Painting, gaming, and a new arrival: 2023 midyear review

Well, here we are, halfway through the year, and nary a blog post to be seen! While there's been a fair bit keeping me occupied aside from gaming, I have managed to get some painting done, and a few games on the table. First up, a few add-ons for previous armies:

The dwarven contingent got an artillery piece - still considering whether I might expand them into a full army some day. Crew are mostly from the same set as the rest of the dwarves, though a random MiniArt Germanic warrior got conscripted as a fourth. The cannon barrel and most of the carriage are from the same Spanish sailors set that supplied my conquistadors; the wheels and the mantlet are from a Caesar Assyrian chariot I'd had around for ages.

2022 painting round-up

Happy New Year, everyone!

Ever since I started tracking my painting a couple of years ago, I like to assemble it all at the end of the year for a review. For 2022, I painted 239 figures in total, down a bit from the last couple of years. The biggest contingents were two new DBA armies, who have previously been featured (Tlaxcalans, Undead), but my Proxian imagi-nations armies also saw considerable expansion (spurred on by several battles being fought over the course of the year.)

(There are a few absent from the picture - some chariot runners I painted for my dad as part of a rebasing scheme prior to a game at our local convention, a Leonardo tank painted for a club project, and a Scythian lancer borrowed to paint for a contest over at Benno's Forum.)

A few other highlights that I never got around to posting about on the blog:

Occiterran Red Hussars (from the Emhar Light Brigade set), painted up after the Occiterran defeat in April.

A proper Pharaoh for my Egyptians (from the Caesar set), painted up in time to lead the Egyptian army in my Battle of Djahy game at Barrage.

Camp followers for various DBA armies - Aztec and Tlaxcalan at left, Bronze Age at right.

A selection of Reaper Bones adventurers.

As for 2023, no big plans yet - I'll just have to see what the year brings as far as painting and gaming! My brother stopped by yesterday for a couple of rounds and DBA and HotT, so we are off to a good start...