Year 14! The Plan.

WELL, here we are again! Another new year begins!

 (For casual or newer readers, July the 3rd is the anniversary of my 2010 heart attack. (The only one if I can help it!) Celebrating it not only reminds me of a personal revolution in lifestyle, it also reminds me to look at how my New Year plan is going, and to adjust my plans accordingly. (Healthier than I've been in decades thank you, despite coming up on my last 60-something birthday in a few weeks time.)

One ongoing goal is to reduce the number of miniatures and books etc that are cluttering up my room. Some are there as remnants of long ago collections, some because of "haven't got around to" syndrome, others as "excess to requirement" stragglers, and so on. When I do reduce, I do not usually immediately re-home figures and books but wait for a few months/years to see if I miss them or if I've found a way to make them less redundant. However, as life goes on, I am losing patience with the overflow of excess boxes, bins, stacks etc and constant nagging thoughts such as "I really should get around to painting this lot some year" or "I ought to get these guys on the table as long as they're here..." and finally "If I haven't gotten around to these in the last 30 years, what are the odds I'll get them done in the next 10 or 15 years?". 

The truth is that while I'm a bit of a hoarder, and once wanted to do everything of interest to me, as 70-something looms next year, I find that in the 55 years that I've wargamed, I have at least dabbled in pretty much everything that I have had some interest in. However, too many of them were not pursued with the depth I would have liked and too many were taken up to match what friends were doing.  My main desires now are to spend more time on fewer collections, play more mini-campaigns even if they are just a series of scenarios with a narrative link, and reduce duplicating, including that of the "same weapons and tactics, different hats" syndrome.  (See the active collections here: http://gameofmonth.blogspot.ca/p/overview-my-armies-rules-and-plans.html)

Almost all rules and plans have exceptions, so I am keeping three 40mm 'Horse&Musket' collections.  Two of these are inspired by, but not recreating, certain wars in my country's history. One is inspired by the British conquest of Acadia and New France, the other was inspired by a mix of the War of 1812 AND the Rebellions of 1837-38. The 3rd one is my Britain vs Revolutionary France collection which has absolutely no reason to still be here except that I put a lot of work into putting it together, mostly converted home cast figures, they reproduce my first 15mm armies in the early 80's, and it allows me to steal scenario ideas from CS Forester's Hornblower" stories, and, well......I like 'em!.

So, there we are. The plan, rather unusually, is only a tweak of last year's plan, but its working for me.