Planning Ahead for 2025

 First things first...Goblins are still in progress.

With October being "Orctober," my immediate goal for October 2024 is to finish off the unit of 40 goblins, plus shaman and three "Lurking Skulkers" that, under more recent versions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles (and now Warhammer: The Old World), can hide in regular goblin regiments and leap out when melee begins to try and shank the front row of the enemy unit. I'm also aiming to have my 2002 Ruglud's Armored Orcs regiment completed by the end of the month.

Beyond that, I'm looking forward towards 2025 and giving myself a dedicated project to work on in the new year. My wife and I just watched the new FX adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun, and enjoyed it very much; between that and listening to the Yarkshire Wargamer podcast interview with Trevor Dixon of Dixon Miniatures, my thoughts have circled back towards a long-standing desire to paint samurai.

So I placed an order with North Star for a couple of skirmish rulebooks - Ronin, from Osprey Games, and Daisho, from the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warefare - two prepacked warbands for Ronin, and then another order with Badger Games here in the USA for a couple packs of Bad Squiddo Feudal Japan warrior women. 

These will get me started for samurai painting and wargaming; eventually I'll pick up "Test of Honour" as well and start expanding my forces and building terrain. I've also dug a few samurai I bought in 2016 out of my bits box - a couple from Reaper Miniatures and a pair of AEG "Clan Wars" samurai archers, long out of production, that I'd bought off someone on Facebook. From there I'll start adding Perry and Dixon Miniatures samurai and retainers to the mix. 

Samurai Archers Rebased

I recently picked up a pack of Reaper Samurai figures from their Dark Heaven line of metal miniatures - I saw them on the rack at Just Games and couldn't say no.  And I immediately began planning *yet another* Frostgrave army.  I haven't decided yet if I want to go with Sigilist (for the calligraphy connection) or Enchanter (for the almost mystical amount of work that went into forging a katana) as my wizard's school, but I do have an army list drawn up, one composed of, appropriately, Seven Samurai.  Just about the only thing I needed to track down was a pair of appropriate archers.  Nothing I was turning up on Google appealed to me, so I put out a call on the Frostgrave Facebook group, and a kindly gentleman offered me a pair of samurai archers, from the "Legend of the Five Rings: Clan Wars" miniatures game, now long out-of-production, for $3 apiece plus shipping.  I swiftly took him up on this, and they arrived yesterday.

Today, I trimmed away their metal tabs (I'm not a fan of slotta-bases), cleaned up the flash and mold lines that I could find/access with my X-acto, and glued them down to my preferred bases, 25mm Renedra flat rounds.

I can't keep the cat away long enough to open the porch door (our apartment has a screened-in porch where I do my priming) and prime these fellows, so hopefully tomorrow morning I'll get them out there and get a quick coat of primer on them.

I think with this I'll have all the Frostgrave warbands I intend to paint - I have a primed-but-unpainted Witch warband based on the 1982 CONAN THE BARBARIAN, these samurai, the Choosers of the Slain, the Undying Host of Sutekh-Ra and the Diabolists of Belphegor.  How many more warbands do I need?

Don't answer that.

I might hold on to the Seven Samurai and the Cult of Set warbands until the Painting Challenge begins this year.  I think that might be a good beginning to my participation this time around.