Actually, before I leap into 2026, I want to just review 2025. I tend to get lost in David Sullivan’s passing and the resulting massive flow of David’s stuff into my possession. But honestly, it was a pretty fine year. I did lots of stuff. Or at least I think I did. Let’s see if I can actually remember–age, you know.

I bought into Studio Tomahawk’s endless SAGA expansion and acquired the rules for Age of Chivalry. Hah! I didn’t buy a damn thing, I just remounted a handful of my gazillions of Hundred Years War figures and played with those. No, I haven’t been able to do a damn decent day of work with those bad boys, and have struggled to figure out how to win with them at all.

But I did do some fun Hundred Years War stuff. I began the big remount with them, and probably got about two thirds of the remounting done. I painted all the stash of Old Glory figures I have. I ran my Shrewsbury game a couple of times before making it my main event at Enfilade. It was fun. I have plans for more HYW historical games using Lion Rampant, but it’s on the horizon, not in the painting queue.

I wrapped up a years long project to finish all my Wars of American Imperialism project. It’s probably been about ten years since I began by working on the Philippine-American War, continued on into the Spanish-American War, dodged into the Moro Wars, and built the myriad naval forces for the period as well, finishing up with the Cuban Revolution of 1895. I ran a fun Cuban Revolution game in September and plan to run it again at the convention in May.

Together with Michael Koznarsky and Mark Waddington I jumped into a Spanish Civil War project. It’s a big deal because we developed our own rules. I think we’ve done three rules tests and stalled out chiefly because Michael has had ankle surgery that at least for the moment leaves him pretty immobile. I did paint something on the order of 150 figures and 4 vehicles for the Republicans.

Photos from our December game in George’s bunker. Still kind of figuring out the rules, but we’re close. It ended badly for the Americans with escorting Phantoms blasted out of the sky by MiG’s and ground fire. The Thuds jettsioned their loads and hoped to make it home.

Two other items deserve mention for 2025. One is the two games of Airwar C21 I did with George Kettler. It encouraged me to paint every single Vietnam era plane I had, plus converted some buildings, AA and radar over. I added additional planes and painted ’em all. Moreover it sent me down a road believing I could do the air games Dave Schueler and I did six years ago. On Saturday I hosted a Song of Drums and Tomahawks game using figures David Sullivan and I did together. It went, well, in fact I believe it was actually fun, and I believe “The Search for Father Anthony,” a game I devised with the help of Chat GPT will be a game I run at Enfilade. I cannot begin to express the relief I have that a certain number of ghosts have been purged. I know you won’t understand, but trust me . . . some weight has been lifted.

Scenes from The Search For Father Anthony, my Song of Drums and Tomahawks game from Dec. 27th. The game was fun and despite leaving my rules at home, pretty easy to run. I’ll do it again.

So what was 2025 like? I painted about 810 figures this year. Some projects were finished and I think others came into more clarity. Worth mentioning, is that the end of my responsibilities to NHMGS have come into view and that is like deepening my respiration and lowering my blood pressure. I look forward, with enthusiasm, to just being Kevin Smyth, gamer dude. It’s like retiring for a second time. I’ve enjoyed my service, but I’m ready to blend into the woodwork.

So here are things I’d like to accomplish for 2026

One thing I’d like to do is continue painting AWI figures for Rebels and Patriots and Regimental Fire and Fury. My goal is to run those Nathaniel Greene battles for Regimental Fire and Fury, do semi-skirmish games in New Jersey 1777 and South Carolina 1780-81 for R and P. I just need more figures. I have ’em but they need paint. I’d like to complete 400 figures in 2025. It won’t wrap things up, but it will move the story along.

I did a lot of work with my Hundred Years War figures in 2025 and I’d like to continue to make progress with them. I have a couple of games I’d really like to run with them. One is the crossing of the Ford of Blanchetaque in 1346 and the other is the the Battle of the Herrings during the siege of Orleans in 1430. Unfortunately I don’t think either of those will be completed this year. However, I would like to continue making progress on this project. My hope is I can finish rebasing all my HYW figures, and paint another 100 figures.

One thing I’d really like to finish for Enfilade is attention to some of my air projects. I simply don’t have as much left to do as I did a few years ago. I identified a lot of painted and unpainted planes I decided I’d never do anything with and gave ’em away. I held on to some WWII planes and acquired what I thought I’d need for Vietnam and the Pacific War. As I stated earlier, I finished all my Vietnam era planes and am just down to my Pacific War stuff. I recently committed myself to all the work needed to pull of the destruction of Force Z, the British fleet built around Prince of Wales and Repulse. This includes not only building five 1/700 scale ships plus about 45 planes, but developing a workable game and playable game rules. This will be my big Enfilade project. The planes and ships have been ordered, and things are already under construction. My goal is to have everything and built and painted by March 1st so I can start playtesting. Ambitious but doable.

Part of this project is to complete a set of scenario-specific rules. I’m a fan of David Manley’s excellent air rules, but in this case I can use them merely as a guide. The game is played by Japanese commanders in a cooperative manner. There will be no last minute rescues by the Australian Buffaloes and it will be up to me as game designer to make the game interesting by creating obstacles for the players to overcome. Working on the basic mechanics, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

I have lots of other projects I could be fiddling with, and knowing me I likely will. But I think this gives me a basis on which to proceed. I am a daily painter, so it isn’t like I’m asking myself to do something I wouldn’t normally do. I usually shoot for something like 60 figures per month. During the dark winter months I get more painted, during the busy summer months, sometimes it is less but getting 700-800ish figures painted in a year is not something that is a stretch, all things being equal.