Looking Back on 2025
Martin here, for me 2025 was an odd hobby year, I accumulated a huge pile of opportunity buying models to build out no fewer than 6 complete new forces. These were Japanese from the Pacific release, from the D-Day compilation release I acquired both German 21st Panzer Division and American 82nd Airbourne. Finally from the Bulge army deals I got three sets, British 6th Airbourne Division, American 101st Airbourne Division and German 26 Volkgrenadier Division. That’s quite a lot of models! Yes, if you haven’t already guessed I painted precisely none of them!
That said, I’ve managed to paint 3 Forces totaling a little over 400 points of painted models, of which two were mainly using models I already had and the third models I never planned to buy! First up was a New Year New Army project a British MW Desert Force for 1942 built from the MW British Crusader Squardon box set. Sadly I have only had 1 game with this force in 2025, a game with Duncan and his Italian Parachute Force back in May which showed me all the flaws in the Crusader Formation! So I have added a Motor Rifle Formation to complement the Crusaders, brining me to 150 points of painted models. I have a chance to put the learning to the test early in 2026 at Echos of Alamein at Table Top Republic (TTR) on January 17th.
My second project of the year was out Tale of 3 Gamers series for the Pacific Release, thanks to Battlefronts generosity I got a US Marine Rifle Company to build and paint (Mark had already started doing the Japanese so, my purchase will have to wait a while to get done). I choose the Battle for Tarrawa as the theme for my Force. Now the plan was just to do the box but as it was only 75pts I obviously needed to add to this a bit! To date there is some 150 points of finished models with a Rifle and Stuart Formation plus some general support platoons. There are a few more bits still to complete, which I will get done in the New Year, which will bring me up to a nice round 200 points. I did get to play with the initial 100 point build at Pacifc Heat another 1 day event at TTR, where despite a lack of practice I managed to do fairly well and won the award for the best painted force.
My final project of the year was for Warfare in November, run by Fez at the Reading Wargames event. For reasons I can’t fully recall I decided to build and paint a new American force to represent Combat Command Reserve led by Creighton Abrams relief of Bastogne. I already had a 5th Fallschirmjager force who were the besiging foce they broke through to the trapped airbourne forces, so it seemed a good idea! I built this Force using bits from the US LW Spearhead box set and a few more kits from my cupboard of opportunity – I still ended up buying another box of US Armoured mortars despite already owning several finished platoons of these. Over the weekend I managed 3 wins (2 with CCR and 1 with 5FJ) and 2 defeats (1 with each) and rather surprisingly finished 4th overall, a great result given how little gaming I had managed all year and my one practice game with CCR on the Monday before the event.
So 2025 has been an interesting year overall with some good painting progress but a severe lack of shopping discipline has led to the content of the cupboard of opportunity increasing rather than decreasing! The only negative was the lack of gaming aside from the 4 days of concentrated event gaming I only managed 6 more games all year so I want to get in a bit more gaming in 2026. Well that’s it on 2025 onwards to Early War and the next opportunity to acquire more models than I have time to paint or play with.
Happy New Year to you all, Martin
Richard
I’m going to hijack Martins thread and add my 2025 reflections
Like Martin I spent a lot of the year working on other projects that were not Flames of War, in my case it was building a Bolt Action army representing the Danish Army on April 9th 1940, it’s been fun, and the final results have started doing the odd competition that I play in.
I did get the opportunity to play in 3 FoW competitions this year, I took a Mixed Tankovy to the Scottish Nationals and steered it to a third place finish, alongside having a great weekend with friends from around Europe.
In the summer I once again was part of Team Iceland at the ETC in Leoben, I took a slightly amended Soviet tank list to this Mid War tournament. I got 4 wins, a loss and a draw so very satisfied with that. Also got to spend a few days in Vienna which is one of my favourite cities, including visiting the excellent military museum
In November I had the opportunity to play at the Belgian Nationals held in the Bastogne War Museum, I took a very historic British list representing forces at the Battle of Bure, 2 wins, 2 losses and a draw were creditable. It was great to play our hobby in such an historic place, and we got the chance to visit a number of museums and sites.
Looking forward to 2026 I really am excited for Early War , it’s always been my favourite period , and Mark and I have already been able to get a game in using our existing armies.
I’m off to Iceland in January to catch up with my friends and team mates, and play Soviets in a Stalingrad themed tournament, and then Italy in the summer for the ETC.
I’m also intrigued by the 19th Century announcements, not so much the ACW , but certainly the Franco Prussian possibilities.
Happy Gaming in 2026
