Blood and Spectacles: Random- The End of 2020: A Recollection Collection

I think that is how everyone feels about 2020! I am glad it is over, but I don't expect 2021 to start out much different. In some ways, 2020 was good to me as WFH was a big savings on fuel and other resources. I also feel like I was pretty productive. On the down side, I was in quarantine most of the year and I actually got COVID despite all of my families precautions. So, that was not fun.

Anyway, enough about the train wreck that was 2020 in general. Instead, we need to talk about Hobby goals for 2020. As usual, I will be breaking it down into the four categories:

1. Purchases- Things I spend money on to add to my collection

2. Painting and Modelling- Things I got ready for the table

3. Playing- Games that I played

4. Rules Writing- Games I have built

5. Miscellany- Other stuff that is hobby related

The things I put into the categories at the start of 2020 are not set in stone. They are guidelines to keep my year on track and to avoid being distracted by the new shiny. I find it helpful!

Purchases

Many of my purchases this year were focused on Ancients. This makes sense to me as I had Men of Bronze come out for Osprey last year, and I have a second book coming out in 2021 called Wars of the Republic. In addition, I released Heirs of Empire for the Diadochi Wars on the Wargame Vault. Therefore, I started bulking up my Ancient forces for more Online content to support these releases.

I also always like to keep my bookshelf of games up-to-date as well. I also picked up new rules to keep my tool box of ideas current and full. So, how did it go? What did I get from my list?

Here is what I have picked up:

Clash of Spears
Zona Alfa
Gangster Terrain
Blood Bowl Lizardmen
Last Days: Seasons
Reality's Edge
Victrix Elephants
Victrix Cavalry
Victrix Republican Romans
Rogue Planet- This was a bonus pick-up not on my initial list

Thanks to all of YOUR help! Your support through purchases of Men of Bronze and from my Wargame Vault page has helped me achieve these purchase goals. Thank you.

Things I did not pick up this year:

Victrix Carthaginians/Samnites
Gangs of Rome
Mortal Gods
Oathsworn Burrows and Badgers Bundle A and B
Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarfs

So, there are still some things out there that I wanted to pick-up. However, I sincerely doubt I will be buying Mortal Gods. After reviewing the game closer, there are a lot of "Monetized" elements to the design such as tokens, custom dice, unique cards, and dice pull items. This is not to my design taste, despite hearing good things about the gameplay and decision making in the game. Gangs of Rome may fall into the same category, but I am less sure about that right now. Therefore, these may not transition to the 2021 list. I am not sure yet.

Also, it doesn't look like there will BE any Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarfs so..... I guess those might not make the 2021 list either!

Painting and Modelling

2019 I painted over 150+ models, and I felt like that was an amazing success! This year, I also had a pretty productive year too! The tracker on the right hand side of the blog helped me keep focused on moving the numbers down. Twice this year I ran out of models to paint and got news ones just as I finished the last batch.

So, my grand total of painted models this year is..... 141! Not as good as 2019 but still a pretty great year! Especially since a number of these were 60mm x 60mm bases of 6mm models! Those were a bear to paint, but I still think it was easier than a 15 man 28mm unit.....

So, here is a selection of what got painted/built for 2020:

28mm Greek Peltasts- 10
28mm Copplestone Casting gangsters- 12
Blood Bowl Lizardmen- 12
28mm Fantasy- 8
28mm Greek Hoplites- 20
28mm Steampunk- 1
6mm Bases- 19
Ork Subz- 4
28mm Greek Cavalry- 10
28mm War Elephants- 8 minis
Gangster Buildings- 5
Aeronef Fleets- 23
Battletech Mechs- 9

Last minute Battletech Mechs finished in 2020!

Playing

For being in "lockdown" for much of the year, I got a surprising number of games under my belt. Most were with my wife, daughter, or both. However, a few were with my favored Skumgrod or my gaming group.

I know that COVID killed my D&D campaign, Starfinder campaign, and a Monster of the Week game stone dead. We tried to migrate to Discord and it just didn't work. Then, in a lull period we got back together and BOOM, an outbreak in our area killed all our RPGing again!

Thankfully, I got games in with my Skumgrod early. Then my wife and daughter filled the gap when we were all stuck at home for long periods of time. In addition to wargaming, we played card games, board games, and video games too. My daughter is pretty much willing to play anything as long as I do the set-up and explain the rules. My wife is much choosier in what she will play and when. On Thanksgiving I got to play several games of High Noon with the family too. Do not worry, masks, distancing, and open windows for ventilation were also a part of Thanksgiving too.

Again, the tracker on the right hand side of the blog helped me keep track of my gaming progress and also served to motive me. Here is what I played:

Aeronautica Imperialis- Twice
Wars of the Republic- 3 Times
Aquanautica Imperialis- Twice
Rampant Stars- Once
Men of Bronze- Once
Broken Legions- Once
Turf War- Once
White Star/Red Star- Twice
Rampant Sun- Once
Black Ops- Once
Heirs of Empire- Twice
Aquanautica Imperialis: Force of Arms- Once
Only The Strong Survive- Once
Castles in the Sky- Once
High Noon- 4 or so times on Thanksgiving

Again, not a bad year for gaming considering all the complications this year threw in the way.

Rules Writing

Since all I need is a computer, ideas, and time this goal I am usually pretty productive with. I do not think this year was an exception! I feel like I got a lot of stuff on paper, especially early in the year when lockdowns were all the rage and employers really weren't sure what they were doing yet. Anyway, I had a few goals going into 2020:

Complete writing Wars of the Republic for Osprey Games- Done
Update photos and artwork for Turf War for a Wargame Vault release- Done
Get 1 Game from the WIP up on Wargame Vault- Done. Only The Strong Survive is there!
Get 1 new game up into the WIP section of the blog- Done, I have 2 actually

Full points for all those, but that is not all I have done! Here are some extra points categories!

Published Rampant Swords on the Wargame Vault
Published Foam Force Five on the Wargame Vault
Posted Heirs to Empire at the Wargame Vault
Tested White Star/Red Star
Playtested AQ: Force of Arms

That means I published 5 games in one year! Not too shabby. You should check them out. I also have plenty more in the pipeline, but there will be more about that in the 2021 Goals post next week!

Miscellany

This is a catch all term for things that have to do with Blood and Spectacles, but do not fall into the other categories. Things about blogging, Social Media, marketing, etc. I pretty much completed all of them but one.

Post up twice a month- I actually managed weekly!
More pictures for Instagram- Check my Instagram, I did it!
Add a Painted Model and Games Played tracker to the Blog- Done and done

The one thing I did not do, was do some work for getting a local Con together. I did some early work with partnering with some folks that had some experience in running Cons, but then COVID hit. That completely annihilated this goal. It had no chance of becoming a reality once the Pandemic started.

Final Thoughts

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson's Joker in Batman......

"You really were a vicious one '2020'. I'm glad your dead........ I'm glad your dead.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"