Monthly Painting Topics

[Donald M. Scheef]

Those who have been following my threads know that I am in inveterate list maker. I have been trying to rationalize the monthly Microarmor painting topics and cover all the types of vehicles as fairly as possible. Looking at the available GHQ Microarmor items and the announced items for 2018-2019, this is what I have come up with:

There are a total of 1048 GHQ Microarmor items. Spread evenly over twelve months, this would average 87 items per month. I couldn’t make things come out evenly, but tried to group and divide types of items as close to this as I could while still maintaining a degree of topical consistency.

In order of number of items:
119 items: infantry, including associated heavy weapons.
117 items: soft-skin vehicles (tracked, half-track, and wheeled). This excludes unarmored self-propelled artillery, anti-tank weapons, and anti-aircraft weapons.
116 items: aircraft. Previously we had separate months for helicopters and for fixed-wing aircraft, but with only 33 helicopters, I felt that combining them was the best approach.
105 items: artillery. This includes towed and self-propelled types but excludes dedicated anti-tank and anti-aircraft types.
92 items: fully-tracked and half-track armored personnel carriers and similar vehicles (excluding artillery, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft types).
82 items: light tanks, fully-tracked recon vehicles, and amphibious vehicles.
81 items: dedicated anti-tank weapons (including self-propelled anti-tank guns, tank destroyers, Panzerjaeger, etc.)
79 items: wheeled armored fighting vehicles (excluding artillery, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft types)
64 items: heavy tanks (37) and engineer vehicles (27). These are two heterogeneous types, but neither has enough to be listed separately.
61 items: medium tanks (WWII & Wehrmacht ‘47)
59 items: main battle tanks (modern).
55 items: dedicated anti-aircraft weapons.

I strongly considered one alternative: separating helicopters from fixed-wing aircraft and combining medium tanks with main battle tanks. However, I think this is the best division. Given these twelve categories, this is my suggested schedule:

January: main battle tanks (modern).
February: dedicated anti-aircraft weapons. Only because these are the shortest month and the smallest category.
March: infantry. Because they march.
April: fully-tracked and half-track armored personnel carriers and similar vehicles
May: artillery
June: aircraft
July: medium tanks (WWII & Wehrmacht ‘47). This gives maximum separation between MBTs and medium tanks.
August: dedicated anti-tank weapons
September: heavy tanks and engineer vehicles
October: wheeled armored fighting vehicles.
November: soft-skins
December: light tanks, fully-tracked recon vehicles, and amphibious vehicles

There have been suggestions that we also have a rotation for painting Micronauts. Without any justification, here are my suggestions for that:
January & February: aircraft carriers and aircraft
March & April: destroyers
May & June: auxiliary and civilian types
July & August: battleships, battle cruisers, and WWI-era armored cruisers
September & October: submarines and escorts
November & December: cruisers

Don S.

[7.62]

Don,
A little structure will go a long way!
Wonderful list there and thanks for taking the time to crunch the numbers.
I think this approach is the way to, with both the microarmour and the micronauts running.
I believe this will add value to the forum in the long run.

My hit and miss attempts was solely based on my own painted requirements and as such was prone to my work/whims/time etc.

Not sure I have any medium tanks but I say lets roll with this list as it.
Despite my limited posting of photos here of late this topic has kept the armour moving which was my main goal.
Photo bucket finally took effect of my account (can't believe it was still working until mid June) so new hosting is now in place.

Anyone have more input? Lets see what people say over this weekend then we can set up the same headers etc.

A big thumbs up to Don.
Cheers,
Mick.

[redleg]

But I just ordered some SP artillery for July being SP Artillery month!! Oh well, I guess I will just have to buy some more in May. You can never have too much artillery!

I like the list! I'm in!

[Donald M. Scheef]

For September, I suggested engineering vehicles and heavy tanks. I suppose this should also include engineering personnel.
For engineering vehicles I would include recovery vehicles, repair vehicles, tanks with mine clearing attachments, bridging vehicles, armored plows, etc.
For heavy tanks I would include the British infantry tanks, up-armored Shermans, Tortoise, T95, obviously the Tiger and ISU series, with all their variants, etc.

Alternately, sneaky pete suggested ships and boats for September.

I had ships separately, with September and October months for escorts and submarines.

Take your pick.
Don S.