Some potential projects

The real world continues to inconveniently time consuming, and impeding my ability to spend all my time on random hobby projects. The tedious and complicated way our house move is happening continues to soak up vast amounts of time, but the little windows of delight in our new home show that it will all be worth it in the end.

I am actively champing at the bit to get to some hobby projects. It goes without saying Infinity is high on the list - that hasn't changed. But what else is catching my eye?

There's a pretty big Underworlds scene up here, and I do have a couple of warbands painted already. I do need to find the new edition cards I have somewhere. The matter is slightly complicated by my not having the current edition box for boards and tokens and whatever, and budget currently precludes fixing that.

But it seems likely I should be able to get a few games in once I've found the decks, and if I have fun with that, I'll look to get the latest set.

Quite a few people are also playing Age of Sigmar Spearhead. For this, I do have a whole Spearhead in the Skaventide box - but it's unassembled and unpainted. That's a slightly more chunky hobby project than "find a few things", but I do at least already own everything I need to do that. I've got both of the Spearhead scenery and board sets, too.

I'm getting quite excited by Heresy, as lots of other people are. A little audit of kits has shown that bits and pieces of other abandoned projects comes to about 800 points or so, but is heavily lacking in troops. One box of Heresy Tactical Marines would get me to a small playable force at about 1,000 points or so.

But I have no finished models! This feels like a good "get a couple out, get them done, then paint another kit" type project. If and when I've gotten everything else done and ready, I can grab the tactical box as my reward.

 

I am wavering on Old World, readers. While I have a bunch of Bretonnian kits, what is bringing me joy is the idea of Empire of Man. But I am definitely not in a place to be buying a huge new army.

Conveniently for me, the TSN Arena has put together some rules for playing The Old World at 500 points. This seems eminently more achievable as a goal for the Bretonnians, and perhaps once that's done, I can switch my focus to Empire?

What do you know, Malifaux is releasing a new edition! I was just getting into the local scene as part of a Slow Grow campaign when Covid hit - my last game got cancelled right as lockdown hit for the first time.

I haven't found anyone playing locally, but there is a pretty thriving national scene. I can't see it being too challenging to get some paint on my crew, grab the new cards once they come out, and sign up to a small event.

And finally, the low bar. This bit of resin from Fenris Games is intended for my photography set up. Once I find it, cleaning it, undercoating it, and painting it up with some simple techniques will be a pretty simple win to get something done.

These are a whole lot of projects. My current thinking is very much based around trying to set aside the time to get one pretty hefty hobby project done a month. I definitely have too much on in September, but I'm looking thoughtfully at October or November for being able to maybe start doing something that isn't unpacking boxes, or sorting things to be sold on eBay.

Having the space, both physically and metaphorically, is the reason we moved. I'm looking forward to being through the work that gets us there.

Review of 2024

 

It's been a bit of a weird year, all told. Work got catastrophically stressful, I got into a TCG, and looking back at things that happened in the first half of the year feels like some kind of weird other-time where things happened to someone else.

As far as "goals for the year" went, everything kind of fizzled out. Some large Kickstarters are the bulk of the miniatures that came in. There's a few limited releases or things that were going out of production, with a bit of a slip when Imperial Agents came out.

That said, I did manage to tidy the hobby room sufficiently that my dearly beloved has a table of her own in it, so it's not a complete wash.

I managed to run a D&D game in person for some friends, which was excellent fun. One of my long term ambitions is to run a long campaign in person with miniatures and maps, but that isn't something I'm aiming to do in 2025.

I made it back to Salute, which I mostly loved for seeing a bunch of friends who run small wargaming businesses. A trade show when you're trying not to add to piles of unpainted miniatures is a bit difficult to work out how to approach.

I also made the trip to UK Games Expo. It was a lot, but I had an amazing amount of fun. I found new games, like the card game Flesh and Blood. I got some Pathfinder Society games in so I got to play rather than be a forever DM. I would go again, but I probably won't in 2025, as I have a lot of other commitments then already.

I did successfully get some games of the new edition of 40K in - both with my Deathwatch, and signing up for a small narrative campaign with my Imperial Guard. It's been great fun, despite losing all but one of my games.

A got a cheeky game of Malifaux in. Not much to say about it beyond that I did play it, and I want to get my crew painted!

I also got my first ever game of Age of Sigmar in. This is something where I'm keen to try out Skaven, but that's a painting project away from happening...

Infinity has been a bit slower than previous years, but there's still been a whole bunch of it - I've done a few tournaments and a league, but the announcement and then the delay of the new edition, N5, sort of took the wind out of the sails a bit. The new edition has engaged a lot of keen, though, so I expect that to course correct shortly... That said, I did get games of three other systems in instead, so I think it's just a question of balance.

My local club, Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts (or HATE) has sadly had to move venue after the closure of Bethnal Green Working Men's Club. It's now running in a new venue that I haven't made the journey to yet.

When I sat down to write this I was thinking I hadn't gotten a lot done. It turns out, I have - but it's been going out and doing things rather than sitting down and painting miniatures. The review has been really helpful in a way, because it's helped me realise I've had a productive, positive year. Among a bunch of stress and distractions, looking back at the positives helps put me in a good mindset for the coming year.

Malifaux Battle Report - Plant Explosives, Viktorias vs Molly

 

It's been a whole while since I played Malifaux, so decided to grab a game to remind myself of the rules. One of the London players volunteered to help out and brought a Resurrectionist Molly crew to face my Outcast Viktorias crew.

We were playing Plant Explosives so I yeeted Bishop up the field, pulling Taelor some of the way to get a marker down.

Archie charged in and smacked Bishop pretty hard. Taelor then swung in but couldn't quite finish Archie off. The next turn, Archie smushed them both, taking out two of my heavy hitters...

I didn't have much left that could threaten Archie or the Rogue Necromancy so mostly ended up with my scheme runners (ineffectively) running away from them.

One Vik got taken down, while the second went to go shank up one of the new Molly crew models, but found them a tough nut to crack.

Teleporting Crooligans were dropping scheme markers all over the place, and I was falling further and further behind in scoring.

My Prospector and Ronin made one last brave attempt to get some scoring down, but my numbers were low enough that markers were just getting taken out faster than I could put them down. We called the game there with a solid win for Molly.

I definitely don't really know what I'm doing just yet, but it was good to get a game in. I enjoyed the game itself even if I did get a kicking. There's some more figures I need to assemble, and a bunch of painting to be done...

Taking stock

I've been doing a little taking stock of my current hobby projects, and thinking about what my priorities are. Planning things a little bit in advance so I can set myself some goals means that as one thing starts to flag a little, I can start motivating myself by looking forward to the next thing.

With the Battletech Mercenaries Kickstarter due soon, I'm prioritising knocking out one of my lances from the "Game of Armored Combat" box so I don't fall too behind with the painting there. Four miniatures with a simple tabletop scheme is a nice simple job that's not too big, especially as June is a LARP month so I won't have a huge amount of time.

Having a fully painted Lance will mean I can start finding some games to start learning how it plays. I may have found a demo at UK Games Expo by now, but some games with my own models will be good.

I played in the latest club Infinity league with my Nomads, who are currently unpainted. I'm looking to paint those soon, and am looking for what to play while I'm painting up the first force. I decided it's time to dip back into my Combined Army. I have a Shasvastii force painted, and it won't take many models to expand the force to a Vanilla force. It's a quick scheme to paint so shouldn't be a big time investment.

Also, I might dip back to Shasvastii at some point and see if I can make Jayth Cutthroats work.

I really enjoyed playing my Guard again, but oh my goodness are there a lot of changes needed made to bring my models up to scratch. I'm searching for bits to update some additional models, and also looking at what to expand. The new Cadian miniatures are the first time I've been interested in getting some Cadian models, and as they now have their own profile and special abilities compared to Infantry squads, I'm thinking the first thing I'll get is the new "Start Collecting" box...

... but first, I have a unit of Bretonnian Men at Arms who are still only part assembled. Getting them ready for paint before I get another big unit to assemble feels pretty much essential. I put them to one side for a little bit to finish painting a few bits and pieces first. The Bretonnians and a box of Wizkids Kobolds are now my remaining annoyingly half finished projects from this year. I'm doing a lot better about having fewer of those.

On the subject of half finished projects I have lying around, I haven't played Malifaux since before the pandemic. There is a charity tournament at Dark Sphere at the end of June, so I've found someone to give me a refresher game, and if that goes OK, I'll look to get a few more models assembled in time for that.

The recent Age of Sigmar announcement has shown off some very, very pretty new Skaven models. I have previously abandoned my Skaven project, but I think I'm going to fall back into my old ratty ways... I don't know when the new AoS is out, but right now, I'm not going to worry about it.

That said, I do have a painted Stormcast army I'll be able to play when AoS 4 comes out, which I am determined to do, having missed playing the first three editions...

New Year Plans

 

With the New Year having ticked over, I decided it would be worth having a bit of a think about my plans for 2024. With over a thousand miniatures turning up in the flat, but only painting 42, things need to change. I did manage to paint 85 in 2022, so I can definitely get more done.

I need to change how I think a little bit. I'll only be picking up a miniature if I'm intending to use it straight away, or if its not going to be available in the future. The volume of things I have in the flat is getting in the way of me doing actual hobby - sorting miniatures out is taking up a whole ton of time.

I'm also going to stop running a rolling 12 month count of how many things I've got finished and painted. It was a lot of work to track, and the moment I had a less productive month, suddenly I "should" finish a ton of things before starting anything new, and that could potentially make me miserable feeling obligated.

My new goal, more or less, is to get something done for a project each month, and a couple of small minis finished in between whatever that month's project is. That may vary - I'm working on a deadline for the D&D minis I aim to get done in January, so I'm not going to put that at risk for sake of getting some small things done. The idea is to let it average out over the year.

One thing that's become obvious to me is that for the random individual miniatures I have that aren't for projects, I've got well over a hundred of them already assembled, undercoated and ready for paint... Which means I don't really need to assemble any more this year. This is, again, the volume of miniatures I have giving me a false feeling of progress while taking time away from actually getting them painted.

So I'll aim away from assembling miniatures for the sake of it this year. There's a couple of games where I play miniatures unpainted - like Malifaux and Infinity - so I'll still get those assembled when I can. But the rule will be to assemble things I have a use for - either that I'm about to paint them, or that I intend to game with them.

The hobby room is a problem. It's meant to be a shared space, and my clutter is taking up too much of it. My absolute priority this year is to make half of the hobby workspace is clear for my wife to use, and that the table in there isn't used as a storage space, but either of us can set up there to work when we want to, and then clear up after we're done.

I do want this to be the year that I work out the paint scheme for my Nomads and get at least one of them painted up. I've been enjoying my games with Nomads, and I'm looking forward to having more. The paint course with Roman Lappat last year was what finally gave me the confidence I know enough to get the look I visualise when I think of my Nomads.

I would also like to dip back into my Combiend Army force as well at some point. They have a really striking, simple paint scheme. Getting a few painted will be a good opportunity to settle into something I'm comfortable with that gets good results relatively quickly. 

The plan of actually getting around to playing 40K last year got stymied by a series of bad luck. It's a weird one, because I have a whole bunch of plans for 40K - things to try playing, hobby projects to assemble and paint... But those plans all sit behind having a game, which sits behind having the time to do so, and I've got several busy weeks coming up . . .

In between getting some games in with my Deathwatch, I want to dig out and try my Astra Militarum again. Once the Codex comes out, I'll probably have a bit of a rationalisation of my Guard collection. The idea is to sell some old things, buy some new models, and get them painted up - moving a lot closer to the idea of "buy a kit, assemble and paint it" rather than building up a huge backlog of miniatures.

There's then other games, like Age of Sigmar and Malifaux. The plan was to pop to a Malifaux tournament last weekend, but then I ended up being ill and going precisely nowhere instead. I'm now better, thank goodness, but I missed out on the event. Age of Sigmar, I just need to, again, get a game in. It's sitting behind 40K at the moment because I have more coherent plans for 40K than AoS. In the same way that Dungeonbowl was tempting last year and I never got to it, Legions Imperialis and the Old World loom large this year...

All in all, my main goal this year is really about that tidying and focus - clearing away things that I'm not using, and making space - both physically and in terms of my life and time management. I'm hoping that at least by the summer, I'll be in a better, more "grown up" tidy place. I just need to keep the self discipline of the current tidying that I'm doing to get there.

2023 in Review

It's not been the most productive of years. I got 42 miniatures painted - almost all individual fantasy figures for RPGs like D&D and Pathfinder.

I made a whole bunch of Infinity tournaments this year - at Patriot Games, the Games Table, HATE, Troll Trader Bromley and Wayland Games among others. It's probably the part of the hobby I'm happiest with right now.

I didn't manage to get in games of AoS or 40K, and lots of other plans such as Battletech and Malifaux didn't happen either. Even the Horus Heresy test paints basically haven't done anything all year.

Things have been too cluttered for a long time. I miss the desk looking like this. One of my big priorities for this year is making the place tidy, and keeping it that way. When the place is tidy, I am more productive, so if I make the goal keeping it tidy, the rest will follow.

Where I'm at with different wargames

 

I spent last Sunday having a bit of a re-organise of the hobby room after being unable to find a particular box of Space Marines for a whole month. This got a little out of hand. I ended up getting everything out to organise and repack it. In turn, this got me thinking about what my priorities are right now.

Infinity is still my main game. I've been playing Shasvastii primarily, but I've got a few games in with White Company as well, and am keen to get some more games in with them once I get the next batch of them back from That Mr Shy. Meanwhile, I've just had the latest batch of O-12 arrive, and they're the utility pieces that will mean I have some solid tournament list options.

After my learning game of 9th edition Warhammer 40,000 I'm pretty relaxed about the idea of waiting for 10th edition to drop and playing some learning games of that. I've taken a pass of my existing models for stuff I'll definitely sell off, and everything else has gone into a dedicated Box Of Uncertainty for me to make a decision on when 10th edition drops. I definitely want to do some Boarding Action games, but I'm assuming they'll work just fine in 10th edition as well as 9th.

I will finish the Horus Heresy test paints, then paint the Plasma Gun Support Squad I have for it, but the Audit Of Doom has definitely shown I have plenty to be getting on with without over-committing into another game just yet. Of all the Warhammers, this is the one I think I'd most like to be playing at a mass battle level, but I simply don't have the models for it right now.

Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Underworlds . . . 

I want to be keen for both of these games. I have painted playable forces for both. But I'm just not finding the time to book in a game to try them out. I definitely want to get a game or two in before I make a decision on each, but unless they jump out at me, maybe I need to find something to better focus my time on?

Malifaux is also in a weird place. I'm deeply keen to get some models painted for it and play some games, but I've been focusing on finishing half done stuff "before I get onto my Malifaux Crew" recently. I'm definitely suffering from the "I want to do it well" problem so I don't want to pull them out and slap on a low quality paint job. Currently top of my "do this next" mental list when I finish the half finished stuff lying around.

Battletech is suffering from one thing: mould lines. My goodness, are they terrible. Trying to clean up ten whole mechs has absolutely stalled out. I've split them into smaller groups, and now have three cleaned up, and one undercoated and ready for paint. I could probably arrange a one on one mech duel to learn the rules a bit, but it would be nice to have a full Lance to take if I get through the one on one duel OK.

D&D style RPGs are the other significant thing on my hobby time at the moment. Not needing to have a consistent paint scheme helps stop me panic about how a force should look and fail to paint anything. And outside that, I'm working towards the goal of an in person game with miniatures, which helps give it some structure.

Conversely, I've accepted I'm not getting around to Stargrave any time soon, and I've added most of the models I'd bought specifically for that to the eBay pile. I do intend to play it one day, but I can buy the models when I get close to that point, and not hang onto them forever in the meantime!