As a teen, when I started on my foray into RPGs and Wargaming, the year 2025 was some supposedly distant and future dystopia. It was the far future. Now look, that distant chrome future is now heading into the rearview mirror. I will let you decide if it was better or worse than what 2025 was portrayed as in the popular culture back then. All I know is that it will soon be over.
That means, it is time to take a look at my aggressive goals for 2025 and see how I did? As usually, I have broken it down into the usual categories to help keep me organized. Shall we begin?
Purchases
None of this section would be possible without the generous financial support of readers like you!
Every time you purchase one of my books from Osprey, my Wargame Vault page, my Drive-Thru RPG page, and follow my Patreon you are helping to fund the continued existence of Blood and Spectacles Publishing. The money I earn from these areas I put back into content on the blog, content on Social Media, and new products for you! Any money I earn goes back into the business of wargaming and role-playing. Thank you! I could not do it without you!
With that said, it is always hard to decide how I intend to use these investments into purchases for the year. Going into this year, I had a few goals lined out for what I should purchase to help generate content. Let's see how I did!
- Stay Caught up on the Osprey Wargaming Series - Success! I bought and reviewed all the offerings from this year. Pacific Command and Voidfighter
- Purchase Victory at Sea- Success!
- Purchase Three Fantasy Ice Hockey Teams - Failure
- Start one or more of the following..... let me stop you right there.... - Failure
- Cowboy Miniatures, Terrain, and rules - Failure
- New set of RPG rules - Success! I actually picked up the Pendragon Gamemaster's Handbook and Adventures in Rokugan which I have reviewed. For next year, I have Fate Core, Wrath and Glory, and Inspirisles for you to get reviews on.
- New Heroquest Expansions - Success! I have them all except Perilous Dark and the new Wizards of Morcar. Reviews have slowly been filtering out with Mage in the Mirror and Spirit Queen's Torment on the blog now.
- A fourth Reaper Nativity Scene- Success!
- I also purchased a new Ocean Mat and an Austro-Hungarian Fleet for Castles in the Sky
That was a pretty aggressive set of goals for 2025. As long as it was a book I was able to purchase it. If it was a miniature, I was not as lucky. I try not to buy miniatures unless I have cleared out my backlog, and I never quite got there this year. That doesn't mean that I did not get a lot of painting done..... well, we will talk about that next. What it means is that thanks to all my Heroquest I always had something sitting there waiting for me all year. That means, I did not buy a lot of new miniatures to paint.
Painting and Modelling
I had a pretty strong start to the year, but summer sapped that energy. Once winter came, I was still having a hard time getting back into the painting grove. I was busy doing a lot of stuff that was not Blood and Spectacles Publishing this fall and winter. However, I expect that to change in 2026 as the winter months are usually some of my most productive for writing and painting.
This year I painted:
- Anglo-Saxon army - 92 Victrix miniatures.
- Heroquest stuff - 47 miniatures and furniture from a few expansions, and all the Heroes
- Aeronefs - 15 Brigade flying warships
- Misc 28mm - 12 including a Nativity and a few odds and ends.
That puts me at 166 miniatures painted for the year. That is still a decent amount of miniatures for the year and in line with what I have done in the past.
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| Anglo-Saxon Army |
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| Heroquest- First Light |
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| Heroquest- Mage in the Mirror |
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| Austro-Hungarian Fleet- Brigade |
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| Heroquest - Heroes |
Gaming
My gaming was focused on getting out stuff that I have painted recently.
- Heroquest - 12
- Kill Team - 1
- Blood Bowl - 1
- Fury of the Northman - 1
- In Strife and Conflict - 2
- Castles in the Sky - 3
- Restless Sun - 1
- Odin's Ravens - 1
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| Fury of the Northman |
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| In Strife and Conflict- Battle of Kadesh |
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| Inquisitor Heroquest- Battle for Ammoriss |
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| Restless Sun - Battle for Ammoriss |
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| Odin's Ravens: Viking Age Bad Boys |
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| Castles in the Sky - Osprey Games |
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| Heroquest |
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| Castles in the Sky - Osprey Games |
I also got to go to 1 board game night, have my weekly RPG, and have a few online games going as a player. I have been RPGing a lot more than Wargaming this year.
On the downside, my Skumgrod moved away so my games will probably drop next year. It also explains the drop off towards the end of this year. I was too busy with "Real Life" over a lot of this year to indulge in wargaming and hobby time.
At least, that is what I am trying to tell myself.
Rules Writing
This one ebbed and flowed over the course of the year. I was much better with RPGs than I was on Wargames. They do not have the same overhead in the post-production process. However, if I had the miniatures painted it was a lot easier to finish some stuff off and explains any success in the Wargame arena. The lack of miniatures has derailed many a project this year and in general.
However, going into the year these are things that I planned to finish and did:
- Glittering Void- Space Mecha Theatre RPG
- Badlands- Wild West Role-Playing
- The Corinthian War - Men of Bronze Supplement
- Odin's Ravens: Viking Age Bad Boys - Viking model vs model game
- Song of the Siren - Flashlight: Tales of Terror Module
- Sleepers in the City - Flashlight: Tales of Terror Module
My Patreon also has a lot of mini-games, modules in draft, and even some basic game rules for various periods and styles of games. If you are a paid Patron, you get to have access to what I have finished and all those draft games too. Thanks for being a Patron!
Other Stuff
I was happy to do the "other stuff" I wanted to do this year. I left that pretty limited.
- Kept up on my painted mini tracker
- Kept up on my games played tracker
- Started a Bluesky
- Reduced my Social Media output to weekly
- Got a blog post up every week
- Added blog previews, Patron content and rule drafts to my Patreon
Yeah, that's what I can think of for the "other stuff". Nothing that impressive.
In addition, I spent time organizing my wargames space. Now seemed like a good time and I am contemplating moving my wargaming room into a year-round space.
Conclusion
Dang. I started this year really strong and then slowed down considerably after summer hit. A lot of stuff happened in my real life, and I expect the same will be true for next year. Sometimes, the side hustle has to take a back seat to "real life". The exotic and futuristic year of 2025 was a bit less exotic and chrome than I hoped, but maybe I am still too close to it to really appreciate it?
Anyway, so long to all that. Time to start thinking about what I am going to do to make 2026 a great year for Blood and Spectacles Publishing and wargaming/RPG gaming?
Until next time.
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