2018 Confessions of a Megalomaniac Wargamer and Amateur Historian

My inner megalomaniac is back. This post is a follow on from my 2017 Reflections of a Megalomaniac Wargamer and Amateur Historian. The previous post was a retrospective of the last 23 months, which means pointing out my successes. This post is the (overly ambitious) list of what I’d like to get done in the coming year. It is the more embarrassing part. The confession. Bear in mind these are more or less active projects.

Megalomaniac surveying all those unfinished wargaming projects
Megalomaniac surveying all those unfinished wargaming projects

To help you understand the scale of my problem, I’ve done a brain dump of all the projects on my mind. You’ll find it below. Scary huh! Fat chance, of course, that I’ll complete that in 2018. Or, perhaps, ever. So this is actually an attempt at self-inflicted psychological warfare: a “get real” moment.

I’ve sorted the projects so the higher priority items are at the top of the list. Sometimes they are higher priority because it should be ridiculously easy to complete that particular project. Take some photos, play a game Kadesh, Sipe Sipe, and Albuera, finish the Soviet Tank Riders and Portuguese MG42-59 – trivial steps preventing these project from being done. Man, given how long these have been hanging around, that is embarrassing. So, if nothing else, it would be good to knock off some items at the top of the list.

To be honest I don’t really mind if I don’t get to the bottom of the list. Actually even getting 30% down the list would be awesome.

Period Project Rules Aspiration in 2018
All Wargaming Any but mostly Crossfire, Big Base DBA/HOTT, and Operational
  • Play games
All Photograph Steven’s Armies All The missing and/or substandard galleries are:

WW2 Operational / 2nd Kharkov TBD
WW2 Soviet Tank Riders Crossfire
Peninsular War Albuera Volley & Bayonet
Portuguese Colonial War Portuguese Colonial War Fogo Cruzado / Crossfire
  • Finish converting and painting Portuguese with MG42-59 on tripods
  • Finish scratch building and painting a Panhard EBR-VTT. Engin Blindé de Reconnaissance
  • Base more palm trees
  • Rebase the insurgents I painted for Fogo Cruzado
  • Buy, build, paint Portuguese Paratroopers
  • Buy, build, paint more Portuguese Light Infantry (Caçadores)
  • Refine my Ambush Scenario and work on others
  • Scratch build and paint some proper African huts
  • Get the figures on table and play more games of Fogo Cruzado
  • Write a campaign system
Liberators Sipe Sipe (1815) TBD
  • Select a set of rules to use for Liberators
  • Recruit skirmishers for all my battalions
  • Write a scenario for Battle for Viluma / Sipe Sipe (1815)
  • Get the figures on table and refight Viluma / Sipe Sipe
Medieval Reconquista Big Base DBA
  • Rebase existing armies on Big Bases:
    • Feudal Spanish
    • Medieval Spanish
    • Andalusian
    • Murabitun
    • Almohad
  • Recruit a new “El Cid” army (buy, paint, base)
  • Recruit a new Granadine army (buy, paint, base) including those great Muslim Knights
  • Get the figures on table and El Cid in particular. Charlton Heston rides again.
Biblical Battle of Kadesh Big Base DBA
  • Write a DBA scenario for Battle of Kadesh
  • Get the figures on table and refight the Battle of Kadesh using Big Base DBA
Thirty Years War Thirty Years War TBD
  • Choose rules to play this period with Big Bases including Pike and Shot on the same base
  • Write a scenario for the Battle of Nordlingen (1634)
  • Get the figures on table and refight the Battle of Nordlingen (1634)
WW2 Ponyri / Kursk Crossfire
Italian Wars Italian Wars DBA-RRR
WW2 Ruins of Stalingrad Crossfire
  • Repaint my generic buildings to be more Pink-Earth
  • Buy, build, paint a new factory
  • Buy, build, paint more 3″ x 3″ sectors using Wargames Tournaments kits
  • Write a big Stalingrad scenario for Crossfire
  • Get the ruins on table and play the big Stalingrad scenario for Crossfire
Arab-Israeli Wars 1967 Arab-Israeli War Crossfire
  • Rebase my newly purchased Arab and Israeli forces
  • Buy, build, paint some middle eastern houses for use with Crossfire i.e. can take the roofs of
  • Write a Crossfire scenario
  • Get the figures on table
New World Conquistadores New World DBA
Rif Wars Rif Wars Crossfire / Fuego Cruzado and something grand tactical
  • Finish converting Ansar figures to Riffi
  • Paint the Riffi
  • Buy, build, paint some middle eastern houses for use with Crossfire i.e. can take the roofs of
  • Select a grand tactical set of rules for the bigger actions
  • Get the figures on table
Medieval 100 Years War Big Base DBA
  • Expand my Medieval Spanish and Portuguese armies and get more English
  • Get the figures on table and refight one of the battles in the Peninsular during the 100 Years War – Aljubarrota or Najera
Medieval Catalan Company Big Base DBA
  • Buy, build, paint figures for the Catalan Company
  • Buy, build, paint figures for the opponents of Catalan Company in Greece and Turkey
  • Get the figures on table
New World Portuguese Explorers New World DBA
Making Stuff River Various
  • Repaint/texture my 3D rivers compatible (Military Miniatures, Flames of War, for 4″ hexes)
  • Buy, build, paint linking sections because all of these are slightly different widths
  • Get the rivers on table
Making Stuff Big Hills Various
Liberators Simón Bolívar and the Northern War TBD
  • Buy, build, paint complete armies for the Northern War (Venezuela, Columbia) with Simón Bolívar as my next Liberator
Ancients Rise of Rome and Fall of Rome Big Base DBA and its replacement
  • Rebase on Big Bases. Although I have enough figures to play, I haven’t rebased all of my figures. In particular there are more to do in:
  • Expand my Carthaginian forces to cover the very early wars in Sicily against the Greeks i.e. get some chariots
  • Expand my Celtiberians from being mercenaries for my Ancient Spanish to being a fully fledge army
  • Buy, build, paint camps for the armies without e.g. Gallic, Numidian, Macedonian/Selucid
  • Select a new set of rules to replace DBA; one that, amongst other things, does not cripple the Ancient Spanish and is good for the Punic Wars and Hundred Years War
  • Decide if my replacement for DBA is actually DBA 3.0 (or perhaps DBA 2.2+)
  • Get individual command stands for these armies because any rules to replace Big Base DBA are likely to use them
  • Get the figures on table, in particular my Gallic and Numidian armies that have never seen the light of day
WW2 Operational Artic Fox Megablitz
  • I found a good Megablitz scenario for Operational Arctic Fox. Be good to play it.
WW2 Italian Campaign (1944-45) Crossfire
WW2 Berlin (1945) Crossfire
  • Buy, build, paint late war Soviet tanks, e.g. IS-2, SU-100, T34-85, 203 mm howitzer M1931 (B-4),
  • Buy, build, paint late war German tanks, e.g. Hetzer
  • Buy, build, paint Spanish SS “Unit Ezquerra” / late war Germans for Crossfire
  • Buy, build, paint a distinctive building for Berlin (1945)
  • Get the figures on table
Carlist Wars Carlist Wars Whatever I use for Liberators
Spanish Civil War Spanish Civil War Crossfire / Fuego Cruzado and something grand tactical
  • Get the figures on table
  • Select a grand tactical set of rules for the bigger actions
  • Finish some of my scenarios e.g. the draft Battle of Madrid scenario that has been lying around for years
New Zealand Wars New Zealand Wars TBD
  • Choose a set of rules to use
  • Figure out how to use my existing figures for Big Bases – if at all
  • Buy, build, paint a Maori Pa
  • Get the figures on table
All Storage All
  • Get my Dymo LabelManager Wireless PnP working again
  • Put printed labels on all my storage boxes

8 thoughts on “2018 Confessions of a Megalomaniac Wargamer and Amateur Historian”

  1. Oh dear. I just read that again. It is so depressing. Particularly the bit about these being “active” projects. I haven’t even shared the aspirational projects. Somebody around here is insane. mwahaha

    Reply
  2. That is quite the list Steven and not a bad exercise for those like us that have a few too many projects.

    Reply
    • Yes, indeed. Work takes an unfortunately large amount of my day, week, year. Very annoying.

      Reply

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