Life happens. We all know how it goes, interests come and go, or the available time shifts yet again. Well back in 2018 I dove into Ultramodern/Modern miniatures with some stuff from Spectre Miniatures. A friend who was into D&D minis and terrain but not wargaming actually discovered this and we took the plunge together. What followed was a solid two years of ultramodern minis and gaming. I built a pretty large amount of African-themed terrain and painted up a “small” collection of miniatures for the subject. Cue 2020 and a new house, then a pandemic, then a new kid, then a new job and next thing you know it was early 2022 and I hadn’t touched my modern stuff in a good while…it happens. My friend who was my regular ultramodern partner had moved a little further away for his own work needs, making it an hour away instead of thirty minutes. Combine that with two kids at home for me and well, there just wasn’t a lot of opportunities. Just as the itch started up to get back into it a conflict kicked off in Ukraine…

Now I know we play historical conflicts, and I’ve been around conflicts on the news as long as I can remember plus I’d played plenty of modern games with my friend. This time though something just didn’t sit right for me. Seeing ultramodern conflict happen in real time made it less appealing to game even if I wasn’t planning on doing Ukraine 2022 scenarios. That slowly bled out into my feelings about gaming these modern conflicts at all. Around this time I listened to an interview with Michael Charge on The Table’s Edge podcast. He eloquently laid out similar feelings and had a solution. I’ll call this concept imagiNations. Essentially modern wargaming in a fictional or semi-fictional world. For me that works, it helps counteract the feelings I was having.

Going on that concept my interest began to reignite a little, then via the Enemy Spotted Studios discord server I had a chance to help playtest and proofread their InCountry rules last year. That was a fun experience and really got me more interested. Enemy Spotted Studios has some great STLs, plus I backed the Kickstarter for the game I got to playtest on. I decided that would be my re-entry point, a new game and new minis felt like a solid way to get the hype back. I received that Kickstarter Pledge in February 2023, but I was waist deep in a certain project for Adepticon 2023… So InCountry got set aside. Then I skipped over it again to get my Bag the Hun minis painted up. Then again to start working on the French Platoon project I have going. The delays werent for nothing though, as the ESS QRF Tribe (MyMiniFactory subscription) produced a ton of insurgents over the winter and spring. Once the last release was in my hands I printed a ton of them off, along with some vehicles from Modern Miniatures. That I did alongside printing all my WW2 French goodies.

So here I am writing this article in July 2023, having recently primed and basecoated all my insurgents, and I’ve painted one test model. I also painted up the ESS Containment Team and African Regular Forces while the printing was going on, so I suppose I’m back in the groove a bit. I haven’t played yet but a friend recently moved back to town and is interested in giving InCountry a try so hopefully that part will come soon. Sometimes hobby interests ebb and flow, life happens.