Jutland, the Middle East in WW1 and the 19th Century

I have had a very productive and thought provoking day today - with a great deal of sorting out, preparation and the inevitable thinking of great thoughts.

To begin with, I am still waiting on the final models from Stonewall Miniatures for the last of the capital ships for the Jutland project. In the meantime though, I based all the remaining models from the last batch of Panzerschiffe ships so that once the four battleships for the Royal Navy arrive I can set to with the paintbrush. There are some 31 models to tackle - 13 for the Geramns and 18 for the RN. I shall be really pleased to get these done so that I can then think about how I am going to tackle the thorny question of light ships - light cruisers and destroyers. Whilst in the Jutland zone so to speak I also took the opportunity to set up an A4 ring binder for the Jutland project so that I can keep all the notes, screen prints and photocopies in one place. I called this folder, with a stroke of creative genius, Jutland.

I also had a pretty major tidy up of various bits and pieces - mainly of a sci-fi and fantasy nature - which was long overdue and despite being pretty mundane was vastly satisfying. the main part of this was in respect of armoured space marines and chittering hordes of 'not quite alien' aliens.

Finally, and probably most significantly, I have made a fairly big decision in respect of my recently acquired 20mm WW1 Middle East collection.

You may recall that I have offloaded some of the collection (roughly 40% in respect of the numbers involved)  but retained all of the best quality painted figures. The collection is now finely balanced although I would have needed to add a few items here and there.

I am now going to offload the rest of the collection.

That's right - I am now going to offload the rest of the collection.

I am being hugely practical about this and the rationale makes perfect sense (at least it does to me). The collection came about as a bolt from the blue. For sure it was a collection that was going to appeal to my interests and the price was right (and it coincided with a a great spell at work so buying it was not a problem) but in terms of the scale it was not what I wanted to do. If I am honest then I guess I purchased it because I could and the fact that it coincided with my long time interst in the Great War in the area then that was a a happy coincidence. If you recall I had made the decision to go down the N-gauge route just before the collection came on the market. Since it has been in the man cave I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I could move on and tackle various other periods in 20mm (especially WW2 in the desert) as this was now going to be my scale of choice - except that it was not supposed to be! In a way I succumbed to the notorious 'Ooh shiny' syndrome with the difference being that I can turn this to my advantage.

To be honest, the main driver behind this decision is one of economics. From the monies that I could get for selling the remainder of the collection I would be able to complete at least three, possibly four other projects - and that is a major factor for me.

I did not buy the collection with the intention of offloading it for a quick profit but practicality means that if I can tackle those projects I want to from the disposal of a tangible asset then so be it.

Back to the old N gauge then for a lot of things - and to other scales for others....;-)