Musings/ramblings of a wargaming butterfly

Sooooo.... those that know me will know that I'm a total butterfly when it comes to wargames periods/genres. Usually the best way to keep my interest is by either only watching films/playing video games/listening to audio books for a certain genre to prevent any other ideas drifitng into my mind (Which is fairly effective, and why I have quite so many Westerns, Axe & beard and African set films in my collection) the other is by following manufacturers who have regular releases of suitable figures, which keep re-wetting my appetite (also effective, although it does usually involve buying figures for stalled projects in order to kick start them which somewhat defeats the goal of clearing the lead mountain). There is also the issue of energy levels/health that can get occasionally mixed in as well, sometimes to interesting results. Currently I'm a bit on the tired side to really want to do much on my 1/48ths (I can do shading on some flak vests and paint some weapons - not too tired for that, and that should get a couple of figures close to being finished. But I definitely don't want to do battle with complex camo schemes or ensignia) and I'm not sure what to paint instead: *I don't really want to do too much on my dark ages stuff as that will get me all excited for the period, which in turn will make me dead keen on reenacting again and I don't have the energy for that (not entirely true - got a couple of events lined up, but not enough energy to my previous 5 hours a week running around whacking people with a langsax; *I can't summon up enthusiasm for the Quar, although they are tempting. I think the prospect of painting that many uniformed figures keeps defeating me; * I haven't got anything really suitable to persue my Mortal Engines plans (well - I have a few bits, but not enough to keep me going for long), and the old cash flow is a bit strained to be abel to buy the stuff I fancy; *I really need to start painting mounted figures for my old west stuff if I were to do anything on them... the problem is.... I don't like painting horses. They annoy me no end. The entire project was hopefully to get me out of my dislike by being fairly simple, with lots of foot figures and frequent releases from the likes of Boothill to keep interest going. It has worked to an extent... but I still hate painting horses. *BritApoc is tempting and may see some action and much the same can be said about my African stuff. I'm going to need more congo mercs by the end of the summer, so I may as well pull my finger out. But I haven't. Instead, I'm sat here wondering if I can find someone to do one of those "You have £xx pounds and X weeks to make a suitable sci-fi/fantasy gang/warband/army" competitions (challenges?). Currently I have a slight preference for 'fantasy/Hirtoical pulp' although the form keeps changing (mid morning I'll be fancying Highwaymen and pirates, late afternoon I'll fancying generic 'human medieval' types vs skaven or dwarves in a mordhiem type setting) I'm not entirely sure why I'm thinking of that sort of project - I think part of it is inspired by this guy's articles on collecting large HoTT armies on the cheap: http://specialfrieddice.com/UpscaledHordesOfTheThings and occasionally seeing the ease with which Bob from Edmington (his blog is in the read list on the right of the page) puts together HoTT and similar forces quickly and on the cheap. Originally my dark ages project was going to be along similar lines - just buying up cheap dark age/fantasy/ancients when I saw them, and putting together slightly adhoc forces... but that has evolved into more of an organised battles project (not a bad thing, but different none the less). Back when I was just playing 'general' post-apocalypse, I had a very loosely defined setting and could squeeze pretty much anything into it which had great scope for inventive use of figures and new (diverse) factions could easily be added for only a couple of quid. One of the factors which tempts/tempted me about HoTT is that armies can be made cheaply, and be as odd, diverse or bizarre as desired, and yet still face off aginst each other. So if I ever did make a Mortal engines army, I could field it aginst my saxons, or any other force I composed. But it then relies on me actually finishing an 'army' of figures (even though that will probably only be about 15-40 models). I think I'd rather like a Fantasy version of skank, where anything goes and forces can be any size of composition. Figures wouldn't be defined as 'Blade' or what not, instead coming down to 'veteran/proffessional/militia/rabble human sized (including elf, orc, beastman, etc)', 'veteran/proffessional/militia/rabble short (dwarf, gnome, halfling, goblin, ratman, etc)', etc. With a few addon skills (fanatic, faster mover, etc), a simple armour/toughness system (A human in leather armour is about as hard to kill as hulking ox-man of the same sort of skill), a range of moderatley generic weapons (Hand weapon, lethal hand weapons, 2 handed weapon, 2 hand weapons, pole arm, spear, pistol, bow, etc). Actually, there is no reason why Skank couldn't be used, albeit with a few modifications. I've tried most of the similar fantasy systems (SBH, etc) and not really found any to my taste. Hmmm. Ramble over. Well done for anyone who slogged through it - not sure there was actually a point, but it gave me something to do whilst keeping an eye on the EBSD map I'm collecting. The daft part of this most recent urge is, if given £xx pounds I'd probably go and buy some Mortal Engines stuff, making the whole pondering somewhat irrelevant...! I think I'll just go sit in the hobby room, pick a couple of generally applicable shades and start applying it to whatever relevant figures are sat on my desk (I'm just lucky that most feature the same dull greens, varying shades of ochre and brown, etc!)