First unit of the year and looking back.

 I've not done much with this blog, after getting thrown out of TMP, views are way down, so I mostly use the blog now to have a place to hotlink pics from and keeping track of what I've actually been doing. 

Here's a list of last years production:

28mm: 

185 infantry.

50 cavalry.

3 cannon with 3 13 crew.

3 command.

Most of my 28mm is black powder period-specific, with most of it being either Napoleonic or SYW, but there is something other two, medieval,  Italian wars and Vietnam. 

In 10mm:

399 infantry

24 cavalry 

3 cannon with 12 crew

1 command. 

All my 10mm is black powder period, the war of Spanish succession,  Napoleonics and ACW. 

The big let down was I was just 18 figures away from my SYW passing 500 painted,  but I lost my inspiration. 

10mm was a new thing for me last year, with 3 projects, 10mm ACW(which I kinda fell off) 10mm Napoleonics and 10mm WSS. I found I prefer 10mm over 6mm, for me 6mm starts to lose the realism look, they are either not very real looking, or they look ok but are so fragile I can never make a unit with less than 40% broken bayonets. with 10mm you can get the massed look and still make them look like little people, both my Lancer 10mm and Van Dyck have multiple poses in the pack. so, in essence, they are just small 15mm or 28mm. That didn't have to make to many compromises. 

I need to finish Friant's 2nd division, I'm only missing 5 and a half battalions. and 2 howitzers, some skirmishers and leaders. in 10mm that's only about 15 days of painting. It's just about finding the inspiration. 

The year has been filled with lots of stuff 2020 has affected us, the wife has been worked to death because of temporary management change at work and the pressure from COVID, we had a litter that turned out total shit, and ended in the worst possible way with having to put a 5-week puppy to sleep... it affected me a lot and I was not myself for many weeks after that, I just hind in ghost of Tsushima a game for the PlayStation 4, playing it for hours a day, so I didn't have to think about the loss. 

But 9 weeks later, we had another litter, and unlike the first, here we got 5 strong wonderful puppies. 
We kept two, Drifa and Jøkul.

Jøkul to the left, a big dark grey boy, the last one born, Drifa to the right a black and white girl.

Here they are sleeping on the couch with their mommy Såga, I having been banished to the comfy chair. Their 3 siblings have all moved to Western and South Western Norway, all to great families. 

We also did lot of work of the property, the basement (that once long ago was a garage) will be made into a proper dog room, the first step was to expand the room with about 6m2 putting down concrete floor and building brick wall and putting in 3 windows and a door. This was done by father in law with a little help from me, he also helped put up a 3rd dog yard and saving the roof of the annexe by taking out the rotten beam holding it up and putting in a new one. 

So he was here helping us for about 2 months. 

For Christmas, I got my first antique sword, wifte had gone to great lengths to hide it from me(swords being kinda hard to hide the shape of) So she added one of her colleagues to the conspiracy. The swords also had to get to the in-laws without me seeing it, so it got a trip on an express bus by itself. And then I had to go hunt for it in the basement washroom at the inlaws. 

A 1796 infantry officers sword. Made between 1800 and 1807.
The first of at least 5 British Napoleonic Swords I plan on getting.

Then after Christmas, we had to make the tough choice and let Gaia go. She was 12.5, our oldest dog, mother of Såga and Orca and grandmother to the new puppies. She just didn't want to eat anymore. 
She was a wonderfully funny little dog, a great mother to her puppies who she lived with every day for 6 and a half years. She had a great summer and fall, really enjoying herself. But it was sad.

Except for puppies, she was always our smallest dog, a tough little dame, who did not know her own limitations. Even when she had started to get old and not at good on the legs anymore, she would jump and climb, running to fast and falling over just jumping up not giving a crap.

Gaia with her litter,

Gaia getting her belly rub, the only petting she actually enjoyed. 

Gaia meeting her Grandpuppies, this isn't that long ago, maybe two months and she was just fine then.

And now, the first unit of the year. 

His Majesty's Royal Regiment of Foot 

The Allied force so far, 3 battalions and a couple of squadrons of Prussian Cuirassiers. 

I have enough of these Van Dyck to do 5 more battalions, for the allies and 1 more for the French, And enough Pendraken cavalry to do a brigade of Prussian and a brigade of French. 

 

Looking back and looking forwards

So this is the obligatory what I did and what I plan on doing.

In my personal life,  I got my first car(cargo van)  still don't have a license to drive. I  got married and I lost my grandmother. She died just a few weeks after the wedding,  Looks like she held on until I  got married.  It was not a sad death, She was 96 years old and she died in her home of 60 years. She had a massive heart attack a couple of years back,  at her age she could not get any surgery. But she lived another two years,  eating what she wanted and drinking her delay cream.  She died in her home happy with her gossip magazines and tv. I near had any other nanny than her, she lived 5 minutes from where I grew up. So not a sad death, a natural death after a long good life. But it's strange not having her around and missing her.


The Wedding was perfect,  we were told by a fellow student of Anita that June 4th was going
to have wonderful weather,  as her husband's birthday is on June 4th and he always had nice weather on his birthday. And she was right. It was probably one of just 4 good summer days this summer.

Wedding on the terrace of the inlaws summer home.

Anitas best friend is her maid of honour  and my dad is my best man.

The day  was perfect with good food and good people, After the wedding dad in law drove us with  his  boat to a resort  where we stayed in  the honeymoon suite 

So we also had a new litter, Freke and Naisha went on  a date. And we got a litter, We kept one we named Huldra.

Huldra!

Hobby  wise, I    have been quite productive. I managed   to paint some 230 figurs for my GNW/WSS project, I still have quite a  few unpainted  laying around, but loost steam. I have also painted some 105 SYW figures, again  a  few laying  around waiting to be painted. Add some Russian and Prussian Napoleionics and a few 30YW I'm not far from painting  450  figures this year.

After an intensive first 8  months the steam started to go empty. The last few months I've painted sevral things not having finished  them, I have painted  12 French Legere, that was supposed to become a 30 figure unit,  I painted 6  troopers and 9 horses for some Chasseur a Chaval,  also not finished.

So I don't have much to show, But I have this.

Had some random  British light infantry I painted up and ordered a movement base from warbases.

I did however, have a late year project. The theme of this year's Christmas gifts was homemade.
Antia made some wonderful embroidery with the names of our nephew on and we put them in some frames. It took a long time to make, She also embroidered some Christmas oven mitts for her and mine parents.

So  I decided to make Anita's gift too.

And  Here it  is:

I made a little diorama of Anita and all of our ten dogs. The miniatures are Copplestone, with some wood glue and white flock, some random ebay  trees, A picture found online and glued  to a background. I tried to paint the dogs as the look, with their markings.  Some of our dogs are quite similar, painting it so that Denali, Beriniga and Fjellbris  look different is quite hard, Beringia at least got white spot on her neck. Some of the models got a slightly curly tail,  So I  gave those tails to our dogs I know got a little curl on them. Orca while black has that curly tail and his shoulder is very  white, so it's easy differentiate him from the other black dogs, luckily our dogs are color coded. So I simply gave  their harness  their color. From bak to front. Orca and Stjerne, Gaia and Såga, Huldra and Naisha,  Freke and  Denali and finaly  up  front Fjellbris and  Berninga.


So that's what I've done 2016, now looking forward.


I  do plan on continuing my WSS/GNW project, as well  as my  SYW.
While I'm  tempted  to do more Napoleoincs  I think   I'll only have the attention span to do  a few figures at a  time. I also want to   try yet again to do ACW,  but we'll  see.

I'm also concidering doing more Ancients and Italian wars.

But first up is a new project(new year new project)

This will be early 100 years war. This is something I've wanted to do  for some time. Mostly because of  the figures from Claymore. The style is just so  cool, a mix of leather, gambison, mail and plate. I do find the full plate kinda boring...

Now there are sevral complications. First Claymore so  far only have only have a  few packs.
They have french foot knights, crowbowmen and pavisers. Naturaly not enough  to do a proper force. So  I much go hunting. I have orderd some Front  Rank mounted MAA,  they seem  to  be about the same period. I also orderd some  Kingmaker knights. Now the kingmakers are probably a little to late for the first 20  years of the war. so my  early 100 year war project will be slightly generic stretching  from 1337  to about  1390. So some units will be post 1360(like kingmaker)  While FR and Claymore will be more very  early part. But I'm mostly staying away  from  the later Perry ranges ect.

Another problem is the style. Claymore is very animated  and very detailed. Not that many  other figures mix well.  Black tree desgins make figures that look quite good and they are for the right period of the war, but they look stiffer, less  natural  in poses. And from  the picutres they look slighter in style.

My first unit  will  be a big unit  of knights and infantry. I'll  have 2 ranks of knights in front so 24 knights and to ranks of infantry. So a big unit of 48 figures. So I'll repurpose the pavisers, by giving  them none paviser shields and giving them a few other weapons then spears, they'll become infantry.

So  that is the plan.

I hope to  have something more intresting to show soon.

Belated Marry Christmas and a  Happy New Year.

End of Year Report/Next Years plans.

So this year has been one of the best painting years in a long time. While the volume might be slighly lower. It was still a great year.

I found a nice spot in the yard to take picutres, that really help to make my figures look good in pictures.  I've actually finished almosy all units I've started on.

A few of the units also looked quite good, I've painted the lovely Calpe miniatures, I'm not sure how he does it, but somehow I never paint as well as when I paint calpe. I can never get my perry and others to look that good. Even sevral years ago when I was a much lesser painter, my calpe did look alot better then my other figures. Sure now when I paint perry they have far surpase my older Calpe.
But new painted calpe looks much better then new painted perry. Now some of that might be because the calpe I'm painting now are mostly dark blue and gray. And I have great colors for dark blue and gray. So the right colors help alot.

I also finished a unit of Ashigaru and have ALOT of perry sengoku figures bought this year. And I'll get back to them.

I also did more figures for my unspecified ancient project, two units of Carthagenians and one unit of hastati.  My part 2 of ancient project is now about 80 figure strong, Plus the over 250 ones I have from way back. It means my ancient project(s) are the biggest 28mm I've done except for Napoleoincs.

But the highpoint must be the last part of the year. Where i painted 4 "units" in just a few weeks, that is a higher volume then I've painted in years and years. I don't know if it was the periods, the figures them self, or the new basing style. Probebly a mix of them all.
I did try and paint some Front Rank Napoleonic british after I used up my Warfare Swedes and "Dutch"  These are the new reenforcment packs from FR so very very nice. But they where marching poses. I did find them boring. And I couldn't finish a single batch of 6 figures.

I feel that painting goes faster, yet figures look better. Painting 4-6 figures steem to go faster. Might be that GNW/NYW figures are somewhat simpler then say Napoleonics, But it feels more like I've just found the grove.

So whats Next for 2016?

Well I'm in the prossess of rebasing my Minden prussians and austrians. This is a project form early 2014. I did small units of 16 infantry and 6 cavalry. I'm now rebasing and I want to expand the unit to atleast 24 infantry and 12 cav. So I need more minden figures. I'm also using the new basing system 4.5 on these.

The new basing system drasticly diffrent from my old style/philosphy. When I had my gaming table, I was very obsessed with getting as many figures as possible on my 4x7 table. The idea was if the bases and unit widths are small more units and figures could fit the table with out it beeing to full.

Now my table is gone for the forseable future. I might in a few years get it up again, and mabye even get room for a 5x9 or 6x8 table. But even if I don't have room for sutch a big table. I'm, really only a wargamer in theory, I'm really only a miniature painter that makes units and dreams about having big armies. So if my unit takes 25cm frontage insead of 18. Then who cares.

I do have some minden stuff still, I've painted a few commanders. And a small battalion gun with crew.

 One of the new things A battalion gun. The "straw" in the breaches and vest is probebly to dark.

 This is how far I've gotten in the rebasing: III Guards and one base of Sers Fusiliers

 They are now based in the Next Genration basing (TNB)

I still kinda would have liked them even closer based, very shoulder to shoulder, but it would make it impossbile to do the bases.

 Franz Leopold von Nádasdy

Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz

I also got a lovely gift from my Fiance.

This has allready been sent to Barry as an order for Swedish cav and infantry. 

I wanted to continue my GNW and NYW projects, but Did not know where to find the money. 

in January I'll buy some minden, and so I did not know when I would get the money for my swedes given we got a wedding comming up in six months time. We need food for the wedding, clothes and ofcoruse the rings.

But now I'll get to do 18 more Cav and 23 more Inf.
I hope to have the time and money to finish the first half my my swedes(3 battalions and 9 aquadrons) Before summer.

Also planed but now idea when.

Continuation of my NYW, I still got 1 more dutch battalion, 3 Danish and 3 English battlions.

A brigade of Dutch dragoons and one danish and one english brigade of cav. Then ofcourse the French.

I also want to do Scanian war project. Also with Warfare figures. It will give me a chance to be patriotic and paint some Norwegians for once.

So I hope you enjoyed this blog post or atleast the Miniature pictures.

Blog Name Change

This will be a personal story, no miniature pics ect, But those will come later with my end of year report/next years plan post.

I started this blog the first year I moved into my apartment in Oslo, I named it Apartment of war, an homage to Lord Ashrams House of war(the man singlehandedly guilty of making me a wargamer.)
But I don't live in an apertment any more.

In 2013 I met a Woman, she lived about 2 and a half hours from me.  We had many things in common and for our first date, we met and had a forset hike in the forests in Oslo, I was a great Date, I managed to loose one of her dogs, I got a sore on my heel. But we liked eachother. The first months where not ideal with her work, my work, long distance. But She drove into Oslo each weekend. She hung in there. From late may I stayed at her place more and more. And after summer Vacation I lived they most of the time, Only going back to Oslo because I had to. After less then a year togeather, I propossed on spur of the moment, no ring no nothing, but it was a nice monent.

We deceded I should move in propper in early 2015, Luckily the thing was forced as my rent got a hicke, and I simply could no afford to live there anymore, After what can only be described as the most epic moving operation since a couple of people buildt a few triangles in Egypt, We got me moved in in just a few days. It also included cleaning an apartment that was quite clearly a biohazard area.

We have now lived togather for over a year and it's been wonderfull, A big change from a City of 600 000+ people to a small lump of houses 10 minutes by car from the nearest grocery store. It's wonderful to have a propper house. A yard ect. Only fly in the ointment is the lack of a drivers licence on my part. But that will hopefully be remided.

So thats is why there is a name change, I've thought about changing it since I moved in.
I first wanted it to continue the theme of "Of war" But I could not call it house of war, One thing is doing a homage to Lord Ash, another is simply stealing his blog name.

So my Fiance gave me the new name. Gunsfreak's History of War. It's fitting since I at times do most periods of history. She also made the wonderfull new banner with her mad PS skills!
She has a great artistic and creative eye. I can take pictures of my figures I'm very happy with, yet she will see it's blurry. She can do amazing things with a camera and with photoshop.

So Now I will show you a little of this new life in the country.

When I met Fiance to be She had 4 dogs, She did quite a bit of dog shows and she had a cart and sled to use her huskies for that.

Since those 4 dogs, We have expanded the family. To 9!

These are the 4 dogs Antia had when I met her.

Denali, The main Bitch, The matriarch and Big boss. 

She Now has 3 daughters living with her. 

A strong, confident dog.(and clever)

A young Freke, A big show winner. Great guy, 

He loves to push you from behind. A very vocal dog, He will "sing" long opreas just because he loved to hear his own voice.

He has a daughter and son living with us.

 Fjellbris Denals eldest daughter She will turn 4 at the end of  Februry(29th to be exact, so really she will only be 1) A very soft and lovely dog, Very easy to deal with. She is a bit carefull, And took quite a while for her to totaly trust me, But I think I've won her over.

She made a few babies with Freke. All of them where sold. But we keep good track of all sold puppies. And one of them was bought by my sister. So we get to see her quite often, and we spent Christmas with her.

Gaia a late addtion. She came to Anita when she was 4 year old. 

She is now the oldest. We have about a year older then Denali, She loved to escape from pens and rooms. When she gets exited she will do a little dance at a stand still. She is a very small Husky at just 15-16kg and a the very start of minimum hight for a female Siberian Husky.

She too made a few babies with Freke.

As mentioned We have expended our familiy.

 In my 2014 We had puppy heaven, 10 puppies, 6 from Gaia/Freke and 4 from Fjellbris/Freke

Her we see newly made Orca at that time called mr big.

 Out of the 10 puppies we kept Orca and Såga.  

Her at just afew months old, Some 1000meters above sealevel. 

Her are wonderfull but mischievous. They have inherited Gaia love of jail breaks.  and Frekes love of making noice. 

 Såga A wonderfull little girl, She is bearly bigger then her mother, she is totaly pulling mad, She will litteraly lay almost flat as she pulls, be it a cart, or us. When ever we go for a walk she will scream and pull, She will get annoyed if it goes to slow. 

 She can be a bit reserved when meeting people. 

 She Has done very well in shows, So far Only Exellents. As you see in the picture above. She likes to pretend to be a Kangaroo at times. But Anita is a skilled Handler. 

 When we have Orca, While I try not to have any favorites, Everybody els seem to agree he is my favorite.  He is a fun loving dog. And the main Jailbreaker(now that they seems that Gaia has gone into retirement from that activity) 

While his sister gets Excellents every time. Poor orca had 2 "goods" and verr good. and 2 excellents. 

But luck those two Excllents also gave him Certificates. So he has two of those. 

Orca trying to eat bird feed. While he did not get it this time. He did manage to get it a few days later.

Christmas 2014 started with drama, the 22nd Denali needed a cesarean, a big puppy has blocked the birth channel. Sadly it did not make it, But it's 4 siblibgs did. 

We kept Stjerne.

 Young Stjerne on a spring hike with big sister Fjellbris. 

Stjerne seems to be a little stupid at times. Yet recently we see she has the making of a good sleddog, She has learned the commands for left and right with out we really teaching them to her. She has just picked them up. She also looks to work verry well in the harness.

Stjerne playing with Sarek. 

Stjerne at 10 moths old. She has so far had a very good Show career, With a Best in Show Puppy under her belt. She also got an Excellent on her  first outing as a non puppy.

We also bought a dog. Sarek

 Sarek was bought to give new blood to the pack. Sadly he ended up with only one testicle. So no puppies in his future. He is a kind easy going dog. And he has gotten big

He is now atleat 58cm tall, so bigger then freke, and about the same Size of Orca, but Orca was well over a year before he reached that high. He also seems to have a good career as a sled dog.

August 1st this year, Beringia and 4 siblings was born. Denalis last litte, She is not retired from the breeding life and wil enjoy the rest of her life doing what she does best. Bossing others around.

It was hard for Anita to choose. As Beringia and her sister was so much a like and even now at close to 5 months old, when we see picutres of her sister they look so much alike.

 When her borthers and sister left her She needed a little hugging.

A beautiful puppy. She looks alot like her Older sister Fjellbris. 

Denali now has 3 of her daughters with her. 

And some random Dog life pictures.

 Denali after her dramatic night December 22nd 2014, 

She is a happy dog now. She understood they wher hers right away.

 Freke and me making pizza. 

 Christmas Eve run. No White Christmas for us. Muddy and brown.

We had 7 dogs that day a new record. 

Denali and Fjellbris leading. Denali is lazy and slows down the speed. While Fjellbris works hard and pulls the team along.

Poor freke stuck in the middle with the yongsters Stjerne and Sarek. 

Orca and Såga leading up the rear. No leaders here but they work hard and love to pull.

Some pictures of my beloved Anita and Me

 Here after the Christmas Eve run. 

 Our first Constitunion day(May 17th) Togeather. First time meating the Inlaws.

My and dad inlaw have to quite a lot of work on the "house" We buildt a new big dog pen, we tore down a old shack, where we will build a 3rd dog pen.

 Fundu at the inlaws.

 Pizza date.

Our first vacation togeather, spent over a week in Denmark and Sweden. I love science and animals, and she is a biologist and loves animals just as much. So those days where spent looking at and petting animals.

So this has been a peronal story. And why the blog has gotten a name change.

Lances, Christmas and Puppies.

 Well lets do the Lances first, two diffrent types here.
Separated by some 200 years of history.

First up is first base of 5th Silisian Landweher cav. Beeing Prussians they are of course Calpe.
I orderd some prussian line infantry, and then these from his old store. I got the paypal request for the landwehr cav, But by then I had spent the money on dog food. I told him I'd get the money to him as soon as possible, but I did not know he had sent the cav with the line infantry, so now I have some figures I have not pay for yet. So feeling bad for that, espacaly now that it's christmas. I have to get the money to him as soon as possible, but no banking is happening untill the 29th,

 Anyway as allways his figures are fantastic. A true Joy to paint, been a long time since I've painted calpe but boy are they little pieces of art.

 Then we travle back to the past. Got my Foundry Gendarmes, Just enough for one unit.
This is the first base, first of 4.

I like these, tho, getting the bard looking good is hard, it apears you can paint the bard either as metal or as cloth(I assume cloth over metal) I do not have a gold color that actualy stands out, I have painted (some bad) paterns in gold on the plate for the horse, but it's bearly visible.

 I gave them each a theme, that is used for both horse and rider. One is purple and white, another is red and light blue.

I like these, I wish I could get the bard better.

Life stuff

So this was the first Christmas away from my parents, I went to spend Christmas with my fiance's family, I had a very good time, We were 7 with the little one(8 if we add the other little one still in my sister in laws stomach) 

We had a very nice 7kg turkey, most of which disapeard. Lots of nice presents and a jolly time. We brought our 7.5 month old puppies and their mother, And walked down along the river in Rjukan.

The major event of the evening was the little one, just a few months over 2 years now,  He got his first ski's  This was much color then any of the toys he got, so out in to the cold to test them, He got quite cross when he had to come in, He wanted to ski all night. 

We had to drive back home, and could not stay the night, But why?

Puppies!

We had been expecting Puppies for Christmas, Do date was 23rd, But after a very long night for my fiance, We had to go to the Vet for a Ceasaraen. A big girl puppie was stuck in the birthcanal, she did not make it. But 4 other big ones did. And are now probebly suckeling at their mothers teats downstears while I write this. They are big and healthy having gone up close to 200+ grams in 4 days. 

Mommy Denali, a very photogenic dog, does not take bad pictures 

 Red Boy, looks brown now, but I've been told he will be quite light red.

 Black boy, Smallest of the bunch, but taking on weigh at the same speed as his bigger sibling.

 Black Girl. We are lucky, the black ones got very diffrent markings, so easy to tell apart.

 Gray Girl, biggest one.

And my Girl, My just out of bed Fiance holding the gray girl. 

This will be Denalies last litter, her first one 3 years ago was hard, and now a Ceasarean.

We will keep one puppy for our own. And we have one of her daughters from her first litter.