The Pledge eight years on.

The Pledge was started back in 2005 by mweaver on The Miniatures Page. The rules weren't hard and fast and each participant tweaked them to meet their own goals. I didn't count the lead pile in the beginning and I don't carry over from the previous year. For me the rules were paint more miniatures than I bought. An Excel sheet was created and the The Pledge began.

2015. It went well for the first few months. Painting was well ahead of the purchases made then a bargain came along on some John Jenkins Warring States Chinese eliminating any progress made and putting me deep in the red. Life got in the way of painting for the remainder of the year and I fell behind.  -178.

2016. Most of the year was spent in other activities but I managed to keep purchases under control. +28

2017. I didn't shy away from buying and started a GNW project. Motivated by various games we were playing I managed to paint a fair number of figures. +127

2018. Purchases kept low but painting out put was not out standing either still a good year. +53

2019. Several impulse purchases plus figures needed for various projects lead to a high figure count but concentrating on painting still kept me in the black. +27

2020. The Empress Vietnam range was too good to resist. As gaming was suspended I focused on what was bought and a few other random projects. +78

2021. Another new project started. ACW is a fairly easy period to paint so this went quickly. Purchases were about average but I was aggressive with painting giving me my best totals ever. +179

2022. The "No new projects" mantra was muffled once again. 29 figures bought in February and nothing else until I started with Mark's Little Soldiers. 177 figures bought in the last four months of the year. Painting output was very good though so the year ends well. +122

I find keeping track of things like this helps in two ways. I motivates me to paint when I need it, if only a figure or two at a time or just painting the boots on a group of 12 fig

ures. Also I can look back through the year(s) and see what I've done. 

The Pledge has often been criticized as a program that encourages not buying miniatures but as can be seen from the chart above my numbers of purchases are fairly close to what's been painted. 

The averages are

bought 205 figures per year

painted 260 figures per year

+55 figures a year.

I've never counted the lead pile, I thought about it once but it was too overwhelming, nor what is painted, working on an inventory of what I have but can't decide on a format. The last few years I've tried to paint whatever has been purchased during that year but that only happens about 80% of the time.

And in an instant it's gone.

You may think I'm referencing the end of the year or the decade for that matter but no it's about my painting goal. Upon awakening on Sunday the 29th of December 2019 I was ahead of my purchases to painted models by 131 figures. A trip to the local Hobby store just to see what paints they had ended with me buying two boxes of Perrys ACW. It was a good deal. How could I resist? How could I forget the two hundred unpainted 15mm ACW figures I already had? Out of sight out of mind as the saying goes. Then an order I had placed from Warfare Miniatures arrived driving up the total. I had anticipated this an managed to paint almost enough to compensate. Still the year end number was in the black but 100 plus would have looked better than the 27 I ended up with.

I started this post on the 30th of December, now we're already three days into the new year. Since I'm starting with I clean slate I placed an order for some Empress Vietnam War figures taking advantage of the sale Age of Glory was running. I also wanted to get to painting them while I was still excited about the period and not caught by some other  shiny thing.

An advantage of keeping track of things is that at the end of the year when others are wondering where the year went you can look at the records and see what was done.

• 31 games played
• 334 figures painted
• 1,045 Miles ridden on my bikes
• 1 Grand daughter born

Another fun filled year in the books.

Vietnam game.

First of the Vietnam collection.

Waiting for the light.

Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY

Week one.

Thanks for reading.

Closing in.

Rolling in to December always has it's challenges and traditions. Black Friday sales seem to be the biggest challenge. There's the sales for things that you had in the back of your mind but don't really fit in the plans you laid out for this year as well as the things you are willing to get to "help" a friend get free shipping and the biggest challenge those that you have plans for but could wait until next year to get. This last is my current dilemma. Warfare is having a 15% off sale and I could finish off my GNW project with it but I had hoped to wait until January. There's five more days to debate this.

Traditions involve recapping the year and setting plans for next year. Now is a little early for this but I've seen a few blogs that have discussed their current year or a system for keeping the lead pile and projects organized if not under control.

Here we have a plan to limit projects to a certain size.
http://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-new-pocket-armies-project.html

Here is a quarterly update on how the year is going.
https://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.com/2019/11/3rd-quarter-statistics.html

Here our blogger enters the Analoge Painting Challenge.
http://wargaminggirl.blogspot.com/2019/11/paint-table-saturday-ahpc-x-is-upon-us.html
Details of the challenge above.
http://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/

Part of the planning is the monthly tracking through The Pledge. This year is working out fairly well for me. Another unit of infantry for the GNW project and the start of another "no new periods" period. These put me at 304 figures painted. Fun fact, of those 16 were for an unplanned period and 56 were for periods that were technically finished.

GNW Vastmanland Regiment. Warfare Miniatures.

USMC Vietnam. Empress Miniatures

Back at it.

October has found me doing more facets of the hobby. The summer saw a fair amount of gaming but little else. Now I've gotten back to painting and am continuing the reorganization of the AWI armies.

I finished nine Swedish cavalry by Warfare miniatures as well as some RAFM Plains War that had been sitting in a box for years. The RAFM had been primed white but something went wrong and the figures had a bit of  that orange peel look to them I started painting them anyway but had some trouble with coverage. They went back in the box until last August when I pulled them out determined to finish them. While on vacation I picked up some Holger Eriksson GNW figures. I finished off five artillery crew and a gun. I really like the style of these figures and although they don't match size wise to the Warfare Figures I will use them alongside them.

Smaland Cavalry, Warfare Miniatures.

Plains Indians, RAFM

US Cavalry, RAFM

Swedish Artillery, Holger Eriksson.

Back in June I had picked up some of the new Empress Vietnam figures. This hasn't been an interest to me in over forty years. No manufacturer has made figures that grabbed me and it's been a challenge to find rules that give a game that will give the feel of what I imagine the fights were like. Then Gringo 40s and Empress both release ranges that look great. Easy as it is to order from across the pond  and Ged's reputation it was easier to get the Empress from across the table through Age of Glory  at NJCON.  I painted the grenadiers as a test for colors to use. It's always difficult to decide on colors when using online references as even the same photo  can show up in different shades. I'm liking the kneeling figure the best. Number one was painted just because often that's how I think of Army Green but it's pretty bright.

1-2-3-4

1-2-3-4

Here's the paints I used, all Vallejo. Equipment and flak jackets were the same for all figures.
1 - US Uniform 922
2 - Russian Green 894
3 - Russian Uniform 924
4 - US Dark Green 893

Flak jackets Khaki Grey 880
Webbing, pouches, khaki 988, Brown Violet 887.

More May games.

A fairly productive and fun filled month for the Wargaming hobby. I was able to get plenty of  painting done completing 60 figures. I had bought 54 and this may be the first time I was able to paint more than I bought in a month when the purchase was that high. The only picture I took of this months production was of six US Marines by Scruby now owned by Historifigs. Very nice figures and I'm looking forward to more from this line to be released.

The remainder that was painted covered many periods. 

 Vikings, TYW Cmd painted as Swashbucklers, AWI Hessian Art, GNW Russian Art, 1812 Kentucky Mtd, Serbian Art Officer, and Dutch Bicycle troops. This is keeping me well ahead for this years "The Pledge".

The fun part of the month involved three games the first I posted earlier. The second was another try of A Nobleman's War. A five player game involving besieging a castle and the relief forces. We were unable to complete the game so left it set up for another night. Dedicated man caves are great to have!

The besiegers move in towards the castle.

Crossbow men defend the ramparts.

A relief force moves up.  

A second relief force attacks the besiegers.

The second besieging force moves into the flank of the relief force.

A crushing flank attack.

Mounted Knights melee on the plain.

The last game was on a new game board Howard has built representing a Chinese Garden. The game was Chainmail Bikini with two groups of thieves attempting to steal an amulet and escape. 

the Koi pond

A great table and scenario as is to be expected at Howard's.

Next months plan is to finish off some GNW Swedish cavalry and finish some of the buildings and cars I have for Mad Dogs with Guns.

Thanks for reading.

.

The Trifecta

a few weeks back Howard brought some figures he was looking to sell. quite a few were from the Foundry and Copplestone Darkest Africa range which is a period that always some what interested me. Being weak willed and the fact that some of the figures were painted and all were a reasonable price I picked some up. Here's part of the collection.

Since most of the figures were already prime and based I started painting right away. Most of the unpainted figures were porters or villagers wearing loin cloths. It's a pretty quick paint job when all you need is four colors. When Matt suggested Darkest Africa as a period of choice for Thursdays game I enthusiastically said yes. It was just the little bit extra motivation I needed to finish the figures. 

The finished figures layed out on Matt's great table along with some of his Askaris and Howard's Pygmies.

 This is probably the first time I have bought, painted and played with figures in the same month, actually within a week of getting them. Buying already primed figures was certainly an advantage for this as well as the type of figures. 

I applied some paint to a few of the figures that had come painted basically giving them a wash and dry brush which enhanced the paint job already on them.

 I was worried when I first bought the figures that it would affect my bought to painted count for The Pledge . My progress for this year has been pretty good(  the PledgeSeptember )so another 50 figures wasn't going to break me but as the end of the year always brings new figures I didn't want to fall behind. Luckily I've been able to keep the number even so far this month. 

update 10/23

Matt's post with more photos saltflats1929again