2020 Recap and 2021 plans

 Well, 2020 is finally over and it is time to have a look back at the plans I wrote at the end of 2019 and to see how they worked out.

Let me start with the easiest one to look at, my show list.  Basically, I made it to Hammerhead in March and that proved to be the only one that went ahead that I had planned to go to.  One good thing about that though was that my spend on figures and terrain is right down this year, especially with Baccus only opening for short periods.  So, what are the plans for 2021 well that is mainly going to be decided by what happens with COVID and the vaccine rollout, but as Hammerhead has already been pushed back until July I am figuring on going to mainly the shows in the second half of the year, which in addition to the rearranged Hammerhead show I will try to get to Joy of Six, Claymore, Fiasco, Border Reiver and Battleground shows, provided they go ahead that is.

Next thing to sort out was the table, I was going to buy a folding table, but in the end I changed my mind a got a piece of 8' x 4' MDF and chopped it up into two 3' x 4' pieces and a 2' x 4' section. and in fact, it was this smaller section that got used exclusively in 2020 for several games.  Of course, when we moved house at the end of October it meant that I lost my exclusive gaming room, so, the painting station is back in the main bedroom and the table I was using is now in the living room.  Now that Christmas and New Year are over I might get a board onto the table and try to get a game going, though there will be more risk of cat 'interference' until such time as Step-Son Number One decides it is time that he looked for somewhere else to live and I can claim his bedroom as the gaming room.  So, 2021 should mean that I can get some more games played, either solo or with my better half who expressed an interest last year in playing.  Last year was exclusively an ECW gaming year, but this year I will also be able to put on Napoleonic games as well and maybe more.

On the painting side of things, I managed to get enough Covenanters finished to call them done, I still have some more cavalry and highlanders to do, but they are going on the back burner for now, as is the Montrose army and the Irish Covenanter army I picked up.  But, there are still a few bases for the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies that I would like to do, these are bases of just pikemen and musketeers which will look better on the table when I have to use such units.

The Napoleonic British are currently completed, though I might add a few more units later, but in the meantime I will be carrying on with the French for the Peninsula.  Nearly all the Army of the South is finished, all that is left to do are the commander bases, a few artillery bases and two regiments of dragoons.  After that, I will do some heavy cavalry regiments, either Carabiniers or Cuirassiers, even though neither type served in the Peninsula in 1813, they will be used in generic scenarios from some of the C S Grant books.  After the French I think I will move on to the Prussians and get them started.  I think that should fill up the painting table for most of the first half of the year.

At the start of 2020 I had a list of three future projects that I wanted to get going.  I still want to try the Very British Civil War project at some point, though now with our relocation space is a bigger problem.  The micro-armour project is also going to be put on hold until I can claim some extra space and the Napoleonic naval project has been replaced with a WW1 naval project.  I have both the British and German fleets, all I need now is to find the time to get them painted and based, my early trials at painting and basing some samples last year were alright but they need to be improved upon.

New projects for 2021 include possibly a 10mm French Wars of Religion project and a 6mm Pony Wars project, though again these are both space dependent and how I feel after painting up a few sample figures.

That should cover 2021 nicely for now I think.