From SamuliS: Flames of War Doughboys (118 points)

After a short hiatus from submitting anything here I've finally managed to get something painted. A combination of real life induced issues and being completely fed up with painting olive drab saw this final infantry platoon in my newest Flames of War army taking quite a long time to get painted up. Still here's 53 infantry and three guns ready for review adding 118 points to my tally! Maybe this will see me start getting back on track on reaching the 1000 points in the challenge.

Funny enough looking back at the last year or so I noticed I've only painted nine 28mm miniatures and over 500 of these 15mm buggers. Considering that I don't really like to paint smaller scales at all it's no wonder that I've sometimes gotten quite fed up with the painting side of the hobby nowadays. Too bad that my club has moved to 15mm minis in Napoleonics and my main game Flames of War is 15mm as well. At least after these guys I'll only have a few vehicles left to paint up for my army for this years European Team Championship. After they are done there's hopefully some more time to start painting smaller more enjoyable projects as well as the odd army every now and then. At least the Saxons have been quite nice to paint as the sculpts are superb, but I think I'll have to throw in some more Oldhammer and other fun little appetizers every now and then :)

These are the foot sloggers from an Armored Rifle Platoon in Flames of War and a small medium anti-tank gun platoon of two 37mm guns. This year the European Team Championships is played with Mid War armies which will be an interesting change. The yanks should do quite well with plenty of bazookas and some cheap AT guns that are still pretty decent with the lighter armor that they'll be facing.

All minis are from Battlefront with the infantry being the newer plastic models and the guns being metal. Personally I hated the new plastics, but as other minis weren't available I had to go with them. The new plastic American infantry sprues are bit of a missed opportunity in my opinion as there are multiple duplicates of certain poses in a single sprue so there isn't much of a choice between poses. Also the casting is quite awful on a few of them with very distorted details etc. These are some the first plastic infantry that they've done and it really shows. On the other hand their M3 half-tracks from the same box are actually very nice. Still all in all, not a very fun unit to paint and I very much prefer the metal minis even if they aren't that great sculpts either. At least I didn't hate painting the previous armored rifle platoon that I did.

So with that done I think it's time to get on with the Friday ceremonies. It's about -30 celsius and there's plenty of snow outside so I don't really have any other choice than to stay indoors, open a bottle of whisky and start drinking myself funny. Though this would be the first weekend in a long time that I'm home and would have a lot of time for painting. A hangover definitely would make that a bit tricky. Decisions decisions... Maybe if I'll just drink enough to forget that I had to paint these minis...

To finnish (ba dum tssshhh) off here's a very appropriate inspirational quote with a slightly more appropriate background.

Good to see another healthy blast of points for you Samuli - and if there is anything in the hobby that should drive a good man to drinking, it would be the plastic WW2 products from Battlefront.  I've had experience with them as well, and I have to agree their WW2 plastics are complete sh!t. I get a little mental at all the folks who are mindlessly exalting the arrival of plastics in 15mm...but that's a rant for another time. 

Reading through this Samuli, it almost seemed as though you were flogging yourself to complete a TPS report for a douchebag boss rather than finishing a project for a hobby you enjoy! And I can relate! We've all been there (or, at least, I have), when a project turns from a passion to feeling like a job - for me, usually, its anything with camouflage. Full marks for sticking with it, right to the bitter end.  To truly love this hobby, you have to hate it from time to time...hopefully relaxation and alcohol will let you reflect on a job well done, and a good sized force now taking shape!  In fact, I have never seen Wayne Gretzky's advice, pictured above, put in such a constructive context...

This is indeed another 118 points for your total! Enjoy your drink(s), your bracing winter weather and we look forward to more next week! Oh, one more thing - for what it's worth, I vote for more Oldhammer...