Back to the Back of Beyond

 So you know how I resolved to try and focus my attention strictly on one period for wargaming? I was going to stick to modern urban skirmishes?

Yeah, I think on some level we all knew that wasn't going to last.

A few days ago, I started getting the powerful urge to return to historical wargaming - and specifically, what was sort of my roots as a non-GW wargamer: Colonial and Victorian-era wargaming. While Games Workshop was my introduction to the idea of wargaming, not being able to afford a 2000-pt WHFB army as a teenager eventually led me to discovering other wargames. And having grown up reading Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard, I swiftly gravitated towards "Steampunk"/Victorian Science Fiction games. Long gone now, but 18-ish years ago I had a couple of small British and German forces for Buck Surdu's G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. rules complete with whimsical steam-powered tanks. I'm not interested in games of native-bashing, but small forces of Europeans with native allies squabbling over territory? I'm absolutely into that. 

So I started looking at Wargames Foundry's Darkest Africa line, and Copplestone Castings' continuation of that line, thinking about wargaming the Scramble for Africa. And I started looking at rulesets such as Chris Peers' "In The Heart of Africa" and "Death in the Dark Continent." I also pulled Wiley Games' "Bigger Battles" supplement for Fistful of Lead down off my shelf and gave it a flipthrough. 

And then I decided I wanted to try and push back, rein it in, and try and hold to my resolution - cut back on what I'm buying instead of dumping more lead into my backlog! Telling myself no is...challenging.

I had to remind myself that I have a nice backlog of historical figures in my project boxes and I could maybe dig those out and start work on them to scratch this historical itch.

This morning I dug into my "Interwar/Pulp" box and pulled out a half-dozen or so blisters of Copplestone Castings "Back of Beyond" figures - that intersection of the Russian Civil War and the Chinese Warlord Period that I've wargamed a little bit in the past. Tonight, I sorted them out by faction, put aside the ones that are half-painted that need to be stripped and redone, and put the remainder of my White Russians on the project bench. 

My hobby time tonight was spent cleaning mold lines (and the mold lines were severe - I love the Copplestone Castings lines, but my god they need a mold refresh!) and gluing figures to Renedra round bases. 

I've got a unit of 10 White Russian soldiers, 3 officers, and 3 Cossack horsemen cleaned up and ready for priming, and a field gun that is ready for assembly. I probably would have gotten the field gun assembled, but the cat was suddenly at my feet yelling that his bowl was empty and I was overdue for giving him his evening treats/medication. 

Sooooo...maybe I amend my 2025 gaming resolutions and split my attention between the Back of Beyond and the modern skirmishes. 

Figures Purchased in 2025: 0

Figures Painted in 2025: 0