Challenge XIII - {Insert Witty Title Here} - From StuartL

Hello all,

So, here we are at the cusp of another AHPC madhouse, and I for one am nowhere near as prepared as I should be. But, before we get into that, introductions are in order.

My name is Stuart and I have been gaming since the early 90's I guess. However, my first foray into wargames happened in the previous decade. When I used to visit my grandparents' house, I would often pass the time playing with my uncle's old airfix toys and 1/72 soldiers (nearly all were unpainted). He and I would line the men up and then take turns firing matchsticks at them from a spring loaded cannon. It wasn't the most well balanced ruleset, but it was fun. My first real exposure to wargaming came via everyone's favourite evil wargaming corporation, Games Workshop. I got Heroquest as a birthday present, followed by Space Crusade for Christmas. After that it was on to Space Hulk and Space Marine (the precursor to epic). At various times I think I played most of GW's games during secondary school and university. 

Originally I am from Stockton-on-Tees in the North East of England, but in 2004, for a variety of reasons, I packed my bags and shipped off for Japan. My initial plan was to work as an English teacher for between 6 months and 1 year and then head back home to find a new job. All of my hobby stuff was left with my parents for my eventual return. However, I found that teaching English was a lot of fun and my 1 year plan quickly extended. Needing something to do in my free time, I found a local store that had a tiny selection of GW minis and picked up a box of Orcs, some tools and some paint. This led me to find my local gaming group, where I became an active member and to me requesting that my family start shipping stuff out to me. 

Fast forward to today, where I am still living in Japan, working as a teacher and am still in the same hobby group. I have been less active over the past few years as the group tends to play 9th edition 40K, whereas I'd much rather be playing anything else. I have a huge collection of minis for Bolt Action, Saga, Black Powder and more besides. I do like 40K, but the current rules feel bland and pointless to me. The newly released Horus Heresy rules are much more to my liking.

My initial plan for this challenge was to stay totally focussed on getting 2 or 3 armies completely finished. That lasted for about 20 seconds. I will still try to do the bulk of work on those armies, but I'm expecting to embrace my inner Squirrel and see what I have in my eclectic collection. I started building and assembling models for the challenge in early October, but due to real life issues taking up a good chunk of November, a lot of things got pushed back to December. 'Not to worry', I thought, 'December is always quiet at work'. Not this year. My boss decided that instead I should be as busy as possible in the run up to Christmas. Luckily, all is not lost. I still have a ton of minis built and primed from Challenges XI and XII in my stash. Speaking of.....

Unlike some of the challengers who live in vast sprawling mansions with enough room for a gigantic hobby space, I'm limited to a 6' by 9' room where all of my stuff must stay. Should anything stray from the room, my better half will immediately throw it into the trash.

My work area is pretty small. I don't have room for a monitor or a PC, just a small music player. Over the course of the last challenge, this tiny work bench hosted nearly 300 minis, so it seems to get the job done. On the back wall you can see a memo reminding me to do the chores and other tasks before I get too lost in painting. 

The main part of my stash is kept on a set of metal shelving racks. While I do try to sort stuff out every now and again, I am rapidly running out of flat surfaces on which to stack things. Included in that lot are numerous army cases, bits boxes and a full 6' by 4' WW2 Normandy beach board that I have only used twice in the eight years since I built it.

And this is my gaming table. It is made from the same metal racking as the shelves and is currently home to about 20 KR multicases and numerous boxes of plastic, metal and MDF. In the background you can see yet more shelves containing rulebooks, terrain supplies and yet more plastic. As you can see from the foreground, I am in the process of priming stuff, building things and it is all a colossal mess. That said, it is usually much, much worse. 

Having seen some of the neat, organised hobby spaces from other challengers, I am reminded of a quote. "If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning." Guess which category I am in. 

Oh yeah, I'll be minioning for the first time this challenge, if you are unlucky enough to be in my care, I apologise in advance.

See you all at the starting post!