2024 was a pretty good year in Kevin’s wargaming life. I painted a lot of figures and played a lot of games. It was a year that was hard for a couple of reasons, but it was a time of some personal growth too.

2024 was the year of The Big Move. Enfilade lost its longtime home in Olympia on very short notice and we were able to relocate to the LaQuinta Inn and Suites in Tacoma. I did a lot of the work but certainly not all of it. The convention came off. It was good if a bit crowded. I look forward to 2025, if for no other reason than we’re not moving this year. I would be lying, however, if I didn’t say I haven’t fully recovered from The Big Move.

Camerone at Enfilade. It was amazing in no small part because the participants were so wonderful.

One of my biggest accomplishments of the year was the completion of Camerone. This was not my project alone. Mark Waddington built the hacienda and it is simply splendid. Mark is such a wonderful creator and he happily constructed the building for the game without charge and I simply can never thank him enough. Did a couple of playtests of the game and ran it with an appreciative audience at the convention. Michael Koznarsky provided me with a beautiful cased articulated Hand of Captain Danjou. What a wonderful and thoughtful gift. I’ll need to be thinking of other uses I can have for the hacienda.

These are my Pacific Northwest Natives by Paymaster games. The critter on the right is the mythical Ogopogo that lives in Lake Okanagon. I haven’t quite figured out how to get it into a game.

There were two sets of rules I played a few times this year that really got me. One was Tribal, 2nd ed., by Mana Press. The other was One Hour Skirmish War Games by John Lambshead. Tribal is very much a pre-gunpowder set of rules, and the original OHSWG rules are intended to begin in the horse and musket period could go up through sci-fi. What makes them similar are their diceless play systems. Everything from activation to morale is captured through a normal card deck. Tribal is kind of stylized. I have two Northwest Native armies with figures by Paymaster Games. Only played with them once so far, and I’d like to do more with them. OHSWG is a true skirmish game that plays very quickly and usually accompanied by a lot of laughter. I’ve played or run at least a half dozen games and enjoyed every one. Both offer projects with few figures. For OHSWG I have completed two projects-the Moro Wars, and Maximilian in Mexico, but I have three more I’m working on-the Cuban Revolution of 1895-98, the Spanish Frontier in Mexico with Spaniards vs. Apaches, and The Philippine Army vs Japanese in 1941. Lots to look forward to.

The Lord of the Rings. I’m a sucker for all things Tolkien, and when my friends Keith, Scott and Kurt showed up at Weekend Warriors with figures to do the Games Workshop Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game (MESBG) I was immediately intrigued. It was a short trip from intrigued to hooked. I had a long secreted away pile of figures from the early 2000’s and it took little to persuade to paint those bad boys. Scott also showed me some Etsy 3D prints, and I was off. I’ve painted three fourths of what I have plus my printed figures. Honestly I don’t love MESBG, but I’ll play it. I may be looking at another system that is a bit less stylized. The system is rightly character-driven, but the combat feels fiddly. Plus I don’t love the GW/Warlord/Studio Tomahawk business model of endless revisions aimed at sucking cash out of my pocket. There must be a better way.

Remounting. This is a topic that frequently throws people over the edge. I wouldn’t say remounting is the worst thing in the world. It has two very positive aspects. One is that I get to reorder one of my projects in a way that, I believe, makes it more playable. Another is that it allows me to revisit a completed project, or at least kinda, sorta mostly completed, and appreciate what I have. This year I completed one big remount and began working on another. Both projects were intially singly mounted projects for Daniel Mersey’s Lion Rampant rules and now I’m remounting 3-3-3-2-1 which speeds up game play and better protects them from wear and tear. This summer I completed remounting my Aztecs/Conquistador/Tlaxcallan figures. That is a 400 figure project, so nothing to sneeze at. David Sullivan and I wrote rules specifically for these and I need to haul them out and play with them. I have begun working on a remount of my Hundred Years War figures. I’ll write a separate post about them in the future, because I’ve ginned up a lot of motivation to go back and work with what I think is a pretty large collection of these figures. This will take a while and I will have to transfer a fair amount of wealth to Mr. Litko, but I think I’ve redone seven units so far which is simply a pittance.

Friends. So much has happened since the pandemic that has changed me, changed my life. The isolation of the plague, the various critical losses in my life, have made me appreciate each and every one of my people, whether they are family or friends. Nowhere is this more true than among my gaming buddies. I wish I could just drop names, but there are too many and I really don’t want to leave anyone out, because whether I play with regularly or we just see one another occasionally they truly mean so much to me. They are always up for a game, whether I run something or somebody else does. They are fun to play with and never a cross word. The Weekday Warrior group that meets on Wednesday is just super. I’ve also been drawn to Ralph Holloway’s game group that meets at Wizard’s Keep the last Saturday of the month. Lots of game attendees and willing to try anything. As we age, of course, we all suffer through a little something. I would be remiss if I did not mention my dear friend David Sullivan’s serious illness and my wish that he was well. David and I have been friends for 33 years. We have jointly plunged into some of the most dangerous of projects together, and every moment has been fun and adventurous. If I could have one Christmas wish it is that David’s illness would be cured and 2025 would be the best of years.

Looking ahead to the New Year, here are some things on my plate:

I’m planning to run three games for Enfilade 2025. The first is a naval game, the Battle of Inquique. This is a hypothetical game based on the not-so-hypothetical friction between Chile and the United States over politics and the 1891 death of two American sailors in Valparaiso that nearly led to war. We’ve played this scenario a few times and tweaked some bugs out of it. We’ll use David Manley‘s Fire When Ready rules. My second game is a One Hour Skirmish War Game scenario based on the Moro Wars in the southern Philippines. This is another scenario we’ve run a few times. I am offering it as a six player game though I haven’t run it as more than four. Looking forward to it. The play tests have been fun. My final game, the big one, I’ll run on Sunday. It is a game based on the Battle of Blanchetaque that allowed Edward III to cross the Somme River to face the French at Crecy. This will be a Lion Rampant game with lots of scenario specific rules that offer both sides some challenges. Still lots of work to do on this bad boy.

In keeping with Blanchetaque and all things Hundred Years War, SAGA (Studio Tomahawk) is about to release it’s new book, The Age of Chivalry. I’ve pre-ordered it and I’m hoping it doesn’t make an utter botch of things. It will include a pile of interesting armies that I could see sucking up every bit of my painting interests until the end of time. Though I have many painted HYW figures, I also have many unpainted HYW figures. Of course I do.

My other big get done project is my Cuban Rebellion for The Men Who Would Be King. I’ve completed the Spanish regulars and have a good start on the Cubans. I need to add some Spanish auxiliary figures at some point. It’s a period I’m really intrigued with, though everyone kind of says “hunh?” when I mention it.

I have lots of other bits to work on too between some air war, naval war and One Hour Skirmish War bits. My big challenge is to play as many games as possible from as many projects as possible. Maybe I should keep track.

I guess I’d like to close with a couple of other thoughts/goals/ideas for the new year. My goal is to keep painting and as long as my sight and hands allow me I hope to pop out some 60 or so figures a month. Sometimes it will be more and sometimes it will be less. But because painting is something I really enjoy and not a chore, I should find time to paint almost every day. I’m not going to say no new projects because something always happens. Since I’m retired, but working one day a week for gaming, there’s always a few bucks for new stuff, and I’m always a sucker for something new and beautiful. But it would be nice to paint more figures than I’m purchasing. And no I’m not going to keep track.