WW2
I started this year out working on maybe 4 different scales, but have finished the year solidly in the 15mm camp. Flames of War continues to grab our attention, even after flirting with some alternative rules sets (i.e. Blitzkrieg Commander, Rapid Fire! Disposable Heros among te major contenders we tried out this year).
Even though FOW have its faults (just go to TMP and swing your arm with your eyes closed you are bound to hit a thread damning the system in one way or another), we've come to accept it for what it is: A well supported set of tactical rules that's fun to play and have enormous support in the hobby space, and the model are some of the best around. If you can support ASL, then supporting FOW shouldn't be that much of a stretch.
Currently have finished forces of US mid/late war armored infantry, German mid/late war with a variety of big cats, and a Soviet tank hoard army. a DAK force is almost complete with some Br 8th army and Fallshirmjagers waiting in the wings.
I have not completely given up 28mm WW2 skirmish. But my Ru and Fallshirmjagers is still waiting to get painted and unless something else gives, it's not likely to get done for a while. I still have Rules of Engagement I want to try out and some upcoming rules (the GW set rumored to be something different from 40k) might get these ahead in the painting queue.

25/8mm Fantasy
I now have a fulling painted Empire army (nicely done bought off eBay), a smaller half assed painted High Elf, and a horde of growing LOTR figures. The year started with some experimentation with rules like TSATF Fantasy (forgot the name), and also dabbled in PIQUET Fantasy (Hostile Realms). Both of them left me cold as confusingly written and a chore to play. Although I have not played the 800 lb gurilla here (WHFB), my taste tells me that it's probably too fiddley and micromanag-y for me. Out comes War of the Rings (WOTR).
We have not been so excited about a set of fantasy rules (let a lone a set of GW Fantasy rules) in a long time. IMO one of the best thing they have done even accepting some of the complaint against it (some edge cases are not clearly explained, a FAQ is sorely needed).
I now have a full Rohan and Mordor Orc army, with a growing Gondorian Presence. Definitely taken care of the early medieval/Fantasy niche I was craving for. Right now thinking about selling my WHFB armies (in addition to the two mentioned above, I also have an unpainted Orc/Goblin army box with rules.

Here's a brief update on all outstanding projects:

1. 15mm WW2- Finally grown comfortable with the rules known as FOW. The "fun" part and the massive amount of continuing support from the manufacturer outweight some of the whacky part of the rules. Currently finishing up my 4th army (DAK Infantry), and more Russians have just arrived from the painting service. Will be doing more Eastern Front games in the near future until the DAK is ready (and until someone finally come up with a British Army so we can do some Hell's Highway scenarios.)
We've also dabbled in some Blitzkrieg Commander, but did not catch on (there are complaints about the excessive amount of dierolls).

2. 15mm Napoleonics: Sam Mustafa's Lasalle rules have just arrived and is the current Oh Shinny object at the moment. It has some influence from the best part of FOW (more on that later) and yet felt more historical. Thankfully our 15mm basing can easily adapt to the rules so some test drive will be done over the Xmas holidays.

3. 25mm Colonials: Busily mounting up painted Perry/Foundry Pathans and Sudan figures back from the painting service. Hopefully ready to see service by Xmas. Rules are probably gonna stick with Field of Battles (PK lite) but might give a spin with the new Black Powder set.

4. War of the Ring: Finished all my Gondorian infantry, so now onward to painting some Greg Compamy rangers. Slow going due to other project commitment. Still top of the heap when it comes to Fantasy rules (a quick foray into Hostile Realms - aka PK Fantasy proves to be disappointing.)

That's it for now. Before the year's end the goal is to finish all my DAK, basing my Colonials, and finish my rangers.

Each turn both players roll a die, and the total is the number of "moves" (or activations) for this turn. Each battle is diced between the two player and the higher player is the attacker, and can then place an attack arrow to generate a battle.

First battle is a Sov attack, and I promptly launched into Berezino with an IS-2 and aome artillery vs Chris' single PzGren so I am counting on a victory (which will put the Ge forces next to Mogilev out of supply. The scenario generated is a Free for All game so each side will need a lot of platoons in order to hold and take ground.

The way the game work is simple. each battle is an even battle (in our case a 1,500 pt game) where you can use any legal army list. Each "firestorm troop" you add (in my case the IS-2 and the arty) is on top of that, so I can build a list to complement the extra troops I am getting.

First battle should be next week 7/28.

Click through the picture to see more flaming tanks!

Chris and I recaught the FOW bug (both of us have ADD when it comes to keeping a project on track), so I took a break from all the WOTR stuff and re-ignited my Soviet force (rounding it out with a few more T-34, built out my rockets battery, and started on some SMG infantry and some heavy stuff.

Recently battle have been various Ge forces taking on my Sov tank horde loaded up with tankoneski. Sov hordes are all or nothing army under the rules, we found that they roll over Ge Tank forces, but cheaper Ge grenadier co backed by a lot of AT weapons will easily take care of it.

We are also jazzed enough about the system to fire up a Fire Storm campaign game that came out of Battlefront. It's a simple and playable campaign system and one can always pick and choose which battle to fight out and which to use the speed dieroll method to save time. The trials and tribulations of the campaign will be chronicles here...

Click through for more pictures of our WOTR games.



Other than Flames of War this is probably what I am playing the most (and by extension, painting the most). It has settled down into the default fantasy set for me for it is fast, deadly, and I liked the Rock Paper Scissor aspect of it.



We are probably playing once a month or so, and we usually get enough people for a game of WOTR and one for the LOTR:SBG game as well (we are taking a break this month to play just a SBG game).



Painting wise I have now amassed a truely large amount of unpainted lead/plastic that contains a full Rohan force (mostly painted), full Mordor force (mostly painted). Unpainted Gondor forces that's mostly regular foot and horse, with some Rangers and Army of the dead for color (led by Boromir and his bro). Besides that I have a smaller Easterling force (foot painted, horse still waiting for paint), and a none GW (Thunderbolt Mountain) Wood elves army superbly painted by Fernando Painting service (I sprang for the expansive paintjob since a Tom Meier figure deserves the best).



That's a lot of painting to get done (especially now that it has slowed down as my FOW project just started up again, see next post)...

Click through for more pictures of our WOTR games.



Other than Flames of War this is probably what I am playing the most (and by extension, painting the most). It has settled down into the default fantasy set for me for it is fast, deadly, and I liked the Rock Paper Scissor aspect of it.



We are probably playing once a month or so, and we usually get enough people for a game of WOTR and one for the LOTR:SBG game as well (we are taking a break this month to play just a SBG game).



Painting wise I have now amassed a truely large amount of unpainted lead/plastic that contains a full Rohan force (mostly painted), full Mordor force (mostly painted). Unpainted Gondor forces that's mostly regular foot and horse, with some Rangers and Army of the dead for color (led by Boromir and his bro). Besides that I have a smaller Easterling force (foot painted, horse still waiting for paint), and a none GW (Thunderbolt Mountain) Wood elves army superbly painted by Fernando Painting service (I sprang for the expansive paintjob since a Tom Meier figure deserves the best).



That's a lot of painting to get done (especially now that it has slowed down as my FOW project just started up again, see next post)...

The new 100 bottle paint rack from Hydra Miniatures as it sits on my desk (the scary part is that I almost filled it the first go!).



Painting wise just finished up some long dormant Soviet Tank riders for Flames of War. Next on the painting block is some odds and ends Soviet t-34 and the rest of the Ru Rocket troops. (on a Flames of War kick right now, enjoying the Operation Bagration releases)..

The Rules are probably the best I've seen from GW (some called it what Warhammer Fantasy battle SHOULD be). The rules are more abstract than WHFB (you do not worry about strict movement paths and number of figures in a rank. Geometry is much less important which I feel is what make games like WHFB or DBx complicated.

While it shares the figure range with their skirmish game (Strategy Battle game, often called LOTR:SBG for short), the rules are very different, not just a mass combat "variant". Basic turn structure is still interleaved IGO-UGO (I move, you move, I shoot, you shoot, I charge, you charge, then we fight melee). The concept of MIGHT is also preserved (i.e. heros use might to do cool things). Some other major difference:

1) Organization: Figures are organized into company (a stand) of 8 inf or 2 cav, and then company is organized into "Formations" (Units) of from 1 to 9 companies, depending on troop type.

2) Mechanics: Movement is very stylized. If you have enough distance you can move a company, exact how you get there is not important so this should speed up play and cut down on argument.

3) Fighting: Instead of rolling hit/kill/saves, the system gets converted into a single throw of massive number of dice. If you get offended throwing 40 dice in one combat then this is not a system for you.

4) Magic: A new spell system for GW that let you cast varaible number of spells with variable likelyhood of success. Some does not like the uncertainty but being a gamer who believe in Chaotic school of rules I like it.

5) Heoric Actions: A major theme of the game IMO. WHile rank and file troops can perform ordinary feats of arms, the game is won through using a hero's might at critical moments to achieve that special advantage. The amount of special actions has been greatly expanded to allow more interesting combos.

My thoughrs after about 4 games:

A) Speed of play. The game moves fast. With when a charge goes off it's not surprising to see entire formation decimated. Definitely not a good set of rules to simulate attritional warfare, but makes for a good fantasy rules set with strong narrative.

B) Modern Game play: Since the arrival of magic many game systems have a "combo" type of hook (Warmachine is the first thing that comes to mind). Now WOTR bring the same kinda of mechanism to Massed army games. While some may decry this as "cheese", what happens in WOTR are not really broken IMO so it gives it that extra tactical dimension of "getting your combo out".

C) Cool Models: FOr once GW launches a new system and all 8 factions are more or less complete with figures (there are new stuff coming out of course but there's enough core troops to get started now). I've always liked the range but never really collected given that I am not a big fan of the SBG rules (I play for social reason since many in my gaming circle are fans). One additional good thing about the figs: They are relatively easy to paint given their muted palate so you can crank out an army pretty fast (I did 18 Riders of Rohan in 2 evenings, must be a record for me).

So now I have a 1000 pts Rohan army and a 1000 orc army. Next some battle reports...

I painted up a Space Marine battle force because "My friend's kids was getting into it and I wanted to fit in". So after about 1,000 pts of forces painted and no kids in sight (they might have lost their interest), Chris finally brought his Imperial Guards from Canada during his last trip home over the holidays. Now I have an opponent (no I was not going to play in the local flgs and play with unpainted figs).

This is a learning game, as I have not read through all the rules yet. a small (~500 pts) army on each side, trying to collect as many objectives as possible. My experience with FoW paid off, as there are many similarities. The only part I need to get used to is this new WYSIWYG LOS rules, which means most ordinances can fire across the entire table (you just get a small cover save).

It is entertaining in a B-movie action flick kinda way. So while not something I'll get carried away with, I can see occasional game to pass the time.

We had another outing of this large action colonial rules. This time using Bob's 15mm Sudan figures. Given the smaller scale we can have tons of units and that's just what we did.

We tried the Tamai scenario right out of the rulebook. From the description it looked kinda boring: 2 giant square moving down the board and the natives have to stop them. After reading the details you realize that there's a time pressure so the Brits can't just stay in square formation (which moves very slowly), but have to break formation to move faster which gives the natives a chance to do some damage.

The game went really close, and my Fuzzies barely won the game near the end of the day (I need to kill 3 british infantry units). A great scenario!

I have been hearing how "revolutionary" a ruleset Crossfire is for the better part of a decade now, and my buddy Freddy is a proponent. But due to lack of broad local support, and just that lack of "something" while reading the rules means that I didn;t really get to try it until now.



What changed is that now we are playing almost every week, and we are off to explore what other rulesets can we use with our good sized Flames of Wars army. with some help from Freddy we got a game on.



We played an intro scenario we got from a CF fan site. The situation is a small town in Normandy defended by the US Para, and being counter attacked by German infantry with 1x tank support. The rules really is revolution in that:

1) it has no turns. If you have played Blood Bowl then you have a similar situation (if you keep executing "successful" actions then you keep going, the turn immediately switches if you failed an action.

2) Simple rules (a D6 diepoll mechanism where level of success depends on how many D6 "passed")

3) Extremely exciting and stressful (in a good way)



The stress sometimes cause us players to fo into befuddled mode ("What do I do now?") To increase the stress someone suggested using a chess clock to definitely kick it up a notch.



That said there are some minus:

- It's definitely not a "general" set of rules that can be used in any situation. For one thing a good CF scenario requires a lot of cover on the table (basically LOF is across the table since there are really no measureing. So if you have clear LOS to a target, its days are numbered). By that measure any engagement in wide open terrain is not a good candidate for these rules.



- Not really designed for AFV. Come on, I want all my shiny tanks on the table!



So a set of rules for an occasional outing, especially for city/village scenarios where other rules sucks at.

1) Finish the Perry Sudan British & 2x Fuzzy unit that's currently sitting on the desk.
2) Finish the rest of my 40k Space Marine force so I can start my games with Chris.
3) Finish basing & flocking my ENTIRE Ankara project (Ottoman and Timurids).
4) Finish the rest of my Perry Sudan figures.
5) Finish the rest of my Xyston Ancient 15mm.

- No more lead purchase until existing mountain of lead has been taken care of. By "Taken Care" that means either painted, packed off to a painting service, or sold off.
Now supplementing a unit here or there for a current "active" army is an exception to the rule above.

- Projects will be structured so that working toward playable games (and that means having a matching pair of playable armies). After carefully tallying, I am actually surprised that many of my armies are lacking so that I can't setup a playable scenario without outside help.

SO taking stock of what I have:

COMPLETE (enough to put on a decent sized game, and this means painted and flocked)
a) Colonial (Brits vs Zulus, Dervishes, Pathans, Boxers). For the Dervishes I am in the process of phasing out bunch of older figures and replacing them with Perry.

b) WW2 15mm (a pair of FoW US and Ge army, at around 1750 pts each).

c) Nappy 15mm (big Russian army, and a small French army due to selling off of some crappier older figs, due to be replaced by AB figs.

d) WHFB (a painted High Elf army and an Empire army).

That's it, which is shocking small actually. Next the near complete army pairs (con't)