The 2012 Pledge - finale

Ah, another year over, another year of painting.  I won't even attempt to say whether I've painted more than I've bought; possibly I'm up on that one though a couple of big investments in figures may have made the profit marginal.

Enthusiasm with my last purchase of the year - Samurai Battles - led to a fine flourish at the last gasp.

I began churning the Zvezda miniatures through the system from mid December, there's still lots to do - what with 122 models in the set - but I made rapid progress by keeping things really, really simple.

One side are red, one purple.  Both are simply done with a suitably coloured undercoat, then the armour picked out in a darker shade.  Then all the details (I could be bothered with, which was far from all of them on these incredible little miniatures) were added.  

Finally the models had the transfers added to their sashimono's before being given a wash of Army Painter Quickshade Ink - Strong Tone.  It's the first time Ive used this ink, but it's pretty good.  I found it needed thinning (lord knows why anyone wouldn't thin it out) but the results were not dissimilar to my home brew efforts over the years.  

Having painted about half of the models, I based them:

The two sets of rules in Samurai Battles use different basing conventions, but noth that can't be worked around.  I decided that Command and Colours would work fine with bases of four infantry, or two horse, and the use of casualty markers.  This allowed me to work to a standard system, except for the command bases which I kept the original diorama bases that came with the game.

40mm square bases with lots of flock.  I also left one corner blank, to add a painted icon (in keeping with the rules) to, as well as leaving at least one of the flagpole pegs free so that the command banners could be used if required.  The aim is to use these initially for the board games, but to work up in time to traditional wargames,; once I can retrieve my unpainted collection of 600+ plastic Samurai from my brother's place!

Cranking these out was a pleasure, and made up for the slow pace of the previous units of 28mm Napoleonics.  The results for the last three months of the year in fact were:

• 16 Spartans
• 1 large Anima Tactics Model
• An entire 10mm Lizardman army, worth 52 points!
• 25 Vikings
• 4 German infantry in 54mm (worth double!)
• 9 Guard Chasseurs 
• 6 Greek Cavalry
• 4eme Dragoons & General Foy 
• 68 points worth of Samurai and Ashigaru

Bringing a quarterly total of 238, and making for a grand total on the year of 678, against a target of 360!

Good stuff.

So, 2013?  Well aside from finding it easier to type as it doesn't have a tricky 2-0-1-2 combo in it, I think the pledge will stay the same, but may become even less formal.  In simple terms I don't yet know what the year will hold and whether I will maintain the commitment to keep painting.  In a way I hope not, as looking back at my painting totals, when they were low I was generally having a lot of fun in that month.

So here's hoping for acceptable, but not excessive painting output.

Maybe I need to create a social life pledge as well, but I don't imagine people on here would appreciate that...