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'Tis the season to recap what you accomplished this year in the Hobby.

At the start of the year, I write a loose goal list for myself. It is intended to keep me on-track and keep me from going off on wild tangents. It is easy to "chase the dragon" in miniature wargaming. The goal list helps keep me moving forward and not all over the map. As a part of this process, I like to go back and see how I did. I recommend it to all gamers.

Anyway, I tend to break-it up into categories like buying, painting, playing, writing, and other misc. stuff. I have a full recap on my blog for hose that are interested, but here is an overview:

* Buying was pretty restrained, a Kill Team, some RPGs, and two chariot wars armies in 6mm from Baccus.



* Painted 50+ 28MM and 30+ 6mm bases of models for 2023



* Played more games then I have in the last few years. Kill Team led the way, but the Ionian Revolt on land and sea filled in my Ancients quota!



* Writing was also pretty slow this year. A skirmish game, a rules-lite RPG, an RPG adventure, and a supplement of pre-written materials. Nothing fancy.



* Misc- I managed to do some fun podcast and Youtube interviews this year. Kept up on my blog and Patreon too.

If you want all the gory details it is here:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2023/12/random-recap-of-2023.html

Overall, one of my strongest years for actual games, a moderate year for painting, a low year for buying, but a decent year for Misc stuff.

Now then, how was your year? Pictures welcome!

Compared to most who will be posting in this thread, I accomplished basically nothing at all. I pretty much sat out of the hobby for most of the year. I still followed the 40K news and bought stuff that interested me, but I didn't assemble, paint, or play with anything until about 3-4 weeks ago. My hobby room slowly turned into a storeroom over the year, where I just randomly shoved stuff I bought. By the start of December I couldn't take more than four steps into my hobby room.

And then at the start of December I decided to get back into the hobby. I started organizing the hobby room. Threw out stuff that was trash that had piled up in there (empty boxes, packaging material, and such). Moved out stuff that wasn't hobby related to other parts of the house. Finished setting up the paint racks on my desk and moved my paints into them. Discovered I have more paint than paint racks, but that's what the desk drawers are for. I organized my Imperium magazine subscription that had just been piling up (unopened) in random parts of the room. Got my armies and unopened boxes sorted out. Got two 40K games in with a friend during all that. And now I have a usable hobby desk and room!



For those curious, the paints I have on those racks are Pro Acryl, Scale75, and GW Contrast, Shade, and Technical paints, along with a smattering of Vallejo Metal Color. In the drawers I also have Kimera Kolors, Scale75's artist acrylic tubes, Daler Rowney inks, and a bunch of premixed washes using Les Bursley's recipe. The racks themselves are Plydolex I bought on Amazon. I've started assembling several of the plastic Necrons from the Imperium subscription to strengthen my existing army. I may have them primed by the end of the year, along with the first steps done towards painting by doing the slapchop-style prep of prime black, overbrush grey, drybrush white. Also been doing those steps for the marine I already have assembled. Not sure how far I'll get before the year ends. But next year is looking to be a busy year, as I want to hobby more and video game less.

Good for you, Tann!

Resolved to play with my miniatures and did! Plowed through various solo miniature games, and found it faster to get through the scenarios solo daily than a weekly game with others (also the pandemic isn't helping, new strain already, and I'm taking care of the elderly parents). Also, I focused on only painting miniatures that I'd need for the game. I'm still painting miniatures before every scenario, so keeping up a decent pace. Lasting Tales, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, Sellswords and Spellslingers, and now Gloomhaven: Crimson Scales. CS is a boardgame, and I'm proxying Wildspire miniatures for it.

5L thread on Reaper: https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/102943-five-leagues-from-the-borderlands-and-lasting-tales-the-vale-of-klocke/
CS thread on Reaper: https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/103935-wildspire-miniatures-thread/

Thankfully, cutting back on KS, although China's shipping problems since the pandemic (and now the Red Sea) has reduced KS projects noticeably. Still dropping money during the holiday sales, thanks to Amazon and Miniature market.

Photo is Lasting Tales, using Loke Battlemats's "RPG Toolkit: The Long Road" foldout maps for the battle board. and Reaper miniatures. You can see the party valiantly hiding behind the tavern. Loke will have a KS in January, so much for my cutting back on KS.

I started the year thinking I probably wouldn't get much done as we had our first kid on the way and a lot still to do around the place to get ready. But I ended up getting a fair bit done anyway. Not as much as usual, but more than I thought I would.
1. Reorganised the spare room where my hobby stuff lives. This was mostly organising things into Euroboxes and tidying up my terrain crafting supplies, getting the desk sorted and so on. The idea is to be easily able to shift everything down to my basement storage unit once my daughter is old enough to need the spare room as a playroom or bedroom, if we're still living here, or be ready to move it out if we move to a new place.
2. Painted some D&D stuff, mostly a jabberwocky and a few other miscellaneous monsters that had been crowding my painting table. I think the Purple Worm, Orcus, and some Xorns, as well as a couple of hero minis.
3. Repaired a bunch of old 2e Chaos and added a bunch of last gen (so before the size increase) CSM to them to make a decent sized Word Bearers Warband. I had the Dark Vengeance stuff sitting around for a long time, and I'd done the Marine bits a couple of years ago, so it was satisfying to get them all done. Bulked out the Cultists to 20 in each unit. The Chaos Terminators are my favourite out of these. I also kitbashed a Daemon Prince out of some leftover bits I had from my Fantasy Demon Prince (the older one), minotaur bits and a lot of milliput, and I'm really happy with how it came out, I'd say it's my most successful kitbash ever. These all got painted during the summer and in my kid's first months of life while I was watching her in the cot. Oh, edited to add, I also got some Tzeentch demons done to finish out a force for a game.
3. Got my LOTR stuff all organised and started reparing and touching up the paintjobs on my old minis painted originally in 2008. This has been my main focus but as I've been back to work and stuff I've not got as much done as I'd like! But I have big plans for this going forward. Really want to get everything done and add in some of my own versions of the stuff I don't like much from GW (so like their Warriors of Minas Tirith, which I don't like the WETA designs and will be doing some Conquest Normans instead). Bought basically one of every Oathmark box in preparation for this project.
4. Gaming wise, got some games of LOTR in, and some games of OPR Grimdark Future 2.0. All fun, but less than I'd like, but it's to be expected. Hoping for more LOTR and some more OPR Siege of Terra next year.
5. Rules wise, I did a fair bit of work making a mass combat system that synergises with D&D based on OPR, and tested it out in my online game. It's working pretty well. I also hacked together some basic lists for mass battle Middle Earth stuff in Hail Caesar, really basic just skinning appropriate lists and no magic bar a morale penalty or buff here or there. Stuff like big trolls are just elephants, units of smaller trolls are chariot units, that sort of thing. Haven't had a chance to test it out but made a bunch of unit cards. Likewise I got REALLY interested in Warlords of Erehwon. Made a bunch of unit cards and got a bunch of Serpent Men painted, but I think it's a bit too complex for my main gaming buddy so it's on the backburner for now. But I really like it, and I especially like the philosophy behind it. This section makes me seem like a real Rick Priestley fanboy, and I suppose I am!
6. Scenery was small but to me important - rivers and water features! Made them out of a rubber doormat from Ikea with acryllic caulk on them for texture and a see through caulk for water effect. Really happy with the outcome. Haven't had proper river sections...ever! Makes me feel my fantasy terrain collection is approaching completion.

Overall I'm in a very happy mood about my hobby. I don't get to do as much as I used to but I really enjoy the time I do get for it and I feel really content with it all. I really focused on hobbying whenever I got the chance and wasting less time online (for me, youtube and scrolling twitter and reddit. Quit twitter entirely, working on quitting reddit, but cut it back aggressively. Youtube is also much reduced from what it was). Really valuing my free time for hobby stuff is much better than wasting time doomscrolling.

Oh I've had a great gaming year and I really leveled up my community involvement

I became an official volunteer ("pressganger") for Dystopian Wars, grinded out 3 tables worth of terrain and objectives and ran a great event


I painted up terrain and gangs and ran convention games for This is Not a Test, The Doomed, and Forbidden Psalm: The Last War


And I traveled to Croatia to play in a Forbidden Psalm event organized by blanchitsu pro-painter Ana Polanšćak, with her full recap here https://gardensofhecate.com/blog/miniature/turm-2023-report

On top of that, I made forces and played my first games of Horus Heresy and Adeptus Titanicus, I played a bunch of Dystopian Wars, leveled up my digital kitbashing and all sorts of other cool things.

Last year I was heavily into Heresy. That project ended in the first quarter with painting 30 odd miniatures.
In April I started with A song of ice and fire and painted 312 models 'til start of December.



Since then I painted another 30 models. I might cross 400 minis this year.

In 2023 I played a song of ice and fire exclusively. I also went to some tournaments despite my newbie status. I played close to a 100 games this year.

The joys of retirement

I finally managed to move to an area where I CAN get a game in!

Now I just need to get off weekend shifts, so I can be in the game stores to play when others are available...

Not as much as I would have liked, crap. The original plan was to run an Imperial Guard plog because peer pressure is usually a good motivation and also run a charity campaign for Halloween this year, but due to work, depression and 10th edition just not being what I hoped it would be, a lot got killed off or put on hold throughout the year. It didn't stop me from buying way too many new kits, it has been a good year with way too many awesome kits being released. The plastic Cerastus triplets, a lot of Cadian / Guard stuff, an awesome Inquisition warband for Kill-team and so on. Also decided to hunt down all the Stargrave books, so I can at some point try and run either a solo or coop campaign with my brother, I feel I need to get more games in, maybe that'll put me back on track hobby-wise.

Not all doom and gloom, I am quite surprised that I wound up painting more than I thought I would, about two dozen models all told maybe? Not enough to put legit armies or units on the table, but still I got stuff done at least, so I'll take that dub. My personal highlights of this year would have to be the psychic Halloween girl™, my planned Cadian warlord for 9th edition Crusade games and a stab at trying to do a rusty, weather-beaten vehicle, without having access to an airbrush or chipping fluid.





As for the Halloween charity thing, will try again next year, maybe properly document it this time, more peer pressure FTW? 😅 While I did not run it as planned, I did donate to charity nonetheless.

I did a lot of building and converting: most of it being on my orks to fit them into my new army vision that everything must have something Squig related in some shape or form. This has led to lots of green stuff, strapping wings to Squigs, etc.

I've built a fair amount of kill team terrain along with a board for it as well. I've also started on a display board and terrain for some Tomb Kings (but that's more of a 2024 project).

As far as painting goes.... I have not done much. I can probably count on one hand the amount of minis I've fully painted this year. The shame.

Gaming has mostly been kill team as the games are quicker and it's easier to take the minis from place to place when you can carry 30 guys and have 4 different teams on you. I've done some 40k as well just not as much as I would like in all honesty. Buts it's been a busy year with work, people moving, weddings, births, etc, so I'm not too upset.

My main goal for 2024 is to actually paint stuff, and to make a dent in the two huge drawers I have full of abandoned projects.

Finished some more units for a song of ice an fire and by doing so crossed the 400 model threshold - just - and just in time (about 7 hours left).

836 infantry miniatures or equivalents painted

1 emergency move of self, collection, and business

1 emergency website redesign

a whole bunch of sprues clipped from my personal collection. Hoping to do more in the new year so as to reduce space usage.

My year was mostly about star wars legion. I've finished painting two armies (clones and droids) and played half a dozen games.

I painted a total of 104 models ranging from 28mm troops to a knight titan in size. But a lot of these were very much all over the place being single units from a dozen different armies and games.

2024 needs to be about getting some projects finished.

Cross-posting from my blog thread:

Started the year with a dive into Crisis Protocol.



And Song Of Ice and Fire.



One of these would continue, one wouldn't. So, more CP.









Then a quick jump back to 40K to finish my revamp of Maugan Ra. I am still pleased with the results on this one.





Back to CP and a mad Titan with his economy car. Car not pictured.



Enjoyed painting the throne far more than expected.

Then some random stuff, like a Relic Knights mini started years ago.



Knight Models resin mess.



And a Space Marine that has since disappeared from the Warhammer club area. Rumor has it he was taken by the librarian's son to use in games.



GORM!



Things were gribbly for a minute.



Started in on rando Mandos.





Green one may be my least favorite model painted in years. Just didn't work out, in my opinion.

Some more KD.





Need to paint more of this stuff. Piles of it thanks to KS.

Sabine next. Calling this one a success.





Space whales!

A big one, literally and figuratively, the Titan Dragon. Should paint more Rackham minis, too.



Back to gore and CP with Immortal Hulk. If you haven't, read it.



Classic Fett homage.



Silly, but suave.



Taking my advice, painting more Rackham. Fire elemental.



Then 3D printing entered my life. Small Gwenom.



And Gojira.



A different type of leviathan.



Randolorian.



Big Gwenom. Another one I feel is fair to call a success.



Speaking of random, an Inquisitor.



A stealthy Mando.



Not stealthy Growler.



Again, unsubtle. Velma, definitely calling this one a win, paint-wise.



And another victory in the name of getting things out of my head and onto a shelf. Zoat Bounty Hunter. Varnish is doing something weird on the blacks, but it doesn't really show at life size.



So there you have it. I didn't count them, but I think looking back it is a nice bit of work. A lot of fun models. A lot of big models. Have decided taking part in the monthly comp is a solid benefit to motivation and diversity, and for that I am deeply appreciative to all who participate, vote, and especially, keep it running. Think I will keep it up.

Have a safe New Year, and as always, thanks for looking!

I started the year with some Btech.


and this lady was my last miniature of 2023.


Not a bad year hobbywise with some "need to get this painted" projects completed. My happy discovery of the year was slapchop with contrast paints for all those nameless mobs in my collection.

Happy painting during 2024!

M.

What a strange year. Started things off on a pretty optimistic note. I had essentially cleared my pile of shame and had a pretty clear plan for the year. Warmachine Mk4 was looking to roll out and I was extremely excited for Judgement's KS to finally deliver, but things were finally getting into a good routine and the community was getting interested in organizing events and leagues again.

Then we got hit with news our store was closing and this pretty much threw everything out. In the following chaos, a lot of games sadly just kind of fell by the wayside as game nights scattered and people focused on big reliable brands. MCP actually became more popular than ever and found a regular home while Shatterpoint has seen one of the most successful 6 months of any new game I've seen. Of course, 10th also proved that 40k is if nothing else, a reliable common ground.

Ended up with a disappointing backlog in the painting front. Where I was caught up, I found myself needing to put a lot of things aside to focus on having a robust 40k collection and buying some legacy Warmachine models to finish off armies before they went out of print. I painted a LOT of stuff but really need to buckle down and play catch up again. Painted armies below.

In any case, things are finding new footing. Judgement didn't disappoint and Warmachine is looking to come back in a big way but both struggle without a regular venue. Those plus 40k, Shatterpoint and MCP made up most of my year, which sadly meant things like Malifaux, Bushido and Infinity fell by the wayside.

I DID find a lot of joy in terrain painting this year. Building new tables has been super rewarding and a good way to provide variety to a smaller set of games. Anyway, here's a collection of armies painted up. Still working on the vehicles for my poorly thought out Ork purchases, but hopefully the next few months I can focus and get mostly caught up again.