January SitRep

This month has been a bit of a wash, really. 

I contracted a sinus and respiratory virus just before Christmas that clung on for a month. I had one good day (which was blogged about here) and the rest of my holiday was spent feeling wrung out and congested. Plans to game with the Mad Padre and the visiting Conrad Kinch on New Year's Day were scuttled. Plans to attend the post Christmas bash at Dick's house were abandoned.

I'd drag myself to work and any energy leftover has been put into getting Hot Lead organized. Then I'd cough a lot and try to sleep propped up on a pile of pillows.

It just hasn't been any fun at all. But I seem to be feeling better now.

Rabbitman and the Legion of Honor

One bright spot was this year I was elected into the Historical Miniature Gaming Society-East Legion of Honor for services to the hobby. Looking at the list of previous recipients, I am in honoured company. 

It's rather meaningless except for now having a small say in recipients of the Scruby Award for excellence in wargaming. But the recognition by one's peers is gratifying nonetheless. 

The Award will probably sit in my dresser drawer alongside my Army Cadet Service Medal. I could get both framed I suppose. 

In the Grimsical Future... There Are Only Quar!

I did get the rest of Princess P'trysha of Collysh's Lifeguard Infantry assembled.  And have slowly gotten some paint on them. 

Master-Yawdryl 

Messenger Squirrel Handler running with a squirrel up on his shoulder 

More rhyflers, grenadiers (including a Grenadier Yawdryl), scatter gunners, and NCOs

Hopefully I'll get these fellows off to the Flocking Depot next week. 

This month's Tribes release is a new faction, who have spikes on their helmets.

I'm imagining them painted like WW1 Germans to fight either of my Coftyran or Crusader forces. They come with separate arms, so with different heads I might be able to make the 9x more Coftyran gun crew I need for Brequar Manor and some gun crew for the PPCLI. 

So these guys will be Quar army number 7 I think.

Someone on the Quar Discord has been painting up Brigade Games airships from their Imperial Skies range. So as another distraction this has me looking at this bag of model aircraft parts I bought cheap 10 or more years ago.

I just need to add fins to the bigger ones.

Or buy zeppelin stls and get a couple of fleets printed.

Random Kindness

I had posted on Bluesky that it looked like I had a decent force of 3rd century Romans for Midgard, but I just needed a mounted commander to be the Tribune. 

Carol Flint in Bristol messaged me, asked for my address, and how I'd like my commander. This week a small package arrived with the parts for a plastic Victrix Roman General. Not needing all 12, she had some to spare. 

Tribune Carolianus Silex, commander of the Cohortes Equitata IX Britannarium 

His troops have named him "Silex" (Latin for flint) because he maintains discipline by the force of his hard, flinty stares.

To help bring the Rohirrim  Goths up to strength with some mounted heroes, I've begun (or resumed) work on these three figures from Bob Murch's 1066 range. These are also sold by North Star. 

Added shields to all three 

Yeah ok, technically my not-Eowyn. But I don't see why Goths couldn't have female warriors.

I'll still need to add some more cavalry and infantry to bring them up to par with the Romans. A box each of the Gripping Beast Dark Ages Cavalry and Infantry should do the trick.

Of course I'd have to take a break from Quar.... I'll see if I can get the Gothic reinforcements at Hot Lead in March. 

And that's pretty much it. Stuff going on, just nothing finished, and no games played.

The weekend looks snowy, hopefully I'll find some hobby time.

Rabbitman and the Workshop

Games Workshop Merry leading Thistle & Rose halflings

Warhammer 40k, Games Workshop. 

It's hard to avoid. 

Much of my Social Media feed is 40k stuff. And I'm picky about who I follow back.

Perhaps because I'm one of the remaining "Aifix Generation"* I've made a comfortable place in the hobby with historical figures, Donald Featherstone, and tiny print run, barely viable, rule publications, as the cancerous tumor that is Games Workshop slowly grew and took over and pushed what had once been the mainstream (historicals) very definitely into the fringes of the hobby. 

The fact that we now have an adult generation of wargamers born since 2000, for whom 40k is all there is to miniature wargaming, always rings a bitterly discordant bell for me. I remember when the plastic Space Marines and Rogue Trader were the exciting new things that the kids were getting into. Of course, by this time I was in university and starting life with the soon to be Mrs Rabbitman, so I wasn't paying much attention. There were other things to occupy my time, and there wasn't any money for miniatures anyway.

This week I did a bit of a survey of my gaming life and realized  that I think I've played ONE game of 40k (using my Northwest Frontier 1890s Indian troops as Imperial Guards) and two(?) games of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

I've got, I think, a grand total of 6 GW figures, most of whom are for Middle Earth.

• WFB tree man,
• WFB jester
• Nazgûl on horse 
• A Rider of Rohan 
• Merry, in armour fighting 
• Eowyn, on foot, unpainted

Bretonnian Jester

Warhammer Fantasy Treeman

Part of the problem was the expense. Even 40 years ago 40k miniatures were more expensive. And the rules didn't do much for me, being susceptible to min-maxing. But the biggest part was me. I was a serious young man with big, serious ideas. I was looking for hard SF and ideas about the future of warfare and just simply did not get the satire or appreciate the silly.

Which lead me to stupidly trade away my fairly substantial Epic 40k collection. Epic 40k was a really brilliant game, that I actually played a lot. But I was young and serious, and you couldn't separate Epic from the 40k universe. Older, wiser me would embrace Titans and the goofy Gargants happily,  and not worry about ground pressure. (This points to why Battletech has never grabbed me. It takes itself rather seriously and I just think that mechs are a flawed concept that should fall over more.)

Also I was young, idealistic, and looking for good guys. So naturally I kept looking at the defenders of humanity and being disappointed by the dark, Kafka-esque portrayal of a fascist human future. Now I'd probably play Orks. Or anyone other than the Imperium. 

Graphic by Andy Clark https://bsky.app/profile/andycruns.bsky.social

I still have my Epic 40k rules, dice etc. and I've compiled a list of proxies. Maybe someday I'll return to it with a greater appreciation of the silly. 

*Airfix Generation (n.): older wargamers, mostly in their 50s or 60s now, who got started with the inexpensive and widely available Airfix HO scale plastic figures. Naturally, we started as historical wargamers, and only moved into Science Fiction and Fantasy games later, once we learned how to convert an ACW Union soldier into an orc or a WW2 German into a Star Wars Stormtrooper. Those "Robinhood" archers really got around.