So, how was your year?

I'm doing a review of the year, and, yes, there's an elephant in the room.

However, this is a wargaming blog, therefore I'm going to do my best to ignore the big grey viral bastard.

January

Ironically, 2020 began in a post-apocalyptic vein. With me travelling to Board in Brum for a 7TV day where I won best opponent despite taking a filthy broken cast of zombies.

I also painted my Fallout: Wasteland Warfare miniatures.

February

I prematurely believed I'd finished off my Soviets. This of course will never be true.

March

Looking back, the beginning of 2020 seems so structured and organised. I played a couple of games of Dropzone against Pete, I also apparently finished off my Fallschirmjager.

I've since found another sprue of miniatures...which sort of sums up how 2020 developed.

April

I curiously found myself with extra time on my hands and so painted my entire backlog of Masters of the Universe miniatures.

I also watched both the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, listened to Andy Serkis read the Hobbit for charity and paint a crapload of MESBG miniatures.

May

I continued to plough through my Lord of the Rings miniatures, completing both forces for the first scenario in the War in Rohan book...that I still haven't played.

June

Real life started to demand that I do stuff, and so my output dropped. However I worked through my Kitbash Kickstarter for Pulp City.

July

Things started to open up, and I actually managed to get some games in against Matt and his new Japanese army for Bolt Action. I found machine guns to very useful for ensuring social distancing.

August

With the release of the Indomitus box filling the internet, I was tempted towards 40k for the first time in a decade. Fortunately, my valiant Blood Angels came out of retirement to protect me from buying tons of things I didn't really want.

September

As well as continuing to repaint my Blood Angels, I actually managed to get a game against Pete where I failed miserably to defend the approaches to Stalingrad.

October

My painting turned back to Saturday morning cartoons, as I painted up the Thundercats and their Mutant enemies.

November

It turns out that my lockdown goto project is He-Man. I'd recieved more, so I painted more.

December

In a bid to get my painting numbers up I painted a battle group of Scourge for Dropzone Commander before returning to the Blood Angel's.

So with the year coming to a close, let's take a look at my painting tally.

Acquired: 206

Painted: 303

My hobby resolution last year was to make inroads into my lead mountain, and so I'm calling that a win, despite Leon's best efforts to derail me by 'kindly' sending me free stuff.

My broad goal was also to finish off projects, and I've definitely done that to an extent, with Fallout, the Soviets, the Fallschirmjager, Masters of the Universe and Lord of the Rings all reaching a point where I can add things at my leisure.

However, despite this success, this year I'm going to go back to more specific resolutions as I've missed them.

1. Paint more than I acquire

Yes, that's Lead Mountain in Colorado again.

This has gone well with me 

reducing my pile by 100 miniatures. I've also cancelled my subscription to Wargames Illustrated and so the influx of unwanted plastic should slow down. On top of that I've rationalised my future projects to prevent things getting out of hand and I've got more plans to further reduce my unwanted pile as storage space is really becoming an issue.

2. Play the games I've been planning

This one sort of depends on wider world issues, but I want to get my War in Rohan campaign started (and begin the Quest of the Ringbearer that I got for Christmas), Pete and I have Dropzone and Stalingrad campaigns to return to, and I want to take some of the casts I painted last year to 7TV events so that I have an excuse to buy more 7TV casts when Karl of Crooked Dice sends out his tempting tendrils.

3. Experiment more with solo gaming

This is probably one for the first half of the year. This is the something I did struggle to do this year, despite actually writing a set of solo rules for 7TV that are available for free download on the Crooked Dice website. I only managed to finish off my Breakout campaign for Super Mission Force. However, I do have lots of games (Walking Dead, Rangers of Shadow Deep, Descent, Fallout) that lend themselves to solo play that should keep me occupied until...well...

On a personal note, 2020 has been an odd year with some extremely low points that actually had very little to do with Covid 19. I've actually been extremely fortunate to not be in an industry too adversely affected, beyond trying to apply the government's crystal clear, totally consistent and realistic plans...

On the up side, I've reconnected with my old roleplaying buddies via technology and we've now got two campaigns on the go, and this hobby is one that has a strong online presence, which has provided my with plenty of opportunities to escape when I needed them.

I know this may sound like the sort of platitude that gets said every year, but this time I really mean it.

I genuinely hope you and your loved ones have a safe, prosperous and happier 2021.