Shed Wars is 10 years old today !

Good Morning All

It is the Shed Wars 10th Birthday - I cannot believe that I started this blog exactly a decade ago.

Looking back over the years writing this blog has provided me with an enormous senses of satisfaction but perhaps more importantly it is a wonderful reminder of what a great hobby we are fortunate to be part of.

I'd also like to thank those who attend the Shed and take part in the games . Without their support this blog would mean nothing.

Given that this is a big birthday I was hoping to share some BIG news but sadly I am going to have to delay this until the New Year. Yes there is some BIG news ...all very positive.

In the meantime and as before I'll share a quick summary of the numbers, lookback on what has happened in the last 12 months and try to gaze into the crystal ball for next years plans (without revealing the BIG news).

THE NUMBERS

The table below illustrates the counts over the last 10 years, and they steadily climb. The Last 12 months has seen  some 277,000 views, or approximately 23,000 per month. With no other data to compare this against I have no idea if this is good or poor. I can report that a typical new post generates around 1-1.5 thousand hits in the first couple of weeks so this suggests that my 'regular readership' is about this number. Of which only a third are following. 

Year	Followers	Page Views
2012	80	25000
2013	180	95000
2014	285	230000
2015	373	383000
2016	387	578000
2017	424	789000
2018	551	1140547
2019	454	1260323
2020	472	1386134
2021	493	1664000

I think when we look back on 2021 the first half of the year was very much characterised by the continuation of Lockdown and the uncertainty that this pandemic continues to cause society, As I mentioned last year I am in the very fortunate position of having a degree of financial security and so I decided at the end of last year that I would take early retirement. With this extra time on my hands I have been able to devote more time to the hobby.

So when I began to review the year it became apparent that this was  a very productive year for painting and in no particular order here is a quick summary of what has been added. 

FIGURES PAINTED

Most recently I focused on building up my ECW Collection with more pikes, shotte and artillery. These were all rebased during the year and I can now proudly boast almost 1000 28mm figures in this collection.

 Right at the beginning of the year I added to my WOTR collection (and I am painting more at present) - I can now field almost 1400 plus figures and this probably represents the largest army period I now have in the shed.

As a side project in January (thanks to a fortuitous bid on ebay) I painted up a Plains War project. This included over 100+ mounted braves, c60 foot indians and 4 troops of US cavalry (each 12 mounted/dismounted strong) 

In September I added a further two Cavalry troops and command stands. 

One of my simple objectives this year was to rebase all my Zulus and whilst I was at it I added to the Impi. Over 1000 Zulus can now take to this field ! 

The final side project was the purchase and painting of a small Dwarf Army (c250 figures strong) - we have a plan to fight the Battle of the Five Armies in the New Year and nobody in the group had any Dwarves.

Some odds and ends also hit the painting table including 60 Victrix Vikings

And a few 3d printed tanks for my VBCW Collection.

TERRAIN

The terrain building has been relatively quiet this year with no major projects however I did manage to finish my walled Desert City (aka Khartoum)

and to complement the battle mats made last year I made up several hills.

Despite Lockdown we have been successful in playing games most Monday nights but rather alarmingly I did not document a lot of these but we fought games across most of the genres held in the shed.....these included a couple of games set in the Plains Wars using Black Powder

We refought the battle of El Teb in colonial Sudan

THE WARS OF THE ROSES

But by far the biggest event of this year was our successful attempt to refight all the Battles of the Wars of the Roses. These were all individually documented on the blog and are summarised on this page link HERE

We started this ambition to refight all the major engagements of the WOTR back in 2020 before Lockdown and by October 2021 we had fought the first four battles. When restrictions lifted in May this year we threw ourselves into completing this plan. By October Bosworth (our finale) had been fought. I have just finished writing a couple of articles for Wargames Illustrated on this adventure and these will be published in the New Year.

In the meantime a couple of simple pictures from these games...

The biggest and the best game - Towton

The first game - First St Albans

The last Game - Bosworth

NEXT YEARS PLANS

Much will inevitably depend on the big news I am not going to reveal but what I can say is that next year's wargames focus will be very much on adding to what I already have rather than starting any new periods. Like my Zulu's I plan to bring my Dervish army up to a full 1000 strength (figures are already here) and then I'll be looking to add to my 300 strong Afghan forces. With this accomplished I should be able to host some serious Colonial games.

Other plans include a full rebase and additions to my Crusader and Saracen Armies. I am going to also attempt to develop some siege games in this period.

Finally as a group we are thinking of kicking off a campaign to refight the biggest battles of the English Civil War. This is very much in the early stages of development but you can watch progress here.

And that brings you to the end of this 10th Birthday special. Thank you for following this blog and thank you for your comments. Please stay safe. Wishing you all a very happy Christmas

Eric the Shed