In a world, where my plastic army soldiers beat the s*** out of your plastic army men...*

First of all, a belated merry Xmas.
And of course also a happy new year!

My last painting for the year is done now. I did pretty well for my standards. I managed to paint 180 miniatures, all in 28mm! I know some people do three, four or more times that much figures in a year, but for me this is great. I just checked, and its my best year in painting since 2006.
I think this has much to do with internet. When I look back, I did over 200 miniatures a year before 2006, not counting the 15mm, of which there were also at least 100 or more each year. I'll try if I can reach that number once more next year.

But that's history and future plans, on to what I painted now.
A 36 figure unit or PLASTIC Celts. Yes, you are reading correct: PLASTIC.
It is the first time since the plastic revolution in 28mm wargaming, now several years ago that I constructed and painted plastic.  At first I thought it was very time consuming to put them together. Most are from Wargames Factory, and they have separate legs, a body, a right arm, weapon, a shield and a head. The left arm is part of the body. But that is a lot of glueing before you can start painting!
There are also a few Warlord Games Celts in the unit. these are easier to build (lesser parts), but you have to be carefull: not all bodies fit all legs. Which I found out after a few mistakes...
I also had not enough Warlord heads, so had to file of a few WF necks, to make them fit on the WG bodies.

I also had rub-on shield decals, which were part of the WF boxed set. They look very nice, but are a real pain to fit. I had to retouch every shield, and even pull of a few because they sticked only partly or on the wrong place.

But look for yourself, and tell me what you think of them. The pictures are not that great, but I must say that I like how the miniatures came out.

I also painted three more miniatures, which should fit in with them. the warband will be used as proper Celts, but also as fantasy Celts. So I also painted a hero, a huge Foundry model called Slaine, a witch (I think from Reaper?) and an army standard bearer (plastic Warlord Games).

I think more plastic will follow in 2014, but I'm not shure when excactly.
For those who wonder what happened with the two "Off to War" parts, well we did play the battle in our clubhouse! We got lots of attention from other club members, who had not seen shuch a big battle before. But more of this in the next blog message.

Keep gaming &painting!

*The title of this blog message is used (without permission...) from Pat Lowinger from the Southern California Warhammer Radio, now the Historical Wargames Podcast. His podcast (http://www.historicalwargames.org/) is one of the four I regularly listen to when painting.
The others are View from the Veranda, Meeples and Miniatures and Ancient Warfare Magazine.
Thanks for making them, and keep me inspired!