2019 Year in Review

Another great year of Wargaming has come to a close and a new one begins. This is the time of year I look back and see how the year went, and remember how much fun this hobby is. The unit of the year this year is my group of Napoleonic French Marshals shown to the left. It was a close fight between these and some crusades heavy cavalry, but in the end the extra work on the Marshals sets them ahead. They may be some of the best figures I've ever painted.

For painting, the year started off slow with my hobby time in January, February and March mostly spent elsewhere. Towards the end of the year painting volume picked up a lot, but more on that later. Here are the totals for this year:

• Painted 25/28mm Figures: 138
• Terrain/Misc Created: 2
• Stands Re-based: 73
• Puchased Painted 28mm Figures: 80
• Purchased Painted 28mm Vehicles: 2
• X-wing Mods & Re-paints: 4
• Games Hosted: 9
• Games Played: 24

28mm Figures were primarily Saga crusades era figures. I finished up the last units for my Eastern Princes army and also completed a Crusader army. In addition to this I did paint up the French Marshals above, a smattering of World War II infantry and several livestock for Saga objectives. For me 2019 was the 'Year of Painting Saga' mostly. I also sneaked in a few cheeky X-wing miniature re-paints and conversions. Something of a guilty pleasure.

Thanks to my Friend Ed, I purchased 80 beautiful French Napoleonic figures. These were re-based as were another 100+ Austrian Napoleonic figures that I purchased last year. My Napoleonic collection is now approaching critical mass for me to start hosting Napoleonic games using my Electronic Brigadier rules. I hope to be putting significant time towards that project in 2020.

Terrain this year was a bit light. After doing the massive Salerno Tobacco Factory project last year I took a step back. Mainly I painted up the Warlord Games stone bridge I got for Christmas in 2018. It's a nice piece and got used in several games already.

For games, again an embarrassment of riches. I hosted nine games at my home or at the club with an additional 24 games played that others hosted. To be gaming more than two times a month is a luxury for sure. Great games. We played a lot of Saga, Iron Cross and locally-written rules this year.  I think my favorite was hosting and playing in some of the Saga mini game days my friend Mike organized (shown to the left holding the QRS). Thanks Mike!

By far the biggest change for me in the hobby this year was me jumping both feet straight into the deep end of the pool and starting to stream painting miniatures on the streaming service Twitch.tv. There aren't many historical miniature painters on Twitch, but there is a very vibrant and healthy community of excellent artists painting other genres of miniatures: Warhammer, Infinity, Malifaux, D&D, etc. The community there has been supportive and welcoming and after a full month of streaming I've started to find some viewers that are interested in historical miniatures. Stream chat during my painting sessions often revolves around historical topics. As of late a lot of people interested in Bolt Action have stopped by as I am currently working on some additional British figures for my WWII British army. If you haven't ever looked at Twitch, it's completely web based and free, come visit me at https://www.twitch.tv/ajswargaming. My current schedule is Tuesday and Thursday early evenings 5-8pm EST, and Sunday late morning, 11am-1pm. I also stream other times when I'm at the painting table. I'd love to see you stop by. Also you can view figures that I've painted on stream by using the Twitch tag here in my blog.