Review of 2025.

Time to review how the year went and how close or otherwise I was in maintaining discipline and sticking to the plans! 

The plans for the year are in italics.

BATTLES

ANCIENTS:

Early Imperial Roman: 9th Legion v Ancient British Mona.

Completed with a surprising Ancient Briton win meaning the campaign will continue.

Punic Wars: Battle of Trebia.

Completed. History overturned with a narrow Roman victory.

Continued -

An additional unplanned game this year was the Battle of the Arar. A Gallic Wars scenario using Hail Caesar rules.

WARS OF THE ROSES:

The Battle of Hedgeley Moor. An unplanned game which saw me dust off my WOTR figures for a test of Hail Caesar rules.

ECW:

TBC. Braddock Down is a possibility but I have yet to settle on a particular battle. It is possible that ECW will be a period not covered this year.

Braddock Down proved to be the last game of the year and trialled Pike & Shotte rules for the first time. An overwhelming Royalist victory although rather more action occurred compared to the original.

AWI:

Another unplanned game but a period I have long since intended to add to the list. Lexington and Concord is my second attempt at this battle, the first being in 10mm using British Grenadier! rules. On this occasion it was the turn of Black Powder using 6mm figures. You will find a report of the earlier game on the blog.

NAPOLEONIC:

Peninsular War project - Battle of Busaco 27th September 1810. 

Completed. History repeated with a Wellington victory.

ACW:

Cross Keys 8th June 1862. 

Completed. A first outing for Black Powder ACW.

PONY WARS:

A priority this year now that all figures and terrain have been completed.

A priority it may have been but one that has got missed.

COLONIAL:

Zulu Wars - Rorkes Drift

Likewise another miss.

WW2:

Market Garden: Battle in the Woods from the Rapid Fire scenario book involving the UK Paras.

Operation Compass: Attack on the Maletti Group. This is a scenario from a mini-campaign acquired from Wargames Vault. 

It is unlikely I will have time to play both WW2 games but hopefully one will see the tabletop.

Unfortunately both failed to be played.

CAMPAIGNS

ANCIENTS:

Roman invasion of Britain. The attack on Mona by the 9th Legion will likely see the conclusion of this campaign.

Game completed but the campaign rumbles on. See above.

NAPOLEONIC:

Warplan 5/5 campaign to continue. The French are in full retreat on all 3 fronts. Map moves have yet to be completed.
The above wording was copied and pasted from last year's plans. It has been far too long since I gave this campaign any attention so will be a priority for this year. Particularly as no Napoleonics were played last year. A rarity for me!

Finally good progress has been made with map moves completed creating 3 major clashes. 2 of those have been completed:

The first was Tremleurr. A French v Anglo/Dutch battle resulting in an important French victory.

The second was Loverna, a French v Anglo/Portuguese/Spanish battle which so an allied victory which could have serious implications for the French in the south of their country.

WW2 NAVAL:    

The "Defending the Malay Barrier" campaign will be another priority. There are two more actions to be played completing campaign turn 2. I intend to play both.

Several actions were completed from the campaign early in the year. Both outstanding actions for turn 2 were played this being an interception of a Japanese convoy by the Darwin Group.

The final action being an air attack on 2 Australian cruisers.

Turn 3 was also completed which saw action limited to air attacks. Here one such attack was launched on a Dutch force.

Turn 4 was more eventful. Aside from several air attacks, naval actions were undertaken. Here the Japanese Western Attack Force were intercepted by the Dutch CenGroup.

The Japanese Eastern Attack Force were engaged by the Australian Darwin Group.

The US lead EastGroup attacks the Jintsu convoy. 

This concluded turn 4 with turn 5 and 6 to be played which will see the culmination of the campaign.

PAINTING/MODELLING

Targets for the year:

I shall be aiming for 2,000 x 6mm figures painted which appears to be my new average. Unfortunately my planned 3,000 was rarely achieved although in my defence, aircraft, ships and terrain take up plenty of time. My targets:

300 x Punic Wars (Trebia) 
1,700 miscellaneous!

A total of 1748 figures were painted so a little below the target. These broke down into:

Punic Wars - 268
Napoleonic - 612
AWI - 787
Misc - 83

Refurbish river boards. Basically making the rivers more realistic.

Completed

As with the figures, all terrain is now prepped for the games planned so will aim to reduce the number of unpainted buildings and terrain pieces.

A few bits and bobs were painted from my unpainted pile, but the biggest project of the year was a new acquisition. I bought enough Total Battle Miniatures castle sections to be able to assemble castles of various shapes and sizes. This includes town walls which can run along the width of a board if necessary. It was my intention to post an 'On the Workbench' page showing the finished articles but ran out of available time. It will feature in a planned mini siege campaign for the WOTR.

More WW2 ships and aircraft will be painted.

50 x 1/3000 WW2 ships and 6 x 1/600th WW2 Aircraft painted.

I will be shortly posting my plans for the next year but in the meantime, hope you all have a great Christmas.