Welcome 2017 - Good-Bye 2016

Following others, I’ll jump on the end of year – beginning of year blog post bandwagon. First up, I want to thank all of you that read my blog. I really have no idea how many people I reach (especially since Blogger's tracking stats seems to be pretty messed up for my site), but it is always nice to get comments from people about what I'm doing. So, thanks for reading.

Next, I'll do a quick review of the projects I wanted to get done in 2016.
1) Channel Dash project for Enfilade 2016.

 

This was a successful project. We got in the two games at Enfilade, one involving the air attacks and one involving the MTB attack. The air attack game went better than the MTB attack, but it was still a fun little project.

2) Finish the modern submarine rules.

 

Not completed. I’ve been toying around with these and it is time to do some serious work. I did some work on this and did paint up some more Cold War American subs. So I moved forward a little, but there is still work to be done.

3) Work on the Japanese opponents for my 28mm Bolt Action Aussies.

 

Successfully completed. The only things I didn’t do were add up the Bolt Action points to see if I have “balanced” forces (I'm not sure how much that matters) and add metal washers to the bases for the magnetic sheet storage container I’m using.

Odds and Ends: I did a few of these project in 2016. I painted up (and bought more of) the figures from Fantasy Flight’s Imperial Assault game. I’m hoping to get someone to try out the game with me or I might use the figures with Osprey’s Rogue Stars rules.

 

I painted up my Avarian ships for Galactic Knights and even got in a game against Kevin’s Terrans (although there are no photos of the battle to show my stunning victory).

On a non-miniatures front, I played a campaign of Silent Victory as my summer solo game. It was a fun game and I’ve run a couple more patrols for fun since summer. I would recommend this game or it’s sister, The Hunters, if you are interested in solo World War II submarine games.

So 2 out of 3 complete, with a couple side projects too.

Looking to 2017 
I haven’t really thought too far ahead for 2017. I need to come up with some games for Enfilade and there are some other projects I’d like to look at. As usual, DANG will take up the last quarter of the year and since I let the gamers vote on the project, it is hard to know what it will be.

For Enfilade, here are a few things I’m thinking about:

• A game using 1/6000 scale modern naval miniatures using the Harpoon Captain’s Edition rules (with some modifications). I think this has real potential as a convention game. 
• An air-sea game with PB4Y Privateers defending a US sub from Japanese ASW planes while the sub rescues a downed pilot (this is a historical event and you can look it up). 
• Whatever Kevin and I can come up with as a joint project. This might be Cuban Missile Crisis stuff or something different. Let me know if any of these ideas sound particularly interesting. 

For my non-Enfilade projects, I’m looking at:
1) Get my modern submarine rules to beta and let a few people look at and comment on the rules. Although I’m not sure how far I will really cast my net for comments and testers. Stay tuned on this one.

2) Finish my Chinese Navy Type 054A frigate and some Japanese missile boats. I’ve had these models sitting around for a year now, so it is time to finish them up! This could even turn into an Enfilade project, depending on when I finish them and what else I can come up with.

Odds and Ends: These are mostly non-naval projects. I’d still like to do up some Crusades era armies for Lion Rampant, get some figures for the En Garde rules, and even some Cavalry – Indian figures for The Men Who Would be Kings rules. A lot of Osprey rules there, but it is what people in my area are playing. As usual, I expect that some other bright shiny game project will draw my attention. So I’ll keep my other options open for now.

On a personal note (and please feel free to skip this part), 2016 was a down year for me. I was unhappy most of the year and ended up switching jobs in November. While it might not be evident from my posts, my gloomy outlook impacted my projects and gaming (along with other things in my life) a lot more than I would like to admit. I’m really hoping that 2017 is a much better year and that I can pull myself out of the doldrums.