Year 2014 on miniatures - brief look to the past

It's the time when everyone is looking back into the year lived, so I'm joining the band. And actually I have had this habit since my blog was born way back two years ago, so I feel obliged. It's been, once again, active year with this hobby of mine. Actually calling this merely a hobby feels somewhat understatement since painting miniatures is my passion, It inspires me and gives nice feelings of creativity and even those good vibes of flow.

And anyhow, it's always nice look back to the year you've been doing and when it's easy as this why shouldn't you. I think you are now convinced, so I move on... Oh by the way, this blog changed language somewhere during summer, so don't be surprised to find strange language when you follow the links (ed. that means stranger language than on this page).

About my passion - painting projects

... and some comments on gaming too


Wild frontier

The year 2104 was interesting year, because many new painting projects started and I ventured on many new ranges of miniatures. Year started working with French & Indian war era miniatures when I joined Muskets & Tomahawks -campaign in our club. Miniatures were great and I enjoyed painting them much. At the same project I painted a bunch of venerable Foundry trappers and mountain men, they are nice too. The game itself wasn't that impressive, nice card activation but in the didn't like that much It's only good for certain theater and too gimmicky to my taste, but it had it moments and was good reason to paint nice mini's.


Back to the WWII

After the glow of the war with Indians and French went, my interest turned into WWII and there was
very nice sale of Warlord miniatures on one of the local shop. So one thing followed another and I was there in the middle of a new project painting German Fallschirm jägers, Canadian infantry, German infantry and later on US Marines for the Pacific. This was actually going back to age old interest of WWII which started back in the day when I was little boy playing Airfix plastics, with what I learned how to paint in the first place. With Warlord miniatures I started playing Bolt Action game which I really like. The game is simple to learn and play but complex enough to give good "period" feel. I even devised a scenario for it and will run a landing themed campaign this year.

Modern continues

My never ending interest with modern warfare miniatures went on strong as I did quite many projects with them. I
managed to find some modern German kampaffscwimmers from Tactica. painted whole lot of Empress modern PLA marines with their funny blue camo and some modern street fighters and cops from Foundry and TAG. I also managed to have some gaming with Force on Force, which is still one of the best game systems there is.

Along with these so called projects, there was also some additional painting which I even haven't put on my blog. Some WH40K miniatures. Unsuccessful start with 6mm ACW union cavalry. Some scenery and little this and that. So I spent quite a lot time with my beloved hobby and enjoyed every moment.

Building something small

With miniatures and games there was also some gaming table projects and scenery building. With ever inspiring War Head team we built quite many gaming tables for the tournaments and Storm of Vengeance campaign. And I also ran one house building workshop on the club.

Happenings

During 2014 there was many happenings around miniatures and games that I was participating. At first, as an opening into year was Hamburger Tactica. Great show and exposition of gaming and painting. I could recommend that to anyone interested miniature games. Then there was demo games organized by a friend and fellow gamer where I once again demonstrated Force on Force game to eager newbies. It was fun and it was nice to spend some time and talk to people who aren't too deep in the "pit". Summer came and with it Ropecon 14, where we continued our tradition of Force on Force demo and table spectacle with other fellow gamer. Then there were two other expo's where I was on of our Club's grew when organizing demo table. They were Model Expo Helsinki and Suuri Snadi.

Even I don't play much in tournaments I was participating the teams organizing these during the year. These our club GW games based tournament Talvisota and War Head's 40K tournaments during the year.

Campaings

One of the highlights of the year was our Black Powder campaign in the club which I was game mastering and creating the scenarios. The Danube campaign went chronologically through 1809 war between Imperial France. The gaming went on almost for a year and some nice and big games were played Aspern - Essling and Wagram to mention few.

Many friends from the club participated the games and were initialized into 15mm Napoleonic gaming. Thank's once more for the generals!

The other, totally different, campaigns was the revitalization of the old GW campaign The Storm of Vengeance, which was nicely upgraded by War Head's proprietor Teemu. It was mini campaign where Charcharodons marines faced orc invasion. I was playing with my orcs. We had weekend's full of gaming and great fun.

The Club

During the last year we kept running games evening called "eccentric games" on our gaming club on Wednesdays. The ideas was to play games that are not that know or popular when compared with Games Workshop big ones. So there I was spending most of my Wednesdays organizing or playing some sort of miniature game in the club. Club is nice focal point of the hobby especially the gaming side. The club has reached now the size that one can be able to find fellow gamer to play with you in most of the rules and there's always some activity going on. So through that I started many of my this years painting projects. I was also nominated as one of the first "Fellow gamer" this year for my involvement and contribution for the club activities. A title I'm proud to carry and will pursue on living the title.

One of the highlights of these evening was to able to help fellow club member to develop new rule set for modern firefights. I commented the rules and test played them and finally this ended up with rules and pack of scenarios. The rules are called Heist. Thanks for the opportunity.

Departing thoughts for the year to come

This blog is mostly for me to keep record and follow the miniature painting I do through the year. Blog entries are about painting miniatures, or to be more precised showing painted miniatures and telling about that. But along that it follows quite nicely my activities with gaming, since most my painting is for games and when I start painting project, it will eventually lead into some sort of miniature game. Sometimes I like the game so much that I will stick to it and gaming goes on regularly, more or less. Some games are even that good and interesting that I dig more deeply in those by start organizing scenario games and campaigns in our club. Fine examples of the games I've liked and stayed is recently started Bolt Action or above mentioned Force on Force. Both are the ones I have been and will be organizing scenario based games. Some games I just leave, cause they are not for me. I'm not saying that they are not good games, but they just don't support my style and idea of good gaming, so why bothering. There's only this much time in the world. And still I try to up live principle I adopted last year, maybe less games but more quality in all of its' respects.

Funny enough I still haven't counted the number of miniatures painted during the year. It's just not my cup of tea, but I believe some 300 - 500 all together.

This year starts with definite plan to run landing campaign in the Pacific, where US Marines will
attack the coral island. And during the Christmas Holiday Season I started painting new range once again. This time I'll venture into Outremer with Norman knights, but more of that later.

Let's see what else 2015 will bring. Anyway I'll keep painting, that's for sure!