Time for a Fresh Project

I have been enjoying the gaming side of the hobby of late, the siren call of collecting and painting has been tugging at my brain and got me pondering new projects. Some periods of interest include Dark Ages, ECW, Crusades and Late Medieval/ War of the Roses. I could also do some smaller projects by expanding my existing collections. Some ideas for this are bulking up my German WW2 armor collection including lots of half tracks and adding 60-100 Greek Hoplites to allow more options to fight First Punic War battles or add to my Macedonian/Successor armies.

I have the nucleus of a Dark Age army I have always wanted to expand on. 26 Norman Knights and 8 crossbowmen I traded for back in the day. The Normans fought in many theatres including the Crusades, Sicily, Spain (El Cid),France and Britain. If I fleshed them out, I could get a Saracen army army to oppose them for Crusade battles or El Cid type battles. I have always wanted an Arab/Turkish army.

For me, collecting and painting is often inspired by rules. I usually build armies to fit an army list for my favorite . Our group has been playing Sword & Spear and Command & Colors Ancients. Basing for these games would also work for Impetus.

ECW is strong contender. I have 400 models of 28mm Royalists from Old Glory. They are nice figures and sport some of my best painting. I got them as part of a group project but the group has since disbanded. Now I need another army for the Royalists to fight against. Ideally, I can find a rule set that will allow me to building a second army using some of the figures from the first army. There is a new set out called Baroque from the makers of Impetus. Pike and Shotte units will need 18 figures and Cavalry units will need 9 figures. I could make two armies with my current collection plus 50 Cavalry and 30 Shotte figures. Not too big a commitment for painting. I would need to rebase my current collection which would be a big job as well.

Commanded Shot

Lambs

Clubman

Gallopers

Another period to consider is late Medieval and War of the Roses. I love the look of barded knights with livery and flags, close ordered archers in livery and spearmen in support. This would be a start from scratch project and would require a lot of figures. I could build them for Sword and Spear and this would reduce the figure count. Fireforge and Perry make very nice figures in plastic and I suspect I would break with tradition of metal and go with these fine models.