Heretical Gaming is my blog about my gaming life, featuring small skirmishes and big battles from many historical periods (and some in the mythic past or the far future too). The focus is on battle reports using a wide variety of rules, with the occasional rules review, book review and odd musing about the gaming and history. Most of the battles use 6mm-sized figures and vehicles, but occasionally 15mm and 28mm figures appear too.

Thursday 4 April 2019

The Bottom of the Barrel

This morning, I have reached what might be termed the bottom of the barrel.  I can't say with perfect truth that I have no lead mountain/plastic pile; but I have painted everything that was really on my list.  Everything else is basically spares, some of which I could paint up and base into something I might use and some of which I would be struggling to.

So what does the bottom of the barrel look like?

1. A small number of WW2 soft-skinned vehicles, a GHQ horse-drawn cart I have no recollection of purchasing at all (did it turn up in an eBay package I wonder?) and some loose infantry, including some GHQ, Adler & H&R Germans and British.

2. Some spare painted 6mm Baccus Vikings (these will be used for markers and extra command bases, should I need them).

3. A few spare painted 6mm Medieval Arabs (ditto).

4.  A small number of spare 6mm Gothic spearmen (survivors of a Late Roman and Goth project I did as a present for someone 10 years back).

5.  Some spare 6mm Napoleonics.  There are a reasonable number in aggregate, but I don't think I have enough of anything to make a unit out of, except maybe some extra skirmish bases for the Old Guard, Austrian Grenadiers, Austrian Landwehr and Russian Grenadiers; possibly I could also make a couple of bases of British / Dutch / United States infantry, but with only improvised commanders, drummers etc.

6. Some 6mm Brigade models Polish SF.  Nice models, but no clear idea what to paint them as, or what to do with them if they were ever to be painted.

7. A few spare painted 6mm WotTK commanders (for extra command stands or individual officers/couriers, if the need should arise).

8.  Some very small quantities of other 6mm stuff (a few WotR spearmen, an Amazon command strip, that kind of thing).

9.  Some 28mm 40k stuff.  Some are painted, some are painted but need a touch up, some are undercoated only (this is stuff collected from eBay over the years).

10. A spare QRF 15mm British anti-tank gun (a 6lber, I think)...

I am hoping this situation won't last long: I am very much looking forward to the forthcoming releases by Baccus 6mm of their Highlanders and their civilians for the WotTK.  After that, I am considering some Napoleonic Wurttembergers and some TYW Cuirassiers.  But for the moment, I am pretty much at a loose end, painting wise.  Maybe I will tackle the 40K stuff next.
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8 comments:

  1. Steve J.4 April 2019 at 10:08

    Well good for you in having reached the bottom of the barrel. I simply have too much stuff ( a heretical utterance I know!) that, combined with being a wargames butterfly and a slow painter means it is highly unlikely that I will see the bottom anytime soon. However I am offloading stuff I know I will never use, so there is hope...

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  2. JWH4 April 2019 at 10:18

    Thanks Steve. And there is always hope! Although I know that a lot of gamers prefer to have large collections of unpainted figures just in case the mood strikes, and I am certainly not going to say they are wrong. But I like to get things finished(-ish!).

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  3. Drew Jarman4 April 2019 at 11:21

    Have you made your will yet? You know that once you run out of things to paint that you will die, its the Wargamers Law!

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  4. JWH4 April 2019 at 11:48

    I know, I know. I am actually prepping 40K Orks at the minute, things have got that bad...I need Baccus to get those Highlanders released!

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  5. Jonathan Freitag4 April 2019 at 14:08

    You are in a situation that I may never face...Is that good or bad? Who knows?

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    1. JWH4 April 2019 at 16:22

      I don't know the answer to that one either! For me, having lots of unpainted stuff around the house is annoying. I aim to keep it at levels of "if I were take a few days off work, I could finish everything if I wanted". But other people prefer to collect, or make sure they have everything they want to hand. I can see the logic of saving up and buying *everything* for a project in one go, too.
      Part of my motivation has been Neil Shuck and Henry Hyde, on their various podcases. Their self-criticism of why they had ended up buying so much stuff, more than they could ever realistically paint and use, kind of inspired me not to do that myself.

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  6. Chris5 April 2019 at 04:00

    Depending on what you have by way of 6mm Napoleonics, you may be able to put together 2 armies for Bob Cordery's "Portable Napoleonic" wargame. They require VERY few figures, and given the small scale, would constitute a truly portable wargame.

    Just a thought...

    Chris Johnson

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    Replies
    1. JWH6 April 2019 at 16:09

      It is an excellent idea but my existing 6mm armies actually work for Bob Cordery's "Portable Napoleonic Wargame" already, like here: https://hereticalgaming.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-portable-napoleonic-wargame-battle.html

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