Slow but steady

This post is as much for my benefit, in terms of keeping a record of progress, than anything else. After work I delved into a couple of items on the list.

I started to organise my Greek cavalry and light troops into units, partly to work out if I had enough bases (it looks like I'll need more). There looks to be a lot of light infantry (I have no idea of proportions historically, so maybe that's something else I need to consider). Gut reaction is I don't need so many. So I'll probably just base a few units. That'll relieve a bit of pressure on bases - I don't want to make a new order without working out if I need anything else at the same time. 

Another conclusion I came to was that I don't need any more storage boxes, so that one is ticked off, at least until I get to number 20 on the list. Also, I have enough 'magnetic paper' and magnets. All to be qualified by the catch-all phrase 'for now'.

One other by-product of the look at the light troops is that I discovered several of them had helmets, round shields and pointy sticks. So I pinched several of them to pad out the 6th/8th unit of hoplites (depending on rules). Now the pointy sticks are a bit short for hoplites' dories/dorata, but I think I have some fuse wire somewhere. The shields are also a bit small for aspides, but at this scale and in the rear ranks.....

Pending the arrival of the order placed with H&R last month I'll hold off on #6, 11 and painting the 'Ottomans' and press on with 7. Maybe I can have a bash at 9 at the weekend.

Tentative Order	Job
1	Finish river pieces
2	Check stock of magnetic paper and bases
3	Paint houses
4	Order storage boxes
5	Paint walls
6	Paint and base trees
7	Rebase Greeks and Persians 35%
8	Flag SYW figures (French priority)
9	Try Alala!
10	Try Siege Works rules
11	Paint wagons and gun teams
12	Decide what to do with SYW odds and sods
13	Paint petard crews etc
14	Prepare New Year Campaign
15	Paint sheep
16	Paint pack animals
17	Paint villagers (6 and 10mm)
18	Make fortress
19	Ottoman painting guide
20	Order Irregular Ottoman army
21	Paint Ottomans
22	Run ECW siege campaign
23	Make AWI boats
24	Maybe rebase some Romans
25	Build & paint sailing ships

Checking off that list

Progress on the job list. Not all tasks are equal. 7 is a LOT, LOT bigger than5 for example. But just sticking things down in black and white has encouraged me to get some blooming things done.

About 3.9m. In my usual SYW scale that's about 11 miles. I wasn't happy with the edging but I couldn't get the clumps to stick so stuck with grass.

Not so many houses, or walls. A bit rough and ready but they'll do.

Nearly all the hoplites. I haven't got quite enough to finish off the 8th unit, but I'm looking at ways to bodge some conversions.

The Persian close order archers. About 190 in total.

They were originally based in uniform coloured units but they got jumbled up once prised off the old bases and I thought, varied colours in each unit looks better. If I had painted them from scratch I'd have done them in uniform colours.

Three down. 22.7 to go!

Tentative Order	Job
1	Finish river pieces
2	Check stock of magnetic paper and bases
4	Paint houses
3	Order storage boxes
5	Paint walls
6	Paint and base trees
7	Rebase Greeks and Persians 30%
8	Flag SYW figures (French priority)
9	Try Alala!
10	Try Siege Works rules
11	Paint wagons and gun teams
12	Decide what to do with SYW odds and sods
13	Paint petard crews etc
14	Prepare New Year Campaign
15	Paint sheep
16	Paint pack animals
17	Paint villagers (6 and 10mm)
18	Make fortress
19	Ottoman painting guide
20	Order Irregular Ottoman army
21	Paint Ottomans
22	Run ECW siege campaign
23	Make AWI boats
24	Maybe rebase some Romans
25	Build & paint sailing ships

Task List

In the last post I mentioned a burgeoning list of things to do if I'm not to have a pile of unused items build up. This is something I need to get on top of so I had a go at listing everything that needs doing.  There's probably more that hasn't come to mind, but will at some point. No doubt there's things that I've forgotten that I have bought. No doubt also that I'll change the order of some tasks and some jobs will split out into more sub-tasks. Some of the tasks listed are sub-tasks or at least linked to others, but I have deliberately avoided making this too ‘scientific’ as if it were a Real World programme.

Some of the tasks are quick wins (e.g. 15 and 16) whilst others are sizeable projects in their own right (I’m looking at you, number 18). Knocking off a few quick wins will help boost morale while the bigger jobs are pondered, analysed to death, planned and finally executed. Number 1 on the list is a reasonable sized ‘project’ (3.9 metres of river pieces) but one that pays big dividends (every period needs watercourses).

That all said, here is the first version of the list.

Tentative Order	Job
1	Finish river pieces
2	Check stock of magnetic paper and bases
4	Paint houses
3	Order storage boxes
5	Paint walls
6	Paint and base trees
7	Rebase Greeks and Persians
8	Flag SYW figures (French priority)
9	Try Alala!
10	Try Siege Works rules
11	Paint wagons and gun teams
12	Decide what to do with SYW odds and sods
13	Paint petard crews etc
14	Prepare New Year Campaign
15	Paint sheep
16	Paint pack animals
17	Paint villagers (6 and 10mm)
18	Make fortress
19	Ottoman painting guide
20	Order Irregular Ottoman army
21	Paint Ottomans
22	Run ECW siege campaign
23	Make AWI boats
24	Maybe rebase some Romans
25	Build & paint sailing ships

I should add in target dates for them all. Item 14 obviously has a time limit already, and going by that I need to get motoring.  Last time I made such a list (around 5 years ago) I did get through it in a reasonable time, so I'm confident I'll do it.

One final caveat or note: every time I used the words ‘need to’ above I really mean ‘want to’. I remind myself that nothing bad will happen if I don’t do any of the things listed.

How big is your to do list? Do you expect to complete it (ignoring any new things that come along of course!).