Taking Stock

It is the last day of October, and addition to answering the doorbells for trick or treaters, I thought it might be worthwhile to review the month just completed as well as the year in terms of projects and purchases.

 Frankly, I find this to have been a productive year for a number of reasons.  I'd just like to focus on expense for a minute.  Three or four years ago I spent money on figures like a drunken sailor.  They might have been figures I might eventually have an interest in painting, but I basically just stockpiled figs.  Mostly they were OG figures I ordered through my membership in the OG Army.  I stockpiled huge numbers of Hundred Years War figures, American Revoltion Figures, War of 1812 figures.

 Two years ago that all changed.  I stopped using credit, and began paying cash for everything.  I'm in the credit card users protection program.  This year I've bought few figures, often using Christmas and birthday cash to buy the figures I needed.  No purchases on spec, all purchases directed at a particular project.

 At the same time I've been able to reduce some of my figure stocks.  I painted all of my 15mm Jacobite project in August, with the exception of some of the very cool baggage that go with them.  I finished all of the American Revolution figures I picked up for my Hobkirk's Hill game.  Though I still have figures to paint for AWI, and will also buy minis for future battles, they can wait until I'm ready.

I've also taken on two projects this year.  The first was my Sluys battle.  I still think of this as Sluys round one.  I learned a little bit about the period-though not as much as I'd like-and put together two fairly representative fleets.  David Manley's medieval naval rules also provide for some single ship battles and I'd like to build another round of ships to make use of them effectively.  It's a low cost, high labor activity, but I think I'm up to the challenge.

Finally, there are my Mississippi projects.  This is really a labor of love that can cover the Spanish-American tensions as well as Fallen Timbers.  I've purchased a fair number of figures for this project.  The Perry hussars I'm currently working on, the cuera foot, horse and Spanish artillery from the Dayton Painting Consortium are waiting to be painted.  That's about 45 figures.  I also have American dragoons and mounted militia to paint, plus regular infantry, militia foot, and artillery to paint for about 120 figures.  I also have about 80 unpainted Indians I would love to finish, but I have 100 or so painted figures, so they aren't exactly necessary to the project.

So that means I need to paint 165ish figures with some 80 figures optional.  Plus terrain pieces, plus deciding on a set of usable rules.  I'm thinking Brother Against Brother with some modifications for cavalry.

I envision running at least one scenario using the Mississippi figures at Enfilade.  That means figures need to be pretty much wrapped up by early April in order to playtest games before the convention.