Good Bye to 2020!!!

 Goodbye to 2020, a year I am supremely confident very few of us, if any, will be sorry to see the back of, given Covid19's malign influence on ourselves, our families and our friends, not to mention our hobby! I doubt I will be alone in this sentiment, nor in my earnest hope that 2021 will see us move back towards more normal times in all aspects of our lives at some stage. With all this disruption to our lives it's quite hard to summon up the necessary application to produce the usual annual review, but I will do my best in the circumstances.

Firstly games: you must remember them, I hope! Here in GHQ I have not hosted a game since Lockdown Mk2 was imposed. When I look back over the plans I'd formulated with Phil and Jon I'm mostly overcome by sadness at lost opportunities to game with my friends and share the pleasures that our wonderful hobby and friendships bring us. But, not withstanding all the coronavirus malarky, we did have some memorable games while we could. We played 24 games over those parts of the year when face to face games were possible. Of those I won 9, drew 2 and lost 13, clearly a below average performance on my part! A few pictures of more memorable games here in GHQ at least ~

With restrictions on meeting face to face for games here in GHQ or elsewhere for much of the year painting took on more significance for me, as I'm sure it did for others. My major effort since May will not have escaped even the most myopic visitor to Tales from GHQ, namely the building of two 28mm armies for the Punic Wars. I did paint other stuff or course and built some new terrain pieces along the way, but the Punic Wars project occupied the bulk of my effort ~

In all I painted 797 28mm figures over the year, surprisingly not a great increase over previous efforts.

I made a few purchases over the year, leaving aside the three phases of figure purchase for the Punic Wars project, starting with my most expensive acquisition from Germany, a prepainted Vauban fortress, delivered with stereotypical German efficiency I'm pleased to say ~

When I bought these two for £10 in a bookshop in Cornwall during our October holiday I thought they would be my bargain of the year...

I was wrong, as became obvious when I acquired a large box of over 100 Aventine Miniatures Republican Romans from fellow gamer David for what I freely admit was a bargain price! During the year I also contributed to Wargames Illustrated, either in it's hard copy format or in its ethereal Bite Size format; five pieces in all, with my War of 1812 - 15 piece appearing in both formats! 

As we Stand To, waiting with a mixture of hopes, aspirations and trepidation, to see what 2021 brings I am confident most, if not all, of us will be hoping to see the return of wargames shows. With many early ones already cancelled it seems the autumn Partizan 2 might be the first I would attend. Of course even that is contingent on developments outside of our control. I did though attend two Shows this year in early March: WMMS and Hammerhead. The first is already deferred now to 2022 while the second is provisionally relocated to September. Such is the life of a wargamer in the Times of Coronavirus! A happy, healthy and above all safe New Year to you all!