This and that

There has been some movement in the wargaming room since Easter, including some painting, which has been a welcome development. The day job's intensity has recently risen and as a way to declutter the mind before sleep my better half suggested I paint some of those figures taking up space in all the nooks and crannies of the house. Very thoughtful of her!

Mind you, this painting did not happen immediately. First I had to reorganise my storage by buying stackable plastic containers. One for figures primed in bags, one for figures primed and on temporary bases, one for figures half done, one for all the elephants I bought late one night from Potbelly Miniatures, and so on.

I then had a 'some of these boardgames on the shelves should really be played' fit and after a week of picking boxes up and then putting them down I finally settled on GMT's Fields of Fire. It was the third time I have set out to learn this highly-regarded solitaire system. Over the next week or so I spent about ten hours on it before packing it up and putting it away again. The third time was not the charm.

Alongside this I watched the entire series of the Japanese anime Attack on Titan. Also at the instigation of my wife. She is a fan of the series (as are two of my children) and convinced me to watch an English subtitled version through Crunchyroll. This took us about four weeks. Anime's not my usual sort of thing but it grabbed the interest and it's always a plus to have something to watch with the beloved. 

And so, by roundabout ways, and having exhausted all other options, I came at last to painting. 

It has been quite good. The figures are Xyston Theban hoplites that any other right-thinking ancients enthusiast would have finished ten years ago, but which I have not. Helping me through are podcasts on Napoleon. I'm not quite sure why Napoleon became the subject, but he has done the job. 

I'm on the home stretch with this batch of figures and was planning to get another couple of hours in last night, but got distracted by a link to an Armchair Dragoons review of the Phil Sabin introductory wargame Take That Hill. Originally found in the Simulating War book, this game has now been spruced up and printed by Fight Club International. It is free to download and print from the website. The target audience is people who have not played wargames before, especially those in the armed forces or defence industry. 

Also linked there is a Connections Online webinar on the game presented by Phil and three other affiliated persons, which I started watching and couldn't stop. If you are interested in Phil Sabin's designs and design philosophy at all it is worth a look.

The simplicity of Take That Hill is certainly in contrast to the fiddliness of Fields of Fire.

Anyway, time to go back to the painting desk. It's been six months since I last finished off some figures. If I keep going at this rate the unpainted lead will outlast me!