Busy life

Life has been busy chez DestoFante. Between traveling and work, with a move weeks away and a baby due August 15th, I am actually surprised I can still squeeze in one hour or two for painting or catching up with the hobby. Of course, the choice is between coming here, and talking about the hobby, or sitting to the table and practicing the hobby. You guess how my time is distributed... But then, I realized that to my readers I may appear as a complete wargaming slacker! So, here a few topics for posts I promise I will write soon, if not exactly right now.

• Cold Wars. I manage to squeeze in a cameo appearance for 36 hours at Cold Wars, the HMGS-East spring convention in Lancaster, PA. I did a little shopping, as you may expect, and also had a few thoughts about the state of the hobby. I need to write a thoughtful post about those, and share a few pictures (eye-candies always welcome!)


• My Marlburian project continues in full swing! A couple of weeks ago I made some significant progress, short of a great push but enough to feel a sense of accomplishment. Photos to follow, hopefully soon.


• I also saw some progress in my colonial project: there are several Abyssinian units almost ready for dipping and basing, and so several other European miniatures. It didn't help that I had to wait for almost one months to receive Litko bases, but the quality of the product is so good that the wait is worth. Of course, I got a little derailed by some tangential thoughts. I really would like to play some "Hunting the Slave Traders" games in Sudan, circa 1880. This would be more of a "Dark Africa" than a "Sudan" project, and unfortunately "Dark Africa" in 15mm doesn't offer the same variety of opportunities as it does in 25mm. I still need to do some thinking about that.


• Further diversions. You may remember from here and here that I also harbor a closeted interest for the modern period. I have sketched some good detail about an African imagi-nation, the Republic of Lopongo, where to carry campaigns in style of Bongolesia and Ztum-Setum. That project has slowed down in 2009, but it is not forgotten. Also, years ago I began to paint some IDF and OLP miniatures from Peter Pig and QRF. I fully understand that the topic is politically charged, and I keep quiet about it; yet, this past week, I decided to take a step and I bought the PDF version of two "TooFatLardies" items, "Troops, Weapons & Tactics" and "Rock the Casbah." Once again, Rich Clarke did it for me. As in the case of "B'Maso", the quality of these products is excellent. They deserve a full review. It now seems that a "Lebanon 1982" project will be in the offing...

So many topics, so little time... I hope this will just serve as "menu" of posts to come, but in the meanwhile: back to table to get some painting and photographs done this afternoon!