Jemima Fawr’s Review of the Year 2025

Well here we are again at the other end of the wormhole, wondering where all that potential wargaming time went…

I hope that my surviving reader had a good year?  I have to say that 2025, having started in the worst way possible with Mrs Fawr in the middle of chemo, could only get better from that point onward!  Thankfully, Mrs Fawr is now fighting fit (or as fit as anyone possibly can be having survived cancer and chemo) and since then it’s been a pretty good year all round. 🙂

The painting and wargaming side of things has been pretty good, though getting down to club on a Tuesday night remains difficult due to shift-work, not helped by the fact that we’ve been short-handed for the last couple of years.  That meant that I only managed to get a handful of club-night games through the year and most of my games were therefore full-day weekend games.

Painting was going pretty well up until August, when the first trainee arrived… I have mentioned it here before, but I should clarify that I am in the very fortunate position of being able (and allowed!) to paint during my day-job.  The hours are long and the Management would much rather that we do something productive with our time than sleep or play with electronic devices (both of which are banned).  However, painting isn’t possible when I have trainees and I have had a constant stream of the buggers since the end of August!  I hope I wasn’t too grumpy with them…

So while it hasn’t been a great painting year, I did at least beat last year’s fairly poor total.  Here’s how it went…

The year started in much the same way as the last few years, with a continued effort on completing my SYW armies, starting with this grenadier battalion for the Saxon infantry brigade I painted at the end of 2024:

Then I moved on to the last of the Hessian cavalry with these two regiments of heavy horse; the Prinz Wilhelm and Leib Regiments:

The Hessian cavalry were finally finished off with the Leibdragoner Regiment:

Then it was on to the last of the Hanoverian heavy horse, starting with the Hammerstein and Leib Regiments:

The Hanoverian heavy cavalry were finished off with the two guard cavalry squadrons; the Garde du Corps and the Grenadiers à Cheval.  That only leaves three dragoon regiments and the ‘Luckner’ Hussars left to paint and then I can call the Hanoverian cavalry properly finished:

I also had some French cavalry to complete.  I’d painted the first half of the Royal-Carabiniers late in 2024 and finally got around to finishing off the regiment in mid-2025:

Then it was all-change as I suddenly got the urge to do some Napoleonic games and needed to paint some more troops to go in them, starting with this Italian general:

And the Austrian 8th ‘Kienmayer’ Hussars:

With the flurry of 1809 games in 2025, I got the urge to make a renewed effort to complete the order of battle for Aspern-Essling and then to play the battle.  The Great Plan has slipped back down the calendar somewhat, but I did manage to clear out a whole wing of the Lead Dungeon, painting eight Austrian infantry regiments (the 14th, 15th, 18th, 21st, 25th, 28th, 54th & 57th Regiments) and a load of new casualty figures to use as game markers.  Although I had originally planned to play the battle in late 2025, Aspern-Essling is now tantalisingly close, with only three dragoon regiments, a hussar regiment, two Hungarian infantry regiments and a slack handful of generals and gunners left to paint:

One of the primary reasons for losing focus on Aspern-Essling was that we wanted to play other battles from the 1809 Danube Campaign first, before moving on to Aspern-Essling.  In order to play the Battle of Eggmühl, I therefore needed to paint a few more Bavarians for my collection (the 1st, 5th & 9th Infantry Regiments, 1st Dragoons, a standard bearer for the 1st Light Infantry, some generals, some artillery and some casualty markers).  This resulted in the clearing out of another wing of the Lead Dungeon!

Eggmühl also required the addition of some Württembergers to my collection, so in August I painted up the 2nd Leib-Chevaulégers and a couple of generals for the game.  I haven’t profiled these yet, so expect some Württemberg articles in the new year:

Thanks to my above-mentioned trainees (grrr!), that sadly was it for for almost the rest of the year.  However, I managed to be trainee-free for the last fortnight before Christmas and managed to paint three small Württemberg infantry regiments (3rd, 4th and 9th), some French Gardes-Nationale and a Württemberg 12-pounder for the Christmas Game.  I’ve not had time to take some decent photos of these troops yet, so I’ll profile them in the New Year:

So to the Scores on the Doors…  For my 15mm SYW collection, this year I managed to paint 12x Foot and 64x Horse.  For my 15mm Napoleonic collection, I painted 375x Foot, 45x Horse and 2x Guns.  That’s a total of 387x Foot, 109x Horse and 2x Guns.  At current prices, that works out as £501.68 worth of stuff.

That’s an improvement on 2024’s numbers, but sadly not as good as other years on this blog.  On the positive side, most of the above were dragged screaming out of the Lead Dungeon, so I also managed not to spend a fortune on new toys.  With the above-inflation appreciation on AB Figures since I bought those Bavarians in 1999, I’ve theoretically turned a very tidy profit (the Austrians have increased in value by 25% since I bought them in 2019, while the Bavarians have appreciated in value by around 1000% since 1999)! 🙂

As for games, the year started in cracking style with a few hilarious games of X-Wing down at W.A.S.P. .  I didn’t take any photos of the X-Wing games, but I did take some photos of the spectacular ‘fantasy Venice’ setup belonging to Gareth Beamish and Al Broughton.  I’ve no idea what was going on, but it looked amazing…

We kicked off February with a refight of the First Battle of Bull Run 1861 in 10mm.  This was a nail-biting game that could have gone either way and a great start to the wargaming year.  I absolutely love Fire & Fury rules, so I must do more ACW in 2026:

Then in March I put on a club-night SYW Tricorn game based on Frederick the Great’s victory at Soor in 1745, but scaled down by half.  Instead of the Austrians and Prussians, I employed the French in lieu of the Austrians and the British-Allied army in lieu of the Prussians.  It was a fun game resulting in an Allied victory, though for some reason I never got around to writing it up here:

In April we played a 6mm ACW battle using Volley & Bayonet rules and Al Broughton’s superb collection, though I foolishly forgot to take photos!  In May we got back into Napoleonics and Napoleon’s Battles rules with a return to the Battle of Raab 1809, pitting Prince Eugène’s French Army of Italy against Archduke John’s Austrian Army of Inner Austria:

The Napoleonic and 1809 theme continued in June with another return to one of my old scenarios; the Battle of Neumarkt.  Sadly however, we had to break this off and never managed to return for the Part 2 due to player-availability (or rather the lack of it!) in the following months.  Nevertheless, it was a great game and definitely one we’ll have to return to once again:

In July, our intended Part 2 of Neumarkt had to be binned due to a family tragedy, so I quickly knocked up a scenario for another 1809 battle; the Battle of Teugn-Hausen.  This actually proved to be enormously good fun:

There was a gap for the rest of the summer and then we had once again planned to re-convene for Part 2 of Neumarkt, but fate once again played a hand and instead we had to play a different 1809 scenario.  This time I converted my old General de Brigade scenario for the Battle of Eggmühl to Napoleon’s Battles rules and it was another epic game; the biggest of the year, played over two days:

That then, was pretty much it for the rest of the year.  Work and various other commitments kept us from wargaming until this week, when we got together for our annual Christmas Game; the Battle of La Souffel 1815, the report for which will be posted in the coming weeks:

So while wargaming was relatively rare through the year, it was in my opinion, of very high quality, with some very memorable games in excellent company.

Away from the wargames table, I also started the year in a play-by-email campaign of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, commanding the Prussian 2nd Army.  This superb campaign was managed by Barrie Lovell of Timecast Models.  My fellow Prussian commanders were in the USA and the battles were fought out by a small team at Barrie’s place in Shropshire.  This superb campaign was a lot of fun and the fact that I knew almost nothing about the war made it that much more interesting, as I had no pre-conceived ideas about how the campaign would develop.

I still need to write this up properly, but the campaign ended with a titanic clash outside the walls of Metz and the Emperor of the French seeking terms.  Here’s my situation map of the end of the campaign and a photo of the Battle of Metz as it appeared on Barrie’s table:

As for the blogging side of things, I started the year with a scenario and game-report for our 2024 Christmas game; the semi-fictitious Battle of Wanneminden 1759 (a scaled-down version of the Battle of Minden):

In February I did a couple of articles on the first of my SYW Saxon infantry, which I painted at the end of 2024.

March was a sparse month on the blog, with only the above-mentioned game-report for the First Battle of Bull Run 1861.

April proved to be another sparse blogging month, with only an article on the above-mentioned final batch of SYW Hessian cavalry, including a parade of all the Hessian cavalry regiments.

In May I posted a revised version of my earlier scenario for the Battle of Raab 1809, followed by the above-mentioned game-report.

In June I finally posted a belated game-report for a refight of Cornwallis’ flank-attack at the Battle of the Brandywine 1777, which we’d played in 2023.  I also posted the game report for the above-mentioned refight of the Battle of Neumarkt 1809.

July was another very quiet blogging month, but I managed to start catching up with some SYW units I painted in 2024, starting with the Mighty Army of Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg:

August was an uncharacteristically busy blogging month, with a whole FOUR articles, starting with the scenario and the above-mentioned game-report for the Battle of Teugn-Hausen 1809.

Then I had a look at the heap of Napoleonic Austrian infantry regiments I’d painted during the summer.

August was finally finished off with a profile of the last of the SYW Hanoverian heavy horse regiments, including a parade and march-past of all my Hanoverian cavalry.

In September I posted my scenario for the Battle of Eggmühl 1809 and the above-mentioned refight of the battle:

In October I posted a couple of articles on the above-mentioned newly-painted Napoleonic Bavarian units:

I then finished off October with a scenario for the last great battle of the Napoleonic Wars… No, not that one… The Battle of La Souffel 1815:

In November I finally caught up with some SYW French units, starting with the above-mentioned Royal-Carabiniers and finishing with some cavalry regiments I’d painted in 2024:

In this last month of the year, I spruced up an old scenario of mine; the Battle of Salamanca 1812:

Lastly, I finished off the year with a short article on the 18th Century fortress that I’d painted in 2024:

Although I could definitely have been a bit more active on the blogging front, the blog continues to do well and this year passed through a half-million views since I started it in April 2018.  It’s now up to just over 520,000 views, with 120,000 being in this year alone (an increase of 20,000 on last year).  I’d therefore like to thank my surviving reader for all that clicking!  So while not exactly viral, I think that I have now moved on from being a persistent yeast infection to now being resistant to antibiotics!

As for 2026, I’m still aiming to play Aspern-Essling sooner rather than later.  This will probably have to be fought as two weekend games; one weekend for each day of the battle.  I’ll need to paint a few more Austrians before then and I’d like to do a ‘proper’ job of the terrain, so it might even end up as a show demo-game.  That will of course, require me to do some actual modelling and that never ends well…

In the short term on the painting front, I’ve got quite a few ‘interesting’ units lined up, as well as the above-mentioned Austrians for Aspern-Essling; namely the Italian Guards of Honour and Guard Dragoons, the Vistula Legion and a couple of batteries of Don Cossack horse artillery.  In the longer term, I’d also like to finish a lot more cossacks and generally replace the shabbier parts of my Napoleonic Russian Army.  I also need to get some Russian casualty packs and increase my Russian game-markers, as nothing pleases me more than dead Russians.  On the SYW front, I’d like to get back to finishing off the orbats for Minden; I’ve still got the Brunswickers to finish and the 15th Light Horse for the British, as well as a load of Hanoverian infantry and a pile of Frenchmen.

On the blogging front, I’d still like to post a lot more WW2 and Cold War scenarios, orbats, etc, even though I didn’t manage to post a single one in 2025!  There will of course, be a lot more Napoleonic and 18th Century content.

Anyway, that’s it from Fawr Towers for 2025.  Here’s wishing you a great 2026 (unless you’re Russian, obviously)!