Monday, December 31, 2018

2018 Down..... What Happened?


2018 is now passing away as the calendar is to be reborn anew as 2019.  But what madness has 2018 wrought?  Will its long shadow cast only madness and despair or will it instead fade away into a bright beacon of hope eternal for the future of my hobby dreams?  Only a bespoke few can tell….

So, that was some purple prose to herald a standard end of year goal review.  Each year I set some Hobby guidelines for the rest of the year and see how I manage.  They act as guard rails to keep me focused on the right things and not succumb to “Oh Shiny!”.  2018 I got a good start on and by the mid-way point I was in good shape.  Granted, I expected a lot of real life to get in the way of hobby stuff in 2018 so I made my goals pretty light this year. 

Typically, I break my goals up into the following categories:

·         Purchasing
·         Playing
·         Rules Writing
·         Miscellany

This year I had the following goals set…..

Purchases
Typically, these are things I plan to spend money on for the year.

-          Purchase all new Opsrey Wargame Series Books- Thankfully, they only released a few books in 2018.  I have them and reviewed them both.  They were Kobolds and Cobblestones and Outremer: Faith and Blood.- Complete



-          Pick-up 6mm Successor Armies from Baccus- I got it all sorted and priced out and even put them in my cart.  However, I didn’t sell quite enough wargames on the WargamesVault to pay for these new armies.  However, I need to get them purchased, painted, and based soon so I have them for a potential Osprey Publishingof Heirs to Empire. – Not Started

-          New Professional Terrain- My main purchase here was nifty new terrain clothe for my table.  It looks great.  I also picked up some cool Greco-Roman temple terrain from Terrafin.  This really took my terrain game up a notch or two.  Plus, I got a ton of lichen for scatter terrain.  – Complete, but I want to add a decent river to my collection.


-          Purchase Blucher- I picked up the rulebook, the 100 Days Supplement, and a PDF of La Salle from Sam Mustafa games.  It only took my three years, but I have it now.  Look for a game early next year. – Complete Plus!


In addition, I also picked up a few other odds and ends.  When I dropped 6th edition I was pretty convinced that I would not spend money on Games Workshop games again.  However, they sucked me back in with the re-release of Blood Bowl.  I have purchased several teams including the Skaven team, Dwarf team, Dark Elf, Elven Union, and Chaos team.  I buy teams for Blood Bowl as this is a game my family is more than willing to play on a regular basis and we have 12 teams for our League.  Maybe if I had not bought so many Blood Bowl teams I would have had enough money to buy those Successor Armies!  – Bonus Points!


Painting and Modelling
In this category are all the items I am making a bold effort to paint, sculpt, build, etc. for the tabletop.  Typically this is the area where I fall the furthest.  However, this year I was very conservative.

-          Paint Mobile Artillery for All Quiet on the Martian Front- Two years later they are complete!  Woot me!  


-          Paint D.A. Thompson from Pulp Alley- Complete after….. far too long. 


-          I also painted some Blood Bowl. teams, but have not had a chance to show them on the blog before today….. behold! – Bonus Points!     


-          I did not paint, but did have some Greek Hoplites, Macedonian Phalanx, and some light troops painted up for Men of Bronze this year too.- Bonus Points!


-          I did some Re-paintson Nano Metal Super-Figs for the superhero genre. – Bonus Points! 

 

-          Painted the models for the Path to Woodbury Walking Dead: All Out War solo starter.- Bonus Points!


Playing
Here are the games I wanted to play in 2018 when I set out. 

-          Play 8thEdition 40K- Done and done!  There was a lot of positive buzz about this edition so I wanted to check it out.  Some of my old gaming group were getting back into it, so I figured “why not try it?”  I have been playing Warhammer 40k since Rogue Trader days and still have the old RT book nipping about.- Complete!

-          Finish the BalkanUprising Campaign for Castles in theSky- Complete!  I manage to complete the campaign this year.  It took two more games to wrap it all up, but it is won and the victors decided.  You can see all the games in the campaign linked here.

-          Play a Game I Have Not Played Before- I played a couple of new games.  The most significant for the wargaming world were Super System 4th Edition and Walking Dead: All Out War.  Surprisingly, I had painted forces for both games! – Complete with Bonus Points!



-          Blood Bowl Tournament- With my family we managed to play a small 8 team Blood Bowl tournament with our teams; the PrincessOwayanna Healing Spring Bottled Waters Tournament   – Bonus Points!

-          Played a Variety of Wargames- I played a number of wargames this year including Men of Bronze, Heirs to Empire, Conquest!Rome in Italy, Rampant Sun, Super System 4th Edition, and Aeronautica Imperialis. – Bonus Points!







Rules Writing
For this section of the list I put my goals for actually writing and producing my own wargames.  I am typically pretty productive in this category and I do not think this year was any exception.  It doesn’t take any money to do this category, only time and attention. 

-          Complete Two New Rulesets for the Blog- Complete!  For the most part, I just wanted two new works for the WIP sections.  I was pretty successful getting Fog of War, Rampant GalaxiesConquest!Rome in Italy, and Rampant Sun up in the WIP section over the course of the year.


-          Photos for Men of Bronze to Osprey- Complete!  I actual provided around 100 photos for the publication of the Men of Bronze rules.  It is up for pre-order and I expect it to be out late- Spring of 2019 in the Osprey Wargaming Series.  I am pretty excited.



Miscellany
This section is for random hobby related stuff that doesn’t fit neatly any place else. 

-          Blog Once Every Two Weeks- Complete with Bonus Points!  I have managed to get a post up once a week this year, and sometimes twice!  I do not know how long this can keep going, but enjoy it well it does!

-          Clean-up a Game for the Wargame Vault-  Complete with Bonus Points again!  I managed to get the dexterity combat game Green Army Men: Plastic Men, Steel Resolve up the first half of the year.  I rounded out the year with the mass sci-fi battle game Rampant Galaxiesand model-vs-model skirmish game Rampant Sun . 




Conclusion
Not a bad year if I say so myself.  12 out of 13 goals complete with 9 bonus point pick-ups.  This is one of my most productive hobby years yet.

I am also proud of my serious of Blogs about the process for building and designing a new game from the ground up as I work on the Dinosaur fighting game- Only the StrongSurvive.  Hopefully it can help other aspiring game designers figure out how to methodically tackle the process of building a game from concept to the complete rules.  There is still more to share on this topic, and I look forward to continuing the series in the coming year.

Well, next post will be 2019.  Time flies by while you are having fun!  See you next year where I lay out my goals for 2019.   

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