Redefining my metrics.

Time to establish some goals.

Yes, you can blame Jon for my newfound affinity for statistical analysis of my annual productivity

First, an assessment of last years goals:

1.  Complete castings for the following ERAs.

• 6mm Fantasy - A few figures to complete to be ready for some mass battles.
• Most all of the existing figures are painted, I need to fill in some gaps to allow me to base about 30 of them.
• 6mm Moderns  - Complete my Modern and Early 90s  PLA Brigades 
• No work on this one.  I worked on some WWII armor, but spent much less time on my microarmor than originally intended.
• 6mm WWII - Finish my Early War French models and Late War Germans
• See the above note. Other than working on some WWII British tanks and Universal Carriers, this entire collection remains fallow.
• 6mm Napoleonics - Those Saxons are not going to paint themselves.  Also, I need to knock out the French Generals and Field Marshals. 
• The Saxons continue to refuse to paint themselves.  They are primed on sticks, I just need to do them....
• 6mm WOTR - Lots of casualty figures still need completion. 
• Done, finished.
• 6mm Terrain  - I have too many boxes of unfinished work.   
• A lot of progress here. I finished several old buildings and even did some Ruin markers.  There is still a lot to go.
• 28mm WWII - I have the models available to finish my Paratrooper Platoon and do a Waffen-SS Platoon to act as OPFOR.
• Another success story.  I have a couple of LMGs to upgrade my Paratroopers, but otherwise ready to play.
• 28mm Qin Chinese - This is definitely the new project for the year, as the Kickstarter I backed is finally shipping this month.  
• Two in a row!  I not only painted all of the figures, but also finished two additional units from Casting Room Miniatures.
• 28mm Fantasy - rehabilitate the rest of my old WHFB Bretonnian army as well as the few outstanding Empire figures that support my Renaissance project.
• I completed several Empire figures, but I still need to finish the last of the Grail Knights.
• 20mm WWII - Complete my UK Paras, US Paratroopers and German Panzergrenadiers.  Rehabilitate my Falschirmjaegers and Wehrmacht units.
• Paratroopers, Wehrmacht and Panzergrendiers up to date.  The UK and German Paras, not so much.
• 10mm ACW - I need to finish painting about 400 castings to eliminate the backlog.  I don't wish to carry any more unpainted figures into 2017. 
• I painted more than I anticipated, however I picked up a few hundred more CSA infantry resulting in my creating a new backlog.
• 15mm Sanurai - I have two regiments of peasants and three regiments of Cavalry still awaiting completion.  The rest will be surplus.
• Two units of Peasants completed.  
• 1/6000 Naval -These need to be completed or sold.  
• The Japanese contingent and all of the US Destroyers are complete.  Just need to finish the US BBs, Cruisers and Carriers

2.  Eliminate the following:

• 6mm WWII - A lot of excess GHQ castings of bits and bobs to eliminate.
• 6mm Moderns - Get rid of the excess of BMP-3s, T-80s and other unpainted models that are excess to my needs.
• 6mm SciFi- I have more than enough painted Battlemechs, the rest need to go.  
• 20mm War in the Pacific  -Two under-strength USMC and Japanese units need to go.
• 15mm Romans and their enemies  -Most of of the unpainted Essex models are finally gone.  I have some old glory to police up as well as a few painted stands.
• 15mm Fantasy -already have models in 6mm (mass battles) and 28mm (Skirmish)  I want to finish painting the partially complete models and then bundle up and sell the Ork, Dwarf and Undead Armies.
• 15mm Early Renaissance and late Middle Ages - Lots of unpainted lead here from numerous manufacturers.  I already have sufficient stocks in 28mm and 6mm, they are now redundant.
• 15mm Colonial French and British -10 years on and I still haven't gotten to these.  Time to go. 
• 15mm ACW - I still have much to rehab and sell.  The cavalry went quickly, but not much interest in the Infantry.  
• 15mm ACW terrain - Too big for 10mm, to small for the 28mm skirmish.  Time to make some room for the rest of the collection. 
• 15mm Napoleonic - I have several French and British units languishing away.  My 6mm collection more than fits my needs.
• 28mm Fantasy -Lots of old GW lead needs to find a new home.  

I opened up the year with my "Paint or Die" initiative and I would call it a partial success.  I managed to remove more figs from the lead pile than put new additions across the painting table.  Especially putting a dent in the backlog from 2015.

Jon is right, graphs are fun!

This is up from 2015 where new additions completely dominated

An analysis of scale, however, shows that my "Adventures in 6mm" moniker is less than accurate of late.

28mm is the dominant scale in my recent efforts, followed distantly by 10mm (due to my ACW revival project).  Looking at this critically, however it is easy to see the reason:  I have completed most of my 6mm goals.  In the years prior I painted 10,000+ 6mm figures from various eras, and so my needs have decreased drastically.  All told, my ancients collections are complete, and my Napoleonics need only the injection of the much neglected Saxons.  (I also think the scoring system I am using weights in favor of 28mm as each model gets counted 10 times for every 6mm casting.) I have started something of a revival in the scale with the Renaissance project last month.

Playing with graphs can be fun as adjusting my 2014 data for castings rather than points gives the following breakout:

So let's produce some targets

I still have some backlog in 2015 figs to clear, and the Imjin project created a massive backlog now for 2016 figs.  Rather than keeping to last years goal of "No new purchases for  6 months!"  I am instead making the goal of keeping 2017 acquisitions to under 25% of the collection.

Scale wise this serves to inform my goals in terms of scale.  I need to put some more focus into finishing my leftover 6mm castings as well as the 10mm ACW castings and the Imjin collection.  I have some more Halo figs to complete as well as the last of the 15mm Samurai units for Samurai Battles.

Finally, in terms of changing my metric, I went ahead and grouped my accomplishments this year in terms of units completed rather than on arbitrary points.  Last year I completed 151 units of various size, and 216 the year prior.  Currently I have a backlog of 158 units in the collection awaiting the attention of my brushes.  Thus I am committing myself to completing 125 units from the existing pile by the end of the year.  If I maintained the same tempo of painting this year as I did in 2016 that should not be too much of a reach.    

In terms of existing projects here are my 2017 goals:

• 1/6000 Naval - Complete the US Carriers and Capitol Ships
• 6mm Moderns - Complete INF BDE for PLA and cold war USSR
• 6mm Fantasy - Complete remaining figures (6 units)
• 6mm Renaissance - Complete 4 Pike squares, units of Halberds, Cross-bows, and Handguns.
• 6mm Napoleonics - Paint the %$&! Saxons.
• 10mm ACW - Complete 2 Brigades of CSA Infantry and round out my last three Brigades of US Infantry.  Complete the Limbers necessary to provide status markers for 10 field pieces per side.
• 15mm Halo - Paint the rest of the box set, and enough additional figures to get the game on the table this year.
• 15mm Samurai Battles  - 2 units of cavalry, 2 untis of Peasants and the Command tents.
• 28mm Imjin War - Complete 2 units each of Korean Cavalry, Heavy Infantry and Armored Archers
• 28mm Samurai - Paint four generals including Kato Kiymasa, Uesegi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen; Complete teppo for the Kato's division, complete teppo for Sohei; complete Pallisades for two sides.
• 28mm Renaissance - Complete another unit of Gendarmes, 2 units of Jinettes,  and another Imperial Pike Square.