2025 Plans and Such

It's my favorite time of the year in the wargaming blog scene, where bloggers post their reflections on the past year and their goals and plans for the year.  I'm a little behind with my own post, but I was caught up in my renewed enthusiasm for Morschauser.

In 2024, I kept my plans to a minimum, with the big goal being to paint the 48 Games Workshop figures I gifted myself for Christmas 2023, which I did. Go me!

Plague Marines, painted in January 2024, are my 2nd favorite 40K unit, after my Sisters of Battle

I painted other stuff too (an additional 45 figures if my accounting is correct), but they weren't part of that goal.

For 2025, I put some extensive thought into some sort of overarching hobby goals (I enjoy the process of coming up with goals and action steps and all that jazz. Plus, I had some downtime while visiting my family). Tl;dr: 

• Arrange more social gaming
• Focus on making terrain and scenery
• Limit spending on figures to gift money only

Social Gaming

Although I am a solo wargamer to the core, I would like to try to make some local friends who share my interest in painting toy figures and rolling dice. To that end, I will attempt to get in some games with the Georgia One Page Rules group - primarily with my lizard army. 

And of course, I'm hoping to run some "family and friends" games. 

I enjoyed our Family Fall Festival Cthulhu Grey game so much (as did the players) that I want to run more Cthulhu Dark/Grey/Dark Green or maybe CoC (Call of Cthulhu, not Chain of Command) 7th Ed. I have a *significant* collection of 7th ed material (from Humble Bundle), that I can use with any of those rules. I will probably run a Fall of Delta Green scenario using Dark Green as it is much easier to teach for a one-shot.

Terrain and Scenery

I would like to play more 1/72 PTO this year than I have in a very long tie and for that I need palm trees and jungle. The trees will probably be paper, wire, and masking tape as it works very well. My grim dark sci-fi terrain is significantly lacking, so some low budget DIY barriers, ruins, etc. are called for.

Limit Figure Purchases

While I am limiting my figure purchases to gift money, I already have some planned. 

The first is a bag of Armies in Plastic Egyptian Lancers (for conversions to WWI Italian lancieri). 

Two of these were finished in 2024. The other two were done in 2022. 

Less certain, but certainly appealing, is a bag of LOD British regulars or light infantry for some skirmishes with my colonial militia.  It's a period that means a lot me personally, not because my family fought in it (they weren't even on this continent yet) but because I lived in Philly for thirteen years from my mid 20s to my late 30s (one year for each of the original colonies?) and the history surrounded me every day. 

So, I'd really like to do * something * figure-gaming related with it.  

I tried to go down this road once before - albeit for bigger battles - but, this time, the project is much smaller and far less overwhelming. A dozen figures on both sides and a gun or two for an objectiveis more than enough for what I have in mind (for now!).

The Other Stuff

Of course, there will be painting - but it's not a goal in itself this year. While I have no doubt that I'll paint the figures I got for Christmas (the lizards at least), it's not something I feel an urge to make a goal. It'll happen organically.

I have a lot of ideas about what I'd like to play this year, but the list below constitutes a wish list more than a to-do list.

• WWII PTO - 1/72 Guadalcanal or Tarawa (I have scenario books for both) or maybe a fictional island landing using my own grid-based rules that are a mix of Crossfire, The Portable Wargame, and Advanced Squad Leader: Starter Kit #1. 
• WWI Caporetto - I'm going to rebase the figures again (yes again) to single figure bases and then use sabots with One Hour Wargames 'Machine Age' rules with my modifications. Because I change my mind about basing way too often.
  
• Grim SciFi - I'm less enthused about Grim Dark Future Firefight lately, so, probably with One Hour Skirmish Wargames, Skirmish Kids, Space Weirdos, or maybe Fistful of Lead Core Rules. I want more immersion and narrative, almost RPG, than I get from GD:FF.
  
• Perilous Tales in the American Colonies, 1750s-1780s - just what it says on the tin. Colonist fashion didn't change much if at all during this period.
• AWI Very Small Skirmishes - Skirmish Kids, OHSW or Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket, 2nd edition. Might as well make use of my colonial militia figures!
• Italy's Lame Attempt to Invade France in 1940 - Brick figures! Probably Bolt Action 2nd Edition or 1BC Toy Soldiers. Or maybe Crossfire if I feel cheeky. 
• Weird World War I - using a modified Perilous Tales most likely. 1/35 (yes, back to 1/35)
• Venus! - My beloved lizards and the AVEF will return. Possibly for "big battles" using One Hour Wargames, or one of the Colonial Portable Wargame variants, possibly small skirmishes using One Hour Skirmish Wargames or Skirmish Kids, or something else.
  
• Lemuria - 54mm fantasy ancients/medieval using my modified Morschauser Shock rules, or possibly my One Hour Wargames "Ancients/Dark Ages/Medieval' combo rules. I really want to do a 6-sided campaign (it's a point-to-point campaign structure from an issue of Lone Warrior) but I may just play games and have a loose narrative to tie them together, as I kind of prefer that generally.
• Age of Fantasy - This is what I will probably play with the Georgia OPR group.
• WWII Small Skirmish - 54mm British vs Germans, Europe. Germans vs Soviets, Eastern Front. OHSW or 1BC Toy Soldiers or 5 Men in Normandy.

Looking at that list makes my head hurt and think I should let go of more collections!

Finally, I picked up this for inspiration to read this year:

Battle of the Alps: 1940: Italian Invasion of France

This book has been on my wish list a long time and I finally found a low-priced used option. 

I'm only a chapter or so in and my initial impression is that it's not the best edited book ever - it could use some tightening up, and some punctuation edits, but that's a nitpick. 

The fact that the citations so far have all been secondary (or even tertiary?) sources is a bit disappointing, but there aren't many other books in English dedicated to the subject (any in fact that I could find in the past. Only as I was writing this did I learn there is a new title, The Italian Army in the Battle of the Alps 1940, coming out in February, 2025),