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Wow, another year comes to an end. Where does the time fly? I’m not even sure I was having fun this time. At the end of each year I like to recap my wargaming exploits, and begin to lay the groundwork for the following year.

At the start of 2016, these were my goals:

Painting and Modelling
1. Assemble my Robotech RPG Tactics models- Still in the box! I was put off by all the work involved and bad reviews of the assembly process. Maybe this year?
2. Paint All Quiet on the Martian Front forces- I painted what I had! I added more, so I still have some mobile artillery and a MKIV tank.
3. Paint 2 Gladiator Chariots for The Games: Blood and Spectacle- Painted!
4. Complete Painting my Necromunda Campaign- Still W.I.P.
5. Paint Inquisitor 28mm Warband- The what now? Still unpainted and collecting dust.

Rules Writing
1. Complete the rules for Combat! Starring Vic Morrow!- Complete!
2. Complete the core rules for 1 other Wargame system that was TBD- I actually finished two and got a good start on 2 more! See the links in the upper right hand corner.

Purchases
1. Buy all Osprey Wargame Series- Completed! I am still waiting on Rogue Stars and Chosen Men. You can see the reviews posted in December.
2. Operation: Icestorm for Infinity- I haven’t really looked for it. The game’s bloat put me off.
3. Buy some WWII Models for Combat! – Ha, ha, ha, ha……

Playing
1. Play a game of JUGS- Complete! I actually played 2!
2. Necromunda- Nope...
3. Aquanautica Imperialis- Sadly, no….
4. AllQuiet on the Martian Front- Yes, I played a handful of games for the Minnesota River Valley campaign.
5. Combat!- No, but….. reasons!
6. Continue my RPG Campaign- yes, but it sadly fizzled when a key player got deployed. It’s dead Jim!
7. Play 1 new TBD game system I mostly played my own stuff this year, BUT I did play a game of Super Systems 4th Edition!

I had 17 objectives and I completed 9 of my Objectives. That is better than I expected! I also managed to complete a few things not on my list too. I painted some new gladiators and played a couple games of The Games: Blood and Spectacle and Castles in the Sky. Finally, I started a silly blog at the tail end of the year too.

It is funny how the winds of fate twist and turn you through the year like an autumn leaf on a cool October breeze. I started off strong up until about March. Then, real life got in the way of hobby time until about December. Most of my year was spent reading and reviewing rules and writing my own while wishing I could play. Sadly, there was not a lot of playing time.

So, onward into next year! I will have to start assembling my objectives for 2017. Some pictures are on the blog.

http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2016/12/2016-year-of-wargaming-in-review.html

Now, it is your turn. What is your year in review?

Well, I basically took a year off. By this point I last year I was half way through Paramedic school, which took up about 80 hours a week between class and clinicals.

I also moved back home, and put all the hobby stuff and half my apartment into one small bedroom in my parent's house. About 3 months ago I actually got it fairly organized.

Last real hobby list I made was for 2015, but close enough!

1) Sell off remaining GW Imperial Guard - Other than 3 Valkyries, 5ish models, and a forgeworld tank, all gone.
2) Paint my BT army - Everything basecoated
3) Further reduce my hobby collection - Failed at this... luckily (although some purging may happen)
4) Play a game 1 a month - Haven't played a game in almost 2 years, if not more.

I finally get *some* free time now, so I decided to jump back in. The joy of not playing a game is I can paint when and what I want, and I aim to take advantage of that in 2017.

I don't really have any specific yearly goal I wanted to accomplish but I did manage to get quite a lot of gaming done. Still I had some breaks this year for a few computer games and I was also been rather sickly this year which prevented work on several occasions.

Painting:
1. I painted quite a lot of Tyranids at the start of the year.
2. Then I painted some Temple for Bushido.
3. I painted a whole Beyond the Gates of Antares Boromite army.
4. I painted some more Samurai
5. I painted Koreans for Ronin.
6. I painted some more Japanese scenery.
7. I painted some Ito clan for Bushido.
8. I painted and am still working on a quite a lot of Swedish for By Fire and Sword.

I was painting but did not finish some AoS Khorne warriors, some samurai and a Hive Tyrant.

Purchase:
1. I bought Deathwatch Overkill
2. I bought a Boromite army.
3. I bought a Khorne AoS start collecting box.
4. i bought the Korean box from Northstar.
5. I bought a Swedish army from wargamer.pl.
6. I bought paint as needed and a lot of Sengoku Jidai and Renaissance rules looking for ones I like.

Gaming:
1. I played a lot of Bolt Action.
2. I played a lot of Black Powder.
3. I played a lot of Ronin.
4. I played some Team Yankee.
5. I played some Hail Caesar.
6. I played some Beyond the Gates of Antares.
7. I played some Batman.
8. I played a little Pike and Shot.
9. I tried out Taiko!, Battles in the Age of War and Swordpoint.

I tried to but didn't manage to get any games of Bushido, 40K and AoS in and have not yet painted enough for By Fire and Sword. Hopefully I'll manage to get them in 2017.

Yeah, my son turned 1 in January, and then two months later we found we were pregnant again. So this year started with very little free time for the hobby, and then went rapidly downhill. Luckily I got into Star Wars Armada, so I have a game that does not need to be painted.

Seriously, the stuff I used to get done 5-10 years ago feels like a different lifetime.

Got into Knight Models with Marvel and love it.
Rekindled my relationship with Games Workshop. They've made great strides and should be rewarded.

2016 was a little bit of an off year for me.

I played considerably less X-Wing this year, both casually and competitively. I only participated in one Store Championship back in February where I place 5th overall and attended maybe three of my FLGS's monthly tournaments. I also played a lot less with my normal gaming group, but we made up for it by playing different tabletop games (tons of T.I.M.E. Stories). I also sold off my Star Wars Armada collection and used that money to pay for part of the computer I built myself a couple of months ago.

I painted almost no wargaming miniatures this year, but I did complete eleven models:

Bandai TIE Interceptor (1/72 scale)
Bandai Y-wing (1/144 scale)
Bandai R2-D2 & BB-8 (1/12 scale)
SithPlanet Super Star Destroyer (this one is technically a wargaming miniature because it's for Armada)
Bandai T-70 X-wing (1/72 scale)
Bandai T-65 X-wing (1/72 scale)
Bandai R2-KT (1/12 scale)
Bandai Star Destroyer (box scale)
Bandai TIE/fo Fighter (1/72 scale)
Bandai BB-8 (1/12 scale)

2016 was a year of great improvements, unexpected turn of events, and at times being rather unproductive.
Purchases
Started the year with 3 40k armies (Orks, Tau, Grey Knights + Inq) and now I have 5 or 6 picking up Space Wolves (rescued from being put up on ebay), Space Marines, and Militarum Tempestus. Going into the year I had no intention of picking up more armies but through different turn of events I ended up doubling my army count. Not very proud of it BUT I fully embrace the new armies and have been giving them a lot of effort this year and will continue to do so next year.
In general purchases have gone down although a lot of opportunities to buy extremely cheap popped up which resulted in making purchases which at times where often 35 to 60% off. If im going to throw money at things I might as well get a great deal on it. Start Collecting has been a real weakness for me with 3 Space Wolves, 3 Militarum Tempestus, 1 Tau, and 1 Necron boxes being acquired this year.

Painting
Not nearly the volume of painting done that I wanted but I will say I have made good progress in terms of painting quality. Painted a lot for the new armies I acquired and didn't do nearly as much with the other armies I have (although I didn't get much of anything for those armies this year but I still have a moderate amount of unpainted stuff from over a year ago.
Biggest improvement has been with painting skin for human models (including faces) as the quality of my work has gone from starting out at abysmal to finishing the year at a serviceable skill level.
First year using an airbrush and it has been extremely time saving to be able to base coat a bunch of parts while on sprue in a fraction of the time it would take to hand brush each one. Probably going to be looking into getting a better air supply so I can keep utilizing an airbrush for things like vehicles and base coating to save time.

Playing
I have been playing 40k roughly every week which is good and rotate in and out each army so variety is high. Tend to play with the same couple of people so I really should get some more variety in the player pool.
Need to up my Ork play time as they are my main army and yet I don't play them nearly enough (make a better codex GW )
FLGS closed up shop so I had to migrate to a new place so that has been a real low note for the year.

In total the year has been mostly good with a few bumps and unexpected turns. Hopefully 2017 will be the year that I paint more than I buy (probably not) and I no new army rule will stay in effect unless a full plastic sisters release is a thing (either it happens and we get plastic sisters or it doesn't and my wallet is safe....er). I hope to work on improving my work flow to make painting the rank and file stuff more time efficient so I can focus my detail efforts on the center piece models or passion projects. Perhaps ill even get my scratch build Stompa off the ground and out of the planning phase. Upgrading my terrain is probably going to be a major focus for the year as my 2+ year old terrain is starting to look really junky and worn.

Ok. Let me think

Painted: A LOT

Built: A LOT

Games played: About....3? Cant remember

The funniest game I played was a Generic chaos warrior army vs a Nurgle beast men army. Never before have I seen such ineptitude from all the followers of the dark gods . The highlight was defiantly when the giant fell over and landed on the minotaur's

I also discovered that trying to sell easy grade model kits at the local model and hobby show is a bad idea because the kids these days [da-sarn-it] would rather have an Iphone than anything else.

I’ve been doing a few year-end summaries over in my blog, But I’ll share here as well.

Painted:

So my total points in paint for the year is 2,620. Plus a few odds and ends, like a ork boy, chaos marauder, Chamady, and a zoat. Last year’s total was 2,224, and also included some odds and ends. 69 minis total, with my 1/2/4 math, 87 model equivalents. That’s counting the webway portal as a vehicle.

My 2016 New Year’s Resolutions:
1 Finish painting the odds and ends from my friend's SOB army that I worked on. Just a handfull of arcoflagelents, spare immolater weapons, some IG HQs .
2 Paint more then I buy.
3 Make a display board for my army. I've had the sheets of foam insulation waiting to be carved for years, never get around to it.
4 Base my army. Someday this will happen.
5 Paint my spare bits. I've magetized a number of things, painted the primary set up, but never get around to doing the other options.
6 Try to get more games in.
7 Update my blog at least once a week, and maintain a consistent pace of work (1 mini a week).
8 Get my Eldar army to a larger level, 2 more full squads minumum, with viable 1,500 or 1,850 point lists being stretch goals.
9 Enter and finish an entry every month for the painting challenge. If the monthly challenge stops, enter at least one comp in the year. In addition, paint something odd from the back of the bench a/o try out a new technique every month.

1 - Partial-ish. I did paint up an old D&D mini for a different friend, and painted an Orc for a collective project. So while I didn’t technically get any of the old project done, I did do some work for others, including dusty stuff from the back of the bench.
2- Success! Painted a ton of stuff this year, and while I did pick up a few things, not close to the amount I got done.
3 - Success! Not the Macragge board for my Ultras, but I’m counting the webway portal for my Eldar for this. And it is done.
4 - Resounding Success! Everything from the Ultras and Eldar is based, new and old. All new work is based. Victory!
5 - Partial. Did a few bits. Still a huge pile. But a bright lance, nightspinner bits, and all the options for my contemptor are done.
6 - Fail. I didn’t go back and count, but got very few games in at Cooper’s Cave, and have just started to get down to Flipside, and not with enough regularity.
7 - Success. I’m a good blogger, and maintained a decent pace on the paintbench.
8 - Success. Actually put a 1,850 list on the table for a game, so not just a theoretical.
9 - Success. So far, so good on the monthly challenge. Also entered the LoER terrain challenge with my portal.

Play more games:
At Cooper’s Cave:
30k Ultras 2W
40k Ultras W
AoS Chaos L

At Flipside:
40k U 1W/2L
E 1L

8 games total last year. Not the best for getting out of the house and pushing plastic around. If you count the 30k/40k games together, that’s 4/2 record for the Ultras. One outing out with the Eldar was a loss, and the AoS experiment with the Chaos was a loss. But the Sigmar thing was before the points came out, with us just eyeballing roughly equal forces.

2016 has been an interesting year, with getting married, and getting to grips with a new career. Although I think I can count on both hands the number of games I have played, I have managed to paint a good amount;

A full company of Crimson Fists painted to a good tabletop standard, although they need finishing touches doing.
2k+ 30k Iron Warriors painted to a high tabletop standard.
Alexus Polux and Pedro Kantor painted to a decent display standard.
A full high elf blood bowl team, painted rather nicely.
9 zone mortalis tiles floors and walls.
And a few other bits I can't recall off the top of my head. I'd say I'm not far off averaging a model every two days.

I've also started a warhammer club at my school for the pupils, so I've taught a fair bit of gaming and painting to the next generation of hobbyists.

I have been guilty of spending too much on hobbying over the last couple of years. Hopefully 2017 will see a continuation of the models getting done, but without adding to the pile.