Monday 4 January 2016

The Customary New Year Post

Happy New Year!

As is customary in the gaming blogosphere, it's time for the annual review of the previous year's productivity and look forward to what's to come. It's quite text heavy this one, and I haven't done any pictures, but hopefully it'll be worth a read.

OPERATION UNTHINKABLE

This year I set myself the target of completing a previously unfinished project every month with the penalty of having to get rid of things I failed to paint. The goal was to become lead mountain free. This hasn't happened, for a couple of reasons, but mainly because I ran out of steam around September, and the project that remain are somewhat larger and more difficult to complete.

However, I have done pretty well, finishing off a number of old projects, completing a few new ones that arose and generally ploughing through my mountain of metal, plastic and mdf. Here's how I got on:

January - Bolt Action Soviets
HMG & 3 Crew
Medium Mortar & 3 Crew
4 Scouts
2 Mine Dogs with Handlers
6 Pin Markers

February - A Very British Civil War Royalists
7 Gentlemen Farmers
12 Armed Schoolboys
2 School Staff Members

March - Urban Terrain
A whole host of things including a chain fence, barrels, a chimney, pipes, a radio antenna, a rooftop planter, a roof entrance and 3 Park Benches.

April - Flames of War Germans
3 Opel Blitz Trucks
Marder IIIM Tank Hunter
An Objective Marker

May - Dropzone Commander Resistance
2 Lifthawk Dropships
2 Hannibal Battle Tanks
Kraken Hovercraft
3 Jackson APC's
6 Infantry Stands

June - Guildball
6 Morticians Players
6 Union Players
A Ball

July - Muskets & Tomahawks
27 Woodland Indians

August - Batman Miniatures Game Tournament
This month I focused on preparing for the BMG World Tournament, the models I painted are listed in the Batman section below.

September - Dropzone Commander Resistance...again!
M3 Alexander Command Tank
8 Cardboard Buildings

October - Zombtober...sort of...
5 Zombies
Amy Pond
Elsa and Anna from Frozen

November - Marvel
Spider-Woman
She-Hulk
Black Widow
4 Hydra Goons
(I also re-based the other models I'd done previously)

December - Bolt Action Soviets...again!
T-34/85
SU-76
2 MDF Industrial Buildings

Overall, Operation Unthinkable has been a success. I may still have models left to paint, but I have really cleared the decks of those awkward little bits and pieces that hang around unfinished. I'm not sure the same format will work with the projects that are left, but setting clear targets has definitely had an impact.

BATMAN MINIATURE GAME

Throughout the year, I've also been keeping on top of my Batman backlog and during 2015 I managed to complete the following models:

Batman Crew
Batman (Arkham Origins)
Batman (Frank Miller)
Robin (Tim Drake)
Red Hood,
Alfred Pennyworth
Black Canary
Spoiler (Clix)

Joker Crew
Joker (Arkham City)
Knife Clown
Pipe Clown

League of Assassins
Ra's Al Ghul (DKR)
3 Ninjas
Lady Siva (Clix)

Poison Ivy Crew
Poison Ivy
3 Plants

Free Agents
Victor Zsasz
3 Arkham Lunatics
4 Blackgate Prisoners
Ventriloquist (Clix)

Tokens & Terrain
4 Lamp Posts
4 Sewers
2 Riddle Markers
SWAT Van
2 Arkham Warning Signs

On top of this I've managed to attend 3 tournaments and one campaign day, recording my biggest successes with the Batman crew, but overall, winning more than I lost. Stats for the the year in competitive games are: Played 13, Won 7, Drew 2, Lost 4. I definitely want to get to more tournaments and events this year as they're great days out. I also haven't given up on convincing our little gaming group to play BMG a little more often, but I've been laying off for a bit.

BLOGGING

This year has been a great year for blogging and I've written my highest number of posts in a year since I began the blog. However, I am aware that back in 2011, I wrote 55 posts in only 7 months. This was severely helped by being part of a 'Tale of..' project with several other bloggers which kept me motivate and enthused. This year, Operation Unthinkable and the 6MMRPC project have helped get that motivation back, but both were severely affected by my return to work in Spetember.

I'm always really appreciative of the comments I receive on the blog and I'm trying to ensure that I reply to as many as I can.

GAMING

This year has seen some of our previously common games like Attack Wing and Flames of War take a bit of a back seat to new kids on the block like Imperial Assault and Dropzone Commander, both of which I really enjoy and would highly recommend. I've also tried a few other new games like Frostgrave (which I've not made my mind up about yet, and need to play outside of multi-player), Guildball (which I really want more games of to give me a reason to buy official miniatures) and the different variations of 7TV (there's just too much potential in this ruleset, so much to choose from). Bolt Action and BMG are still there, although Bolt Action had a bit of a hiatus during Dropzone fever, and BMG is almost exclusively something I play at tournaments.

In terms of looking forwards, Dropfleet Commander is due to hit us in the summer and we all backed the Kickstarter and have a stupid bucketload of miniatures arriving, hopefully in June. We also all bought the Kings of War Rules and are getting round to re-basing armies for it. We're going to give a Frostgrave campaign a go, and with the release of The Force Awakens, X-Wing fleets are being dusted off for the first time in a good long while. I want to do about ninety different things with 7TV, but mainly continue my solo 7ombieTV campaign. Games like Black Powder and Dreadfleet will likely continue to be one-offs, but good for multi-player fun.

RESOULTIONS

And here's the important bit. Theses are the gaming goals I'm going to commit to in the coming year:

1. Continue to set targets each month to maintain my motivation to work through my lead pile - format to be decided.

2. Complete at least three of the following projects:

    • US War of 1812 for Muskets & Tomahawks
    • Mid-War US Tank Company for Flames of War
    • German Last Levy Army for Bolt Action
    • 6mm ACW Union Army for Black Powder
    • Rebase Wood Elf Army for Kings of War
    • More heroes and villains for Marvel (oh and write some rules)
    • Get DZC Resistance to 1500 points
    • Penguin Crew and Two Face Crew for BMG

3. Respond to all comments on the blog and get back to commenting on other people's blogs.

4. Play in at least three BMG events.

5. Get a playable fleet painted for Dropfleet Commander at the same time as the others so that I'm not playing catch up like I am with DZC.

I'll be back to pictures and stuff next time. TTFN.

9 comments:

  1. Wishing you luck in completing your hobby challenges fro 2016 Kieron. :)

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    1. Same to you Leon. I need to learn how you do your combined picture thingy for posts like this.

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    2. A mix of Fotor.com and occasionally MS Paint.

      Fotor is a free to use collage maker, but they recently started to make some layouts premium (paid for), so I stick to the basics. Sometimes I will build up as halves, thirds or quarters, putting those together either with Fotor again (which has a rigid window size, or MS Paint which does not).

      It is easier than it sounds. :)

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  2. That's quite a series of challenges that you have set yourself, but wishing you the best of luck. If you have another as good as 2015 then we are in for a treat.

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    1. Thanks. The challenges aren't that tricky, a couple of those projects aren't that massive - however, one per month would definitely be too much.

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  3. A rather impressive year, my man. You can be proud of that level of painting and gaming. A good mix in there too. Well done! Lets hope the next 12 months can bring the same level of joy. ;-)

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    1. Thanks. I'm fortunate in the opportunities I get for gaming - lots of eclectic tastes in there. It really helps keep the interest up and avoid monotony.

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  4. Well done on 2015 very productive dude! Best of luck with 2016's plans :)

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    1. Thanks. I'm pleased that I've largely done what I said I would. It's allowed me to start looking at new stuff without any sense of guilt for not completing stuff.

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