Take the road, hold the hill.

A Game with Mark's Little Soldiers from a few weeks ago. Some lucky card draws put the the Panovians in a good position to win a draw.

Another game this time Beef and Beer refight of Killikranke. The Highlanders disrupted the Crowns line but became quite disorganized in the process.

Air support and flames.

 We continued the game from last week. My troops managed to regroup and threaten Howard's force but in the end I had lost more than half my units and was about to be out flanked. 

Berglander Flame thrower sets the house on fire.

Slobainian Guards advance around the burning building.

The HMG lays down covering fire.

The Guards move past the burning armored car setting up a position on the Slobainian flank. 

Air support arrives but inflicts more damage on it's own side than the enemies.

Another fun game. The plane is a wooden kit from Michael's, simple to build and fits well with the miniatures. I'll need to get some closer pictures of the plane with miniatures meanwhile here another pov of it. 

She may be cute but she's not helping us win the battle.

 We played a game last night using a modified AGW using Mark's Little Soldiers. Here's a few photos. We'll finish up next week but things aren't going well for the Berglanders. The General has a mistress which allows the other side to cancel a number card every cycle. 

Mark's Little Soldiers, first battle.

 The Mark's Little Soldiers made it to the table last night. Matt is working on a set of simple rules for these. I think the original rules were for a smaller amount of figures but once we pulled all the figures out Matt tweaked the rules to accommodate larger units. The game moved along well and was fun. No figure removal needed we just laid the casualties on their sides.

A couple of games played.

 With the Holidays and sickness we didn't get many games in. The last few weeks things have begun again. 

First up was a game of Beef & Beer. Late 17th century on a gridded table. We used Howard's 10mm figures by Jim Brokaw.  I'm enjoying this game as I like using grids for movement and firing and the command phase allows for a fair amount of decision making. 

Behind the Hanoverian line.

Overview of the battlefield.

The center engaged.

Next we played LotR SBG. It's been a while since we played, ten years?, but the game is strait forward and moved along well. The Rohan force was trying to destroy a cave troll. 

Rohan fights off the Moria Goblins.

The Troll emerges from his lair

Rohan overwhelms the Troll.

Fun all around.

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.

Merry Christmas!