There is still not much going on here; I may be caught up enough on schoolwork to do some painting tomorrow. That would be rather nice. We visited our friends again last night. E.A. hasn't made much progress on his Tau; he's in the same boat as I am with homework taking up most of his free time. Hopefully we can have a game by the end of the year. I anticipate having to do a lot of stuff military-wise this summer as I will attempt to fit the schools required for me to be promoted in between college semesters.

Imperial Guard

The internet has been somewhat abuzz with sneak peeks at the various Imperial Guard releases that are due to come out with the new Codex. I think the best-looking model is the Valkyrie, a flying troop-carrier. The Bell of Lost Souls blog has a couple of posts with pictures of some nicely-painted models. I am rather partial to the orange and grey one. I'm not sure on a price point. I've heard that it will cost as much as a Rhino and I've heard it will cost as much as a Land Raider. Due to the size of the kit I'm inclined to think it will be closer to the Land Raider in cost. It seems an ideal vehicle for carrying Catachan Jungle Fighters into battle.

And speaking of Catachan Jungle Fighters, I've been trying to come up with a color scheme for mine. I've noticed that all of my armies tend to be painted brown and green unless I am going off of a painting guide as I did for Moria Goblins and Easterlings from Lord of the Rings. My Space Marines are pretty bland compared to some of the other Chapters out there, but I don't think I could handle painting them orange or purple or bright blue. I'm running into the same dilemma with my Imperial Guardsmen and my Reaper CAV models. I just don't think they would look right in flashy colors. I did see a nice picture of someone's Catachan army painted with a lot of red accents; I might look at something along those lines.

Historicals

WWII

I've been pondering my reluctance to actually begin a historical project. I think it stems partially from a fear of getting "it" wrong, "it" being uniforms, orders of battle, vehicle variants, terrain, and any other nitpicky thing you might come up with. I used to be an avid reader, but I've really moved away from that in the last few years and I feel that my mind is worse for it. I am drawn to Flames of War because they have army lists similar to those found in the Games Workshop games as well as painting guides and prepackaged paint sets. Essentially everything you need to play their version of World War Two. And I think you could reconstruct real battles using that system, as long as you had a working knowledge of the scenario you want to play and the actual or approximate composition of the units involved.

Another route would be to use the various scenario books out there, like the Skirmish Campaigns series, to guide your force selections. Back when I was considering the Eastern Front I got a couple of those books with the intention of building the forces outlined in the orders of battle. I think part of what stopped me is that the scenarios seemed to be built for those who already have decent collections, as they often included odd variant vehicles that would be interesting for an experienced gamer but ramp up the starting cost for a novice. I recently have considered that a person could just cut out the variant vehicles for now and use more common things in their place without unbalancing the game overly much. I could probably still use the painting guides from Flames of War to get fairly close to the right colors for my armies, at least close enough for me.

I'm not sure what I'll do. I'll probably start with painting the little Flames of War forces I've got on the shelf and do some meeting engagements or something with the Flames of War rules.

American Civil War

Earlier I discussed my interest in the American Civil War, and particularly in the 10mm GHQ models. GHQ also has a set of rules designed for their figures that it would be interesting to try out. The rules apparently come with several scenarios, which may or may not be the same scenarios available for download on the GHQ website. They also sell starter sets for both sides of the conflict, comprising approximately one Brigade (2-3 guns with crew, 9-10 stands of infantry, a couple of stands of cavalry, and a general) according to the GHQ ruleset. After looking at the scenarios available for download it looks like one of the smaller ones would take approximately 4 of each starter set to build and play. So theoretically I could get started for around $100, but the scenarios would call for at least $340 plus terrain and other odds and ends.

I've also been looking at smaller figures in the form of Baccus 6mm ACW, and the Polemos rules. Battlegames #15 has a decent article about the rules along with a battle report. The starter set from Baccus comes out to just a hair over $130 with the rules, two armies, a painting guide, and a couple of armies. They offer various booster sets that run from about $15 to around $40, depending on how big you want to go. The website says that one starter set offers enough figures and stands to play games right away, so that is a point in favor of the Baccus models.

I've also been looking at the Perry plastic figures, but they aren't really practical for me at the moment. According to the Baccus website you can paint an army in a couple of weeks and be ready to play small games. It would take me a year or two to get through an equivalent number of units in the larger scale. I don't really see ACW as taking precedence over my other armies, but if I could get a couple of armies painted in between other projects that would allow me to scratch the itch without overwhelming myself with another large-scale project.

I'm leaning in the direction of the Baccus figures and Polemos rules at the moment. We'll see what happens when it actually comes time to make a purchase.