So here we are dear reader, poised Janus-like at the gateway of the year. Behind us are the serried ranks of diminutive soldiery, shining in their new coats of paint (ignore the vast unpainted masses grumbling behind them!), the burgeoning community of like-minded appreciators of vintage lead and the grandiose plans and projects awaiting the glorious day of their culimination...
Or in other words we've painted a few little men, got our own Oldhammer forum going and (personally speaking anyway) made wild and expansive plans that even someone retired from the world of work and any other obligation would struggle to complete in under 10 years!
So what did I get done last year -
January - this month finally saw me getting round to photographing and writing up the battle reports from the Orc's Drift campaign I finally got played in 2011. This was truly a huge project and it felt great to finally get it going again.
February - Of course there are always distractions and things that get in the way of the
Big Project and this time it was my Dad's Birthday and another slightly smaller Big Project. I had of course decided to paint the French and British fleets present at Trafalgar as a gift for his 50th, with only a slightly ulterior motive of getting a game of
Wooden Ships and Iron Men in against him - still not pinned him down yet as family occasions usually involve too much booze to even contemplate such an involved rules set.
I got a few more reports done for Orc's Drift after building a free standing scenic backdrop for taking table-wide pictures.
March - I entered the LPL - the LAF's gruelling 10 week painting competition, so no more Orc's Drift for a while! Having to paint a minimum of 5 minis each week is a great way of reducing the lead pile though and many of my teams had a somewhat Lustrian feel so I was making progress on the next
Big Project,
The Return of the Magnificent Sven - my own continuation of the 2nd ed. Magnificent Sven scenario.
April - More LPL!
May - Phew, finished the LPL and was rather chuffed and astonished at coming 17th out of 46! Congratulations to fellow LAFers and Oldhammerers Phreedh and Mikedemana for getting into the top half of the table as well.
June - Lots of procrastinating in the form of rummaging through the lead pile! The arrival of Kipling, our somewhat errant Black Labrador (you thought Fenton was bad!), meant that I had my hands full and couldn't hole up in my cave upstairs in the evenings.
It did give me chance to start setting out my thoughts on
The Return of the Magnificent Sven in the form of a series of scenarios.
July - the beginnings of Oldhammer as a community! Oh and I finally got back to writing up Orc's Drift...
August - and Orc's Drift is all wrapped up.
OMG.
How long did that take - note to self, be more focussed with large, time consuming proj... ooh those little 10mm miniatures look nice!
Also of note - my 200th post, Fighting Fantasy's 30th anniversary and I rummage through the lead pile again in an attempt to control my erratic ebay purchasing.
September - I get my hands on a piece of Warhammer history,
finally paint up the brilliant 4A Goblins who have sat patiently for longer than I can remember...
and I start fiddling around with the aforementioned 10mm stuff. I a fit of hubris, caused no doubt by memories of completing Orc's Drift, I formulate plans to weave in 3rd ed. campaigns with large scale
Warmaster battles and games of
Mighty Empires and
Man O War.
October - Finally some gaming! I introduced my 4 year old son (and to a lesser extent my 2 year old daughter) to the joys of Heroquest.
I also signed up for the next online game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd ed. with the dream team of Gaj (battle reporter extroadinaire) and Dreamfish (GM and WFB encyclopedia), and Airbornegrove26 as my opponent. Oh and I get some Warmaster skellies painted.
November - It all goes a bit quiet because I've embarked on a rather ambitious modelling mini-project. To make my Slann Cold One riders look like this one
with the modeller's most forgiving friend - Miliput!
I think they scrubbed alright.
December - I bought some stuff. Really cool stuff -
And some pretty big stuff -
But that's it! Unforunately work, life and general fatigue stepped in to finish off the year in style and hooray, the world din't end after all!
So what can I take from all this?
Well there was lots painted and written but not much in the way of games played. Apart from Heroquest with my kids, a few games of (unpublished) 40K with an old buddy of mine and the online game of 3rd ed. there wasn't much going on in this department.
Orc's Drift took way longer to finish off than I had intended (I still need to add the pictures to the PDF versions of the battle reports I'm putting together with Dreamfish's help!) and that was because I got distracted - every wargamer's curse! Mind you some of those distractions were a little difficult to avoid - my Dad's Birthday and the LPL.
I think a little forward planning this year will certainly help with this. I might alot certain months to certain projects so that I can keep them bubbling along - especially the bigger ones like the Maginifcent Sven.
So things to do in 2013 -
- Play at least 1 game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd ed. I've loved the highs and lows of the online game I've been playing but I'd love to get some games played in real time! I'm looking forward to hopefully hooking up with a few fellow Oldhammerers at Vapnartak in York and we'll see if we can get a game sorted from there. There's also the Opponent Finder which is definitely worth a look.
- Visit my local Wargames Club - definitely high time I got round to doing this, especially as a friend of mine (the 40K player) is quite keen to go as well - when he gets back up here from down South.
- More playing - I'm eager to see how Mighty Empires and Warmaster work - not to mention Man O War work - should give me more of an idea of how to use them with my Old World armies.
- Get Return of the Magnificent Sven done - miniatures painted, terrain built and scenarios written. Realistically I can't see the games getting played this year unless I do nothing else. And there are bound to too many other nice shiny things to distract me to do that!
Next up - a "little" terrain project that should bubble along nicely while I'm waiting for paint to dry...
