Halfway mark

We are now into July which means it is time for me to look back over the first six months of the year and see what I've accomplished.

My pledge tracker spreadsheet tells me that I've painted a total of 103 28mmeq and bought zero new miniatures (8 months and counting!). Whilst this is good news on the pledge front it does mean that I am behind on my aim of painting more than 300 miniatures again this year.

Why am I not painting faster? Well my painting time has been curtailed by PNKD but I've also got a little bored of painting elves.

After a recent disastrous showing at a KoW tournament my attention has been diverted back to my modern city project. My aim for 2016 was the year of completing projects - and the modern city project is a pretty good candidate for this. I had a box of street furniture, some cars, a building and a single 28mm miniature left to do and I have made a pretty good dent in it already.

I've also been working on the rules for the game which are coming on pretty nicely IMHO. Once this lot is out of my system I will probably be back painting the elves before too long.

6 months and counting

Today marks a big milestone - it has been six months since my last miniatures purchase. In that time I have not backed any miniatures kickstarters, placed any pre-orders or swapped or traded for miniatures. As a mildly obsessive collector this is probably the longest period I have gone without a miniatures purchase in many years.

Looking at the projects in front of me there isn't anything I *need* for any of them either so I could potentially keep this going for a while longer. Part of me wants to frivolously purchase something just for the sake of it but this is balanced by another part which is wondering just how long I can keep going. We shall see.

End of Q1

As the curtain closed on Q1 I managed to finish splashing some paint on a few more miniatures. These elves have been cluttering up my workbench for a bit, I started them before assembling the mass of miniatures in the last post.

Also from the workbench are some elf characters.The mages are metal miniatures from the 1st Mantic KoW kickstarter. The one on the left arrived damaged so I converted him with a GW component. The standard bearer is from Mierce miniatures. When I started painting him the standard had a dragon head at each end of the cross pole but it seems to have gone missing at some point. Hopefully it will turn up again soon.

And this post's surprise round consists of the restic Enforcers from the first Deadzone Kickstarter. My DZ2 rulebook showed up last week and I thought it would be a god idea to get these done so I could get some games in. I'm not especially proud of the results but they're done and I'll take that.

That brings my painted total up to 103 miniatures for the year so far so I'm on target to beat the 300 barrier again as long as I keep at it.

Send for reinforcements

Following the plan of "completing" things I took time out over the weekend to assemble every last remaining Mantic elf in my collection. We have here:-

• 20 Stormwind Cavalry (2 regiments)
• 10 Kindred Tallspears
• 20 Kindred Gladestalkers
• 30 Kindred Archers (1 regiment and 1 troop)

Now that they are assembled I need to fill some gaps in the horses (I didn't do a very good job of putting them together). After that everything will get washed in detergent (to remove grease/release agent) then have sand applied to the bases before priming.

If I can get this batch of elves painted up in a reasonable time scale I will be very happy. I still have some elves from a previous batch part painted on my workbench so those will get done first and I'm sure there will be the odd interruption but I'm keen to get cracking.

.. and we're back.

Even for this blog that was a long pause. A combination of health issues and real life conspired to limit the amount of painting time available coupled with a loss of enthusiasm for painting (when I was actually able to) meant that February and March were not productive months.

April has been better so far and I have been able to put the finishing touches on the miniatures that I have been picking away at since my last post. I have added (yet another) 10 Mantic elf Kindred Tallspears (spearmen) to my army - only 10 more left in the unpainted pile.

Also joining my KoW army is an Elf Master Hunter. This is a metal miniature which was available via the Mantic points programme as a scout captain but has been OOP for some time I believe.

And finally for this update a troop of 10 Mantic Orc Greatax. Yes I know they aren't elves but I fancies a bit of a change. The speed with which I managed to get these painted make me think that I might get round to painting up my Mantic Orcs sooner than I had planned.

Next on the table are likely to be some elf archers but plans may change depending on whether I can make it to a KoW tournament in Altringham next month. I need to work out which army I would like to take and see if I need to add any units to get a decent list.

One down, eleven to go

And that folks, was January.

For me January seems to have turned out pretty well on the painting front despite losing a lot of time to my movement disorder. It was a month of painting almost exclusively Mantic Elf miniatures - or at least Mantic miniatures I can use in my KoW elf army. Here is a run down of the latest additions.

Firstly a Mantic Dragon's Breath war engine which has been lying around primed for a very long time and is now ready for the table top.

Next up is a Mantic Elf Mage Queen from the most recent KoW Kickstarter.

Closely followed by a mounted elf hero from Gamezone, this month's only non Mantic miniature.

And lastly the original Mantic elf dragon. He fits neatly on a 50x50 base and is completely dwarfed by the new Mantic elf dragon which is currently on the workbench.

Looking at the close-ups of that lot I can't claim to be particularly proud of my paint jobs but they are good enough for the table top and that's what I was aiming for.

So how is the pledge coming along? Well so far the year I have bought a grand total of zero miniatures and I have painted a total of 58 28mmeq so everything is going nicely to plan. Lets hope that 2016 carries on being as productive.

Race to the finish

It is often good to have something to work towards and I've been thinking of setting myself some hobby objectives for 2016. After last year's record breaking (for me) painted pile I would like to break the 300 barrier once again as I've proved I can do it already. Of course painting more than 300 would be a bonus but we will have to see how things go.

I've stated elsewhere that I don't want to start any new projects this year and I am going to try and stick with that. It is always tempting to get carried away with enthusiasm when something new comes along but I am going to try and work hard to resist it this year.

As a nice balance to the previous point I would like to try and make 2016 the year of completing(*) things. I have had a bit of a rummage through the lead pile and I think that it is entirely possible that I might be able to complete some of my army projects this year if I apply myself. My Elves, Goblins and Orcs all have a dwindling presence in my lead pile and combined check in at fewer than 300 miniatures, looks doable.

Of course past experience tells me that my attention span can be a little short and my mind can wander like a butterfly but I can at least give it a try.

(*) Of course every gamer knows that an army is never actually "complete" or "finished". All you can really do is paint up what you own and wait for the next unit to arrive.