reasons. I am going to try to get up there on a Tuesday night at least once a month in 2019, so that I'm not just stuck at the workbench but actually run some games or at least take part when I can. I'm making a good stab at this in January with three games already booked up, made easier by the fact that the boy's rugby training doesn't start for a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to these as they are all naval or air wargames, which is are my main areas of interest, two of which I've never played before.

I hope you've had a great 2018 and that 2019 turns out to be even better!

Cheers!