Friday 6 January 2023

Hobby Review of the Year



With UK lockdowns over, I managed to make it out to a few Infinity tournaments. It's important to remember Coronavirus has definitely not gone away and is still affecting many people. I'm certainly still making careful decisions about risk with what I choose to go to.

That said, I made a few Infinity tournaments over 2022, including St Albans Smackdown, the inaugural Red Star Blues tournament at HATE, and a return to EIC in Mallorca. I am still only OK at Infinity, but I'm having fun with the challenge of it.


I've also made it to a friend's house a couple of times to play One Page Rules Grimdark Skirmish, which has been great fun. We're having a nice little mini campaign, and while I still haven't quite got the hang of One Page Rules yet, it's good to be gaming with friends in a more casual environment as well as my competitive Infinity habit...


I did get a good bit of Infinity painted this year, playing a tournament with a full set of models I'd painted myself. This feels like a big achievement as even with 40K, tournaments I've played have had at least some models painted by someone else.


I was really pleased with how a few minis I painted this year came out. I got Candy as a present, and she's a mix of contrast paints and highlights, but for a simple paint job she came out disproportionately well and I'm happy every time I see the model.


The henchman from Otherworld, meanwhile, took forever for me to finish, because his backpack was so fiddly and full of details. That said, I was mega happy with how the face turned out, and I feel I'm getting much better at doing faces with practice.


Dagny the Viking Guard was a bit of an impulse purchase originally. I'm not as happy with her paint job as I was with a few of my other models - I think she's come out a bit dark - but getting her painted made me disproportionately happy for the effort it took.


I've done a few D&D models this year, including the Otherworld henchman above, but this rabbit folk by Reaper Bones turned out really nice for a simple contrast paint job. There wasn't anything special about the job in terms of painting her well or anything, I just really liked how she turned out for a quick tabletop quality paint job.


I also had fun painting some Battletech Mechs this year. It's a new scale I haven't tried before, but infuriating mould lines aside, they're nice simple sculpts that are really quite different to anything else I'm doing.


I've had three armies commission painted this year, and the mental load of getting that sorted by someone else has been really excellent for my general mood. First up, we've got the Deathwatch, which give me something other than my Imperial Guard to play 40K with. It will be good to get a game in with them as I'm curious how the current edition actually plays.


Its fair to say I've been AoS curious since it came out, but I've had huge trouble deciding on an army to play. In the end, cheap Stormcast deals meant it was easiest to get those painted up and ready to go. Maybe in 2023 I'll get to see what the fuss is about.


Meanwhile, I've gotten a good chunk of the options for White Company for Infinity commission painted as well. I took them to EIC and had fun, although I've not got in enough games with them yet to get the hang of their playstyle.


I got 85 miniatures painted over 2022, which is a pretty respectable number. I went over on buying models again, but nowhere near as bad as 2021! I'm feeling really positive, and have plenty of hobby plans for the coming year, which is probably the best place to be.

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