The Painted Thumb

One of my goals for 2016 is to complete a Mid-War US Rifle Company in time for the Mid-War FoWSA tournament on July 6th. My list will be a 1700pt US Rifle Company from the North Africa book. I've been documenting my progress as I've been painting and assembling each unit. This week I completed a small unit. It is the Weapons Platoon that provides four light machine gun stands and small mortars. While it can operate as a separate platoon with its own command team, it is usually attached to a regular US Rifle Platoon. The figures are from the Battlefront blister pack. Since my infantry combat platoons are all painted with the green M1942 uniform, I painted this platoon with the same uniform. 60mm Mortars LMG Team Completed units Rifle Company HQ Rifle Platoon (1 command team, 1 bazooka team, 9 rifle teams) Rifle Platoon (1 command team, 1 bazooka team, 9 rifle teams) 5 M4 Sherman tanks Parachute Rifle Platoon (purchased painted and based) Field Artillery Bat

Phil Dutre' has written a nice post concerning the ability to recruit new players into the miniature wargaming hobby. It follows that without new players the hobby will eventually disappear. I encourage you to check it out in his blog here Tiny Tin Men . He has a hopeful attitude and encourages other players to feel the same. I would like to hear what any of you think of this issue. Is the hobby 'greying' or has it got room to grow? I'm personally worried a bit. I don't think the hobby will disappear completely. I expect it to change to meet the expectations of new players. But change does not always translate into improvement. It is already at a point where hex-n-counter games have almost disappeared completely. And I've seen some excellent games fade away. Take for example Steve Jackson Games. Ogre and Car Wars were both excellent game systems. Fortunately, SJG was able to reprint them with Kickstarter campaigns. But, are they catching on like they did whe