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Friday 13 July 2012

Getting my mojo back...

Well, it has been a tough couple of months. Not for any 'real' reason of course, I am purely referring to my hobby output! Real life is just fine, but not something I concern myself with in this blog!

What has been tough has been my painting output and my disinclination to put a brush to anything vaguely 28mm tall. It seemed to start when I was painting my Warhammer army for 3rd Edition and just couldn't muster the energy to finish even 500 points of troops. Fortunately my friend was terribly understanding about it and did not grumble. It probably helped that my ramshackle Empire force was utterly trounced by his gloriously painted High Elves.

But this fielding of an unpainted army was obviously of great concern to me and I went into a period of hobby-hibernation (as evidenced by my lack of posts). However, something slowly started to change. I became inspired to start a little 15mm project which I had been wanting to get off the ground (http://15mmhavoc.blogspot.co.uk/) and I found I really enjoyed painting the little fellows. So perhaps scale was an issue?

Thinking about the two big projects which have entirely stalled in the past, WW1 and WAB, it struck me that they were both 28mm games which required a fair number of units to be painted. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that this was the crux of the issue. As a result I have cut back on my 28mm projects to a few 'core' games which I either can't, or don't want to, game in 15mm:
  • Pirates
  • Doctor Who
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Warhammer Fantasy 3rd Ed
  • Rogue Trader
  • Gorkamorka
  • Star Wars
All except WHF are really skirmish games and Star Wars doesn't require any painting!

I have played All Things Zombie and, most recently, The Department in 15mm and it proved that even skirmish games can work in that scale (at least as far as I am concerned). As for the rest, between manufacturers such as Khurusan, Rebel Minis, GZG and Peter Pig (to name just a few) there is very little that cannot be done in 15mm. And of course there are profound benefits in terms of cost and storage.

As if to cement my decision, I leaped into a new sci-fi project with great fervour, the fruits of which are almost ready to be blogged about. I am able to paint figures without succumbing to utter tedium and the speed with which they can be painted means I feel like progress is fast and constant.

So my decision is to shift all my gaming primarily to 15mm from hence forth. Of course, none of this is to say I feel that it is objectively a 'better scale', just that I have been lucky enough to find what I think really suits me as a wargamer.

Hopefully you will see some interesting posts in the not too distant future.

3 comments:

  1. Sometime you need something new to push yourself onwards. I've just started Empire of the Dead by Westwind and this has ramped me up a notch to get a game in by the end of the month

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    1. Very true, although in my case there was also the element of figuring out what didn't work for me. Otherwise I'd probably have chosen 28mm Zulu War or something and never had enough figures ready to play a game! It's definitely 15mm for me from now on!

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    2. By the way, How are you finding Empire of the Dead?

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