Colonial Skirmishers

 Off the painting desk and into the photo booth four groups of colonial army skirmishers.

All painted old school to match with their comrades.

Prussians

another Prussian view

British skirmishers

French skirmishers

Irregular army skirmishers

So nothing particularly exciting but another 96 figures moved from the unpainted pile to the painted pile and adds another option to each of my colonial armies.

Based up on 4cm wide bases to match with the rest of the armies.

Next up Captain Nemo and friends.

2025 Plans and Purchases

A boring post so feel free to click the X on the tab above. 

Quite a bit late for posting my plans and purchases for 2025, but building on my usual process when writing my work goals for my annual performance plan it is always best to write at least 1 or 2 goals that have already been completed so that I always met my performance level. 😂

Plans

As always - to decrease the unpainted lead mountain.

Paint some of the armies that I have accumulated in the past.
League of Augsburg Allies
League of Augsburg French
Dervish Camel Army

Captain Nemo Army
Napoleonic French Army

Any of the other 3,000 odd unpainted figures.

Paint anything new that I buy.

Napoleonic British Army
Sci Fi armies

Chinese VSF Army

Play some games including: 

Project Stew     Confederate Zombies in WW2
Start the 1,000 years war campaign
Play at least one game with each newly painted army

Anything else that takes my fancy

Terrain

Make some new terrain for different environments
I always enjoy making terrain or adding to the many existing boxes of terrain. This is always fun. 
So something for the desert armies, something for the sci fi armies, and something for the Chinese VSF army, likely the Great Wall.

Purchases

Miniatures

I decided that I will make one large purchase with Pendraken each year to economise on postage costs. I will do this between Christmas and New Years to use any vouchers I can extort from my children for Christmas and my birthday in January before any January 1 price increases by Pendraken. I did this at the start of this year and purchased:

240 figures from the new Pendraken scifi ranges for test painting

301 figures for a British Napoleonic army (the 1 figure is Wellington)

30 Chunchu Cavalry and 60 Chunchu Infantry for a VSF Chinese Force

185 Japanese 1905 army figures as proxies for the regulars in a Chinese VSF force *

I have also bought the Warcradle Empire Armour Regiment as the vehicle force for the Chinses VSF.

* I am not sure about this now and may just use these as Japanese and get a more traditional Chinese force.

As the kids say now days - photos or it didn't happen:

Sci fi forces

Chinese (Japanese) VSF army

Napoleonic British Army

A decent haul for the year and hopefully enough to keep me busy.

Next up some skirmishers for my colonial armies.

Anti-Colonial Camel Corp or Sudan Dervish Army

 Another army rolls off the painting (make up) desk and into the photo booth. Is this why we call it modelling?

In early 2023 I had purchased a Dervish army to fight the British red coats and French blue coats and add a bit of African flavour to my collection. 

Due to non-delivery after  2 months I contacted Pendraken and said they had not arrived. Leon of Pendraken was very apologetic, said the tracking information had just gone dead, and had a new order sent out that arrived two weeks later. To my surprise, a year later the original order turned up having travelled by sea. Considering Captain Cook only took 6 months to get to Australia this was very slow. I offered to return them but Leon kindly said that I should keep them so my Dervish army suddenly doubled in size.

Here they are in their glorious paint job.

The six camel units

Slightly different view - coming over my improvised dunes

The army, camel units and infantry with their glorious leader

The infantry units

Six dismounted camelry units with their waiting camels

Close up of one dismounted unit

Close up of a infantry unit

Close up of a camel unit

Close up of the general - the Angry Ayatollah  

Close up of an infantry stand

Another close up 

A top down view of an oasis with camels - it can also double as a desert island for pirate adventures

So next time a French or British army moves across the desert they will have to deal with the natives.

Basing is for OHW rules and fits with my other colonial/VSF armies.

Painted figures - mostly with contrast paints.

Camels    standing 82

Camels sitting        18

Infantry    186

general    1

A good sized dent into the lead mountain.

My original intention was to have 6 camel units and 6 dismounted units so have been able to use most/all of the infantry figures but still have about 90 camels left.

I have just purchased five adobe buildings to make a small village but will need to add some scatter terrain of rough ground, some date groves and also will need some goats and civilians to occupy it all. These will be added to the next Pendraken order.

I will also make some better "dunes" - probably something that just fits under the cloth.

The flags just came from some random internet images, cropped and resized to fit.

Next up my purchases and plans for 2025.