Thursday 4 January 2018

New Year Resolutions

According to my Discworld diary it's the 4th of Ick today, that just seems like the right name for the time just after the Christmas season (and we haven't even got to Twelfth night yet).

So to cheer myself up, and try and put a bit of planning into the year ahead, I thought I'd put down some vague plans, or more of a wish list of things I'd like to get done this year.

I have recently received two boxed games with minis in them; Star Saga and Dreadball.  I'd like to get enough painted that I can play these with painted minis (and sneak some of the Star Saga minis off to join my Rebs force for Deadzone).  Talking of Deadzone, I really should get enough Enforcers finished that I have some variety, eventually it would be great to play Warpath and/or Firefight with them.

I'd like to finish off (for now) my 15mm League of Rhordia for Kings of War.  I already have around 1000 points, but it's not a very balanced force, being largely made up of what I already had from my 15mm WFB days.  Around a dozen minis to finish will give me a much more flexible force, and a very small investment will allow me to call it done (for now).  To go with/against them I'd like to build a Varangur force using as much of the various historicals I have lying around.  I like to have opposing forces for any wargame, that wayI can easily show a potential new player how it works, much easier than explaining it.

There always seems to be terrain to build for D&D, and scenarios to write and minis to paint, so I suspect this will take up quite a bit of hobby time this year, especially as I am starting a D&D group at the FLGS.  But fear not, for I have a cunning plan; I already have a fair bit of terrain built for this, as I have run some of it before.
At some point I'd like to get a proper set of dungeon tiles made.  I would like to make some sort of BlackMagic Craft/DM Scotty/Wyloch mash up of 2.5D tiles.  I still haven't decided finally what they will be like, but the idea is there.  Besides, hopefully Terrain Crate will be arriving this year, so I need somewhere to set up all those bookcases.

Of course, there's more of those 15mm cottages etc to build, and the idea of a Dragon Rampant version of Orc's Drift still sounds fun.  If I am to do that though, I will need more orcs.  A couple more units of ordinary infantry, and something for King F'yar and his wyvern.  I'll have to decide if I also collect the Good forces.  I suspect some of my friends have 15mm Elves at least, I do have most of a DR 15mm Dwarf force though, so that might get pushed forwards in the painting queue.

Also I recently saw that GW have published a book version of the old Battle Company rules for the Strategy Battle Game.  This was a favourite of mine back in the day, and I'd love to get this going again.  It would also encourage me to paint up (and thin out) my LotR collection.  Even if I don't get to play the Battle companies, the minis will work nicely for Dragon Rampant.  In fact I think i'll get out my Rohan force and see how well that works for DR.

I should put a bit more work into my ex-Empire, now Kingdoms of Men army.  Again, a bit of focus on it would allow me to thin out the unpainted collection and give me a biggoer force with more variety.

After all that waffle (mmm, hungry now) I should set some goals.
O.K. we all know that won't work.  The more I feel I have to do something the less fun it is, and this is supposed to be a hobby.  However, I am aiming to play a tabletop game once a month.  January's (or Ick's) is already in the bag, so if I get a trial game of Dreadball or similar, that will give me one in hand.  I'd like to try to get at least one Reaper Bones mini painted per month, or week, or whatever time interval works, but I suspect any RPG prep time will be taken up with other stuff, still, those Bones don't seem to paint themselves.

Do you plan your hobby time out?  If you do, does it work?  Please leave a comment.




4 comments:

  1. I tend to plan my painting around what I think I'm going to be playing. I painted Deadzone scenery ahead of starting the Nexus Psi campaign, some more units and scenery for Kings of War ahead of playing games as part of the summer campaign etc.

    Other than that,I tend to paint by 'rule of cool'. A miniature, some scenasry or a unit will just be calling out to me, demanding to be painted as it looks so good.

    So my hobby time is a blend of planned painting and omigod-that's-so-cool-it-needs-to-be-painted reactions.

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    1. Thanks for the reply. It could be argued that your DZ terrain also classes as 'cool'.
      I will try to stick to a plan more this year, but cool does often win out. I just need to get more actually finished.

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  2. To play a game a month sounds like a good plan for me too. Otherwise, I have my notebook in which I plot and plan all sorts of things. I currently have 12 projects/armies on the go and have narrowed it down to 28mm North Star Dwarves/Goblins for DR, 15mm Dwarves for KOW, 15mm Late WW2 Germans, 28mm Arthurians and 10m Romans and Britons-should keep me busy!

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    1. That's a good bit of planning. I'm not sure I dare fully list all the projects I have.

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