Showing posts with label Looking Back. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Looking Back. Show all posts

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Looking Back at 2023

 Well... I did not get a lot of gaming or hobby stuff done this year... Not as much as I have in previous years... I feel like this has become a bit of a trend... and that makes me a bit sad. 

There were reasons for a lot of that. The state of the basement and the renovation that dragged on through most of the spring... and summer... AND fall...?! 

I'll try to keep this short and not dwell on things. It wasn't all doom and gloom. I'll try to focus on what I DID manage to do and then move right along to the next post; Game Plan 2024.


HIGHLIGHTS

Maybe let's start on a positive note with a few of the HIGHLIGHTS from 2023. 

Hands down, the top highlight of the year was being able to meet up with my old friend Christian for a day while Amanda and I were out in Toronto. Christian is one of my absolute favourite humans on this planet. He was up at a ridiculous hour to catch a GO Train in from Barrie. We met up and wandered about downtown Toronto catching up, checked out Meeplemart and The Beguiling and spent most of the day playing games at Snakes and Lattees on College. We went for supper wandered around some more and got Christian back to Union Station to catch his train home in the evening. You can read more about it in September Games. 

The next big highlight was the Back of Beyond Campaign I ran from January to April!? It had some problems... but I got me motivated to play over TWENTY games of One Hour Wargames! They ended up all being solo games... but that was okay... 

Finally, if I had a third highlight, I guess it would be finally sitting down and reading the rules for Five Parsecs From Home and trying that out. It's been really fun so far. Looking forward to exploring this more in 2024 - and trying out the Fantasy vversion Five Leagues from the Borderlands! 


GAME PLAN 2023

Looking back at the Quarterly Game Plans... 

Game Plan 2023 - Q1 

Game Plan 2023 - Q2

Game Plan 2023 - Q3

Game Plan 2023 - Q4

They weren't really much of plans... I knew there wasn't likely to be much going on this year. I tried to keep the plans (if you can call them that) open and tried not to tie myself down to any grand plans that were destined to fail... TRIED not to... 

Here are the numbers of what I DID get up to this year... 


GAMES

In the end I managed to play 116 games this year. Marginally more than what I played last year... (96 games) and but way down from the previous year (212 games). The difference is that nearly a quarter of the games I played this year were SOLO games.  So I was playing games WITH people less, and that still makes me a bit sad. 

Here are the games I played this year, according to Board Game Geek:

  • One-hour Wargames x20
  • Codenames x11
  • Wingspan x9
  • Splendor x8
  • Wingspan Asia x7
  • Five Parsecs From Home: Solo Adventure Wargaming x7
  • Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x4
  • Loonacy x4
  • Agricola x3
  • Century: Golem Edition x3
  • Kingdom Builder x3
  • Set x3
  • Terraforming Mars x3
  • Abyss x2
  • Azul x2
  • Codenames: Pictures x2
  • Lords of Waterdeep x2
  • Tinderblox x2
  • Warhammer 40,000 (Tenth Edition) x2
  • 1754: Conquest – The French and Indian War x1
  • Beyond the Sun x1
  • Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game x1
  • Boss Monster 2: The Next Level x1
  • Carcassonne x1
  • Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
  • Charioteer x1
  • Compounded x1
  • Cryptid x1
  • Cyclades x1
  • Hellboy: The Roleplaying Game x1
  • Imhotep x1
  • Just Desserts x1
  • Shakespeare x1
  • Tyler Sigman's Crows x1
  • Tyrants of the Underdark x1
  • Vinci x1
  • Warhammer Underworlds: NightVault x1
  • Xenos Rampant x1

Not even close to doing a 10x10 Challenge... But, y'know, over 100, so... not bad. 

Most played was One Hour Wargames - twenty of them - unfortunately all played solo... which was okay, I guess... 

Next was Codenames, but that hardly counts - we knocked out all eleven games in ONE EVENING!!

Lots of games of Wingspan and Wingspan: Asia... earlier in the year before the renovation really got going. 

I got really excited about the IDEA of role-playing games again - and bought three totally new ones (Hellboy, Bladerunner, and the new version of Twilight: 2000) as well as a few expansions for Wrath & Glory. I only got around to playing two, Hellboy and Blade Runner, for a single session of each, never getting past making characters.... Maybe NEXT year!?  


MINIATURES

Also, an all time low - at least for as long as I've been keeping track. 

I managed to paint 70 x 28mm minis.....  That's a few more of the 28mm miniatures than were painted last year... but last year I also painted a PILE of micro/epic scale stuff... So I'd say I ended up painting a bit LESS than last year. 

Part of this was due to the renovation upheaval... maybe now that I have a semi-permanent painting station set up - and a ridiculously luxurious and HUGE one, at that - along with plans to play in an upcoming tournament - I should hopefully get a few more done in the next year... (more on that in Game Plan 2024 Q1 - coming up shortly) 

Unfortunately I also managed to AQUIRE more that I ended up painting - 147 x 28mm miniatures - and MORE than I did last year!? Most of that was from five (FIVE!!) Kill Team boxed sets... which I haven't even managed to play ONCE this whole year!? (So embarrassing... Maybe I'll get some of that terrain finished up, though, and use it in Five Parsecs From Home!?) 

Here is a breakdown of those acquisitions and painted minis! 

PAINTED

28mm Foot

Q1


Q1 Total: 48

Q2

Q2 Total: 6 

Q3

Q3 total: 8

Q4


Q4 Total: 4

2023 Total: 66

28mm Mounted/Smaller Beasties

So, mostly Games Workshop miniatures for 40K/Kill Team or AoS/Warcry. 


PURCHASED (or otherwise acquired - gifts, trades, etc.)

28mm Foot

Q1
  • 11x Adeptus Arbites – Exaction Squad Kill Team
  • 10x Drukhari – Hand of The Archon Kill Team
Q1 Total: 21


Q2
Q2 Total: 85 


Q3
Q3 Total: 26


Q4

3x Domitan's Stormcoven (Warhammer Underworlds: Wyrdhollow)
5x Ephilim's Pandaemonium (Warhammer Underworlds: Wyrdhollow)
3x Thricefold Discord (Warhammer Underworlds: Deathgorge) 
4x Cyreni’s Razors (Warhammer Underworlds: Deathgorge) 

Q4 Total: 15


2023 Total: 147

So... I bought twice as much as I managed to paint... at least it's not like some years where I bought hundreds - or even THOUSANDS - more miniatures than I managed to paint!?!? (it's happened!). This was only 70 more miniatures... If I had a good year or painting and not buying more stuff. I could bring knock that off fairly easily. 



What was YOUR gaming/hobby Highlight of 2023? 


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Saturday, December 31, 2022

Looking Back at 2022

(TL/DR; I did stuff. There were REASONS!) 

It was a slow year here on the old Game Blog... 

You just have to look at the number of posts on the blog to see that things have slowed down around here. In the past sixteen years I've been doing this, I've created between 100 and 199 post per year (average 145), this year I only managed 83...? There are a few reasons for this... 

The biggest reason for less posts on this blog, is I tried to focus on some other things - getting out and riding my bike more, and making ART more. This is evidenced by the activities on my other blogs over this past year. The Bicycling Blog has had an average of 12 posts per year, and this past year I did 36! The ART BLOG, on the other hand, has had an average of 11 posts per year, and this year there have been 187!?

Part of the drop in posts has been the drop in interest in/engagement with blogs in general. I get comment notifications every day, but at this point, 99% of those are just spam comments that I delete. I can't blame people for not reading blogs anymore... I mean, I hardly read anyone else's blogs anymore - of course, a LOT of the people I did regularly follow in the past have either stopped, or just don't post as often, and so blogs have lost their critical mass for me. If things don't happen as part of a regular routine, they just don't happen in my life. I stopped checking my list daily, when there stopped being new stuff every day, and then I just stopped checking at all!? Now I just check in when I remember and have some time - which tends to be every few months... but by then it's just do daunting to leave a comment on all the blog posts... so I often just don't... (Sorry fellow bloggers!) 

I do check social media daily, for my dose of hobby/art inspiration. I've found a few past bloggers that post more regularly there, which has been really nice. Mostly instagram. I did rejoin twitter a little over a year ago and strictly limited things to hobby and art stuff and it was a much better experience... but wow... things have gotten a little weird over there and I might delete my account again... if the whole thing doesn't implode first!? I also started a Tumblr... but I don't love that site. It seems less intuitive to navigate and interact with and I haven't really found any hobby stuff to follow there. 

(If you DO have a social media account where you share your hobby stuff, let me know where to find you in the comments!)

A lot of other big things happened, outside of gaming.... I turned fifty and the day before, Russia invaded Ukraine - triggering all sorts of deep trauma of growing up in the 80s - raised by parents where were very involved in the anti-nuke movement and being HYPERAWARE how very close we were to utter annihilation in a nuclear war at any given moment - the popular media of the day didn't help! It was so bad, one of my core beliefs became "fuck it, who cares, probably not going to survive to adulthood" So many bad decisions were made based on this core belief. I think somewhere deep down in my brain it's lived on all this time... so imagine my surprise when I suddenly realized I had an ADULT CHILD (Finnegan turned 18) and I turned FIFTY!? WTF!?!?! I swear I was a teenager last week!? 

Finnegan also finished high school and started university! Runs two weekly D&D games and has just started posting videos about his D&D campaigns (they aren't four-hour live play-throughs - it's kind of animation... sort of... and, like, eight minutes long. You can see it here: The Goat Saga on YouTube) 

Keiran starred in their first musical and been very involved in school activities.

Amanada's just been CrAzY busy at work, and if that weren't enough, was teaching SIX different yoga classes on top of a full-time job!? 


GAME PLAN 2022

What I HAD planned to do last year can be seen here:

GAME PLAN 2022 - Q1 

GAME PLAN 2022 - Q2 

GAME PLAN 2022 - Q3 

Extra Thoughts about 5x/10x Challenges

GAME PLAN 2022 - Q4


50 Miniature Games 

I had wanted to make 2022 the year of getting back into miniature gaming. The plan was to play at least ONE miniature game every week of 2022 and post a game reprt of said game. I thought it MIGHT be possible. The previous year I'd played nearly fifty games (Warhammer Underworlds x22, Kill Team x10, Necromunda x6, Age of Sigmar  x4, The Silver Bayonet x2, Dragon Rampant x1, 40K9E x1, Warcry x1) and 51 the previous year (Blackstone Fortress x23, 40K8E x8, 40K9E x8, Hellboy: The Board Game x5, Necromunda x5, Battlefleet Gothic x1, Kill Team x1), so why shouldn't I be able to do at least 50 this year...? 

That totally DID NOT HAPPEN... 


GAMES PLAYED

5x5 (Quarterly) Challenge - 10x10 (Annual) Challenges 

The past few years these quarterly challenges had worked out okay and I totally even managed to pull off a 10x10 challenge - it worked out better if I didn't define WHICH ten I'd play for the year in January, because there was no telling where my interests would have gone by the end of the year. I figured the same model would probably work for this year... 

It did not. I just didn't play enough games overall... I didn't even make it to 100 games in TOTAL. The previous two years I played OVER 200 games. 

Here is what I DID end up playing this year:

  1. Terraforming Mars x11
  2. Wingspan x11
  3. Carcassonne  x10
  4. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm x10
  5. Azul x8
  6. Five Tribes x8
  7. Wrath & Glory x6
  8. Quebec 1759 x5
  9. Stone Age x5
  10. Splendor x5
  11. Andean Abyss x2
  12. Dresden Files Accelerated x2
  13. Hellboy: The Board Game – Deluxe Edition x2
  14. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep x2
  15. Wizard Kings x2
  16. Angola x1
  17. Bananagrams x1
  18. For Sale x1
  19. Kingdom Builder x1
  20. Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
  21. Mutant Crawl Classics Role Playing Game x1
  22. The Silver Bayonet x1
  23. Space Base x1


So a total of 96 games were played this year. 

I guess if I looked at the top ten played games and expressed the games played as a percentage of 10 i got through 78% of a 10x10 challenge... a passing grade, I guess... a solid B (story of my life - "If only Tim would APPLY himself...") 


Wargaming Birthday Bash/February Game Weekend

Also just didn't happen. I played a few boardgames with the family... that's it... 

Next year...? I don't know... I've had thoughts... Don't know if it will happen... Might be too late.


TOONCON

There WAS a ToonCon this year. I did not go. The provincial mask mandate had ended and while some businesses and organizations continued to require staff and patrons to wear masks - for at least a little while, most did not. ToonCon had no mask mandate and the province was in a huge spike in Covid cases... so I decided not to go. 

Every year it's been a bit of a "Do I REALLY want to go do this...?" I didn't LOVE large gatherings of people BEFORE the pandemic began - too many people, so much noise... I had an okay enough time, but was UTTERLY EXHAUSTED by the end of the weekend, and NOT always a "good" kind of exhausted. 

I told myself that the games I ran were promoting the games, and getting more people playing the games I love could only be a good thing and it would be an opportunity to meet some new people that I might be able to play games with in the future. But, taking an honest look at the games I've run at conventions over the years, I don't know of ANYONE getting into a game because they played it with me at a convention, nor have I gained any new friends because of them... so... maybe I won't even bother with these in the future, even IF the pandemic ever fizzles out (which it is showing no signs of doing in my neck of the woods, despite pretty much EVERYONE's insistence that it is "over")


OTHER EVENTS

Nope. 


PAINTING

This was the least productive year for painting in the fifteen years I've been tracking this. By, like LOTS... On the plus side, this year also saw the lest acquisitions. 

Only looking at 28mm foot figures (by for the most common miniatures I own/paint), over the previous 14 years that I've been tracking painting, I've painted 9586 28mm foot figures - an average of 684 per year. The most I painted in one year was ten years ago in 2012 when I painted 1231 28mm foot figures. Over the previous 13 years that I've been tracking purchases/acquisitions, I have acquired 12906 28mm foot figures, an average of 992 per year. The most I acquired in one year was also 2012 when I acquired 2470 28mm foot figures!? Seriously, WTF was I thinking!?!?

By contrast, this year I only purchased 80 28mm foot figures, but only managed to paint 57. And the majority of the ones I painted were NOT the ones I PURCHASED this year!? 

Here's what I DID paint this year.... 


28mm Foot

Q1

Year Total: 57 

28mm Mounted/Smaller Beasties

28mm Big Beasties/Vehicles

Little Bits/Markers/Tokens

Total Bitz: 14


The above stats ignore other scales, as they are dwarfed by the amount of 28mm stuff I have. This year, I DID manage to get to painting a BUNCH of the micro/"epic" scale miniatures I've acquired over the years, which partially accounts for why I painted so little 28mm stuff. Here's what I got done:

Micro Foot

Total: 181 Mirco Foot

Micro Mounted

Total: 19 Micro Mounted

Mirco Tanks/Vehicles

Total: 39 Micro Vehicles

What DID I acquire this year...?

I bought two Kill Team box sets (despite STILL not finishing ANY of the stuff from the previous two I purchased last year), Warhammer Underworlds: Nethermaze, four warbands for Warhammer Underworlds, and 8 old metal Harlequins off ebay - to fill out a small contingent of Harlequins in an Aeldari force (after picking up the 9th Edition Aeldari Codex) 

Other than the Kill Team boxes and Nethermaze, I only bought ONE other boardgame this year (Stone Age). I did pick up a few sets of rules for miniature games (that I have yet to play); the new edition of Lion Rampant and Xenos Rampant. 

There were a LOT of VERY TEMPTING THINGS that came out in the last year that the ADHD (OOH! SHINY!) part of me really, REALLY wanted to get in on... but I somehow managed to NOT buy! So, there's that... 

The Warhammer Horus Heresy box set was SUUUUUPER tempting to buy... and I didn't... and STILL haven't (despite there still being a copy sitting in my FLGS!!). What's kept me from buying it (beyond the fact that it would be ridiculous to do so, given how much I've gotten painted this year) is that the rules are basically a throwback to pre 8th edition 40K, which is just not my thing... what still keeps me interested is COOL MODELS, and the fact that I could probably paint them all fairly quickly, being mostly ONE COLOUR and all.... and having read a few of the Horus Heresy books, it would be super fun to play out some of those engagements... AND most of the guys that got in on the game, locally, are the fun guys to play with... Fuck, I hope someone just buys that box and removes the temptation... 

Also haven't bought any of the new stuff for Necromuda, even though there has been a new core started box for the Ash Wastes with super cool vehicles and giant-bug-riding Ash Waste Nomads... and a few books to go along with that. Again SUPER COOL stuff... One of the things that's helpedhold me back is the fact that ALL of the miniatures I've been using in Necromuda, so far, are my OLD metal ones. to get in on Ash Wastes would mean new plastic models... which I'm not so opposed to these days as I might have been in the past, but... just not excited to MIX plastic and metal in a collection... 

I also didn't buy into the new edition of Warcry. Only played ONE GAME of the previous edition, so... It was a fun game, and I wouldn't mind playing it again... but given how much I've been playing miniature games in general, I just couldn't justify it. GW did release ALL of the stats for all the miniatures from the previous edition as pdfs... so I COULD just buy the Core Book if I wanted to get in on it... and I don't think I'd need ANY new miniatures (I might need to paint a few that I already have...) 


WHAT HAPPENED!?

Well, as I mentioned, I focused on making art is what happened.... for the most part... Making art meant lest time/energy for miniature painting. Miniature painting is what inspires me to play miniature games. 

Miniature gaming only accounted for about 20-25% of games played the last few years, so what gives with the drop in playing boardgames? I think part of that was everyone pretending the pandemic was OVER and going back to... doing other things and not having time to play games. A large chunk of the games played in 2020 was role-playing games I ran online or games I played with Amanda who had nothing better to do. That began to fizzle in 2021, and pretty much completely died in 2022 - I played more IN PERSON role-playing games this year than with the online group. 

It's been a pretty low year all around. The unending social upheaval and never-ending pandemic has really taken it's toll and, despite trying really hard to focus on positive things and make more art... I've been pretty depressed... 

Maybe next year will be better... 


I have most of the Game Plan (such as it is) for 2023 written... I MIGHT get around to posting that tonight... or maybe I'll leave it to tomorrow. 


Sorry this has been a bit of a downer... Hope you all had a better year and all of us can have an even better one in 2023! 

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Saturday, December 30, 2017

Looking Back at 2017


I tend to do this every year. Look back at the GAME PLAN for the year and see what I actually managed to accomplish. Not sure why I do this. I guess because I feel like it’s always good to have a plan and some means of assessment and self-reflection – a way to look at what you’ve been doing with your life and see what’s worked and what hasn’t and then make some changes to the plan to move forward in a more positive, focused way.

So, how’d we do…

Alternating Friday D&D

We played ten more sessions of the D&D 5E Primeval Thule campaign my friend Bruce was running…. Then it kind of fizzled over the summer. There were many reasons for this. Everyone was really busy. Bruce was burning out a bit after running this campaign right after running the Masks of Nyarlathotep. There was also a fellow that joined the group and… just wasn’t working out…

In the fall, I started running a role-playing game again, however, with a (mostly) new group: Tales from the Loop. It was supposed to be every other week, but it seems to be turning out to be once a month. We had to cancel the last game – two weeks ago – because two couldn’t make it and three others were exhausted. And the same happened just this evening – three were out and I was just too tired… I’d planned on running a short campaign until the end of the year. We seem to draw out the adventures and haven’t finished the first (of FOUR) I originally planned to run. I had planned on preparing a new campaign for a new game in the new year… but… Seems like we might just try to get together ONE MORE TIME and finish off the one mystery and then call it. Next I’d like to run Rogue Trader!


50 Games

I had a great plan to play a lot of games… a list of 50 games I wanted to make sure I played this year – one a week. I tried to encourage the kids to do the same so we each got to play a game we wanted to play each week throughout the year… We got off to a pretty good start, but things fizzled through the summer. In the end, I only played 12 of the games on my list. The kids had shorter lists – Finnegan played 16 of the 25 games he came up with, and The Girl managed to play 25 of the 37 games that ended up on her list!

Oh, we still played a LOT of games. According to BGG I played a total of 253 games this year… Most, but not all were with the family. The most played games this year were:

1. Loonacy /Retro Loonacy x27
2. Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)/Primeval Thule Campaign Setting (5E) x10
3. Just Desserts x9
4. Pax Renaissance x9
5. Race for the Galaxy x8
6. Codenames: Pictures x7
7. Kingdomino x7
8. Hero Realms x6
9. Monarch x6
10. Warhammer 40,000 (Eighth Edition) x6
11. 7 Wonders x5
12. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game x5
13. Splendor x5
14. Tales from the Loop x5
15. High Frontier (3rd edition) x4
16. Kingdom Builder x4
17. Star Realms x4
18. Abyss x3
19. Carcassonne x3
20. Dominion: Intrigue x3
21. Faustus Furius x3
22. Firefly: The Game x3
23. Five Tribes x3
24. For Sale x3
25. Nations x3
26. Only War x3
27. Secret Hitler x3
28. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game x3
29. A Study in Emerald (second edition) x3


Saturday Afternoon Games

The plan was to organize longer board games on Saturday afternoons to play with Finnegan and other friends while Amanda was out taking The Girl to her Saturday dance classes. I did pretty good with this January and February, and April through June… but then it fizzled as summer began and renovations with it… Hopefully I’ll be able to get it going again in the new year…


Skirmish Saturday Night

Just didn’t happen… NO campaigns, no one-offs… I played very little miniature games in the first half of the year, and then only a few games of 40K in the 2nd half of the year. I think this was due to me being super focused on the Vimy Project for the first three months… and then… just tired and busy doing other things…? Renovations…?


Vimy

Didn’t happen.

For half a year I was super-focused on this one project - I got all the miniatures ready and then as I was gearing up to finish off the terrain… Amanda decided she NEEDED to have a new kitchen THIS YEAR!!! …and that kind of killed it right there…

There, I admitted it… that’s actually what happened. I didn’t run out of time. If she hadn’t decided to get that ball rolling in March I totally could have pulled it off. She’d probably be a little cranky if knew I’d mentioned this… Luckily, I don’t think anyone that knows her actually READS this blog… I’m not blame-throwing and I’m not super bitter about it or anything (okay, I might have been – just a little bit – at the time). To be honest, I was a little relieved. All the late nights trying to get it all organized WAS taking a lot out of me and a lot of other things I should have been doing were falling by the wayside.

One day I will finish up the terrain and set it all up. Not going to be this year…


Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend

I didn’t really do one this year. I think Brent came over on the afternoon of my birthday and he and Finnegan and I played a couple games of Pax Pamir and then I played a game of Race for the Galaxy with the family… and that was it.


Family Day Weekend

Two weeks before my Birthday, however, was the Family Day long weekend in February and I organized a weekend FULL of playing boardgames with family and friends.


Summer Skirmish Weekend Campaign

As I wasn’t planning a skirmish campaign for February, I thought I might organize one over the summer… didn’t happen though…  


ToonCon

The whole family did make it out to ToonCon again – and it was at a new location that was WAAAAY closer to our house – like a 15-minute bike ride (as opposed to a 45-60 minute ride – depending on wind direction and energy levels of younglings). There’s a full report of the weekend here:

ToonCon 2017

Things I didn’t plan for…

While I was still working on the Vimy project - and for a while after – I got pretty excited about the English Civil War again and for breaks between units of Great War Canadians I cranked out units of English, Irish and Scottish pike, shot and cavalry. I only ended up playing two games of The Pikeman’s Lament… then the interest died off in the summer.

I got so much of the ECW stuff done, I’m a few units away from finishing all I need for a few forces of English and Scots – enough for a small CAMPAIGN. I would like to get back to those this year…

Then, in the summer, I picked up the new edition of Warhammer 40,000.

I played the original Rogue Trader when it came out back in 1987 – 30 years ago! But kind of stopped just before second edition came out… Sold my copy of the rules and most my minis (STILL kicking myself over that…!). I picked up miniature for it from time to time – because they’re fun – and between editions used ones could be picked up realtively inexpensively on ebay. I also picked up used copies of 4th and 5th editions (really cheap after the next edition came out). I picked up 7th edition when I found out a friend and his boys had picked it up and were building up forces. I tried to get my kids excited about it and tried to play a couple games, but it just fell flat.

I read a lot about 8th before it came out and decided to give it another shot. The rules seemed a lot more streamlined – compared to 7th – and so we tried out a few games and it wasn’t so bad. The kids are back into it, and now it’s my major focus for painting and planning. Who knew?


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:


December Boardgame Round-Up and Game Plan 2018  

(Maybe an Astra Militarum Super Heavy Tank!?)



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Tuesday, December 20, 2016

10 Years


Ten years ago this week we got a new computer. It’s an imac. Don’t ask me what version. The computer it replaced was one of the original imacs (You know one of THESE). I think we’d had it 8 years at that point.

That original imac was getting super slow at doing stuff because it was clogged up with programs and stuff it just couldn’t run and navigating the internet was painful as it took forever to load every website. Some wouldn’t ever load.

So we got a new one.

With the new ability to navigate the interwebs I decided it was high time to start a blog – to reach out to my fellow game nerds and hopefully inspire others as others had inspired me with theirs. So ten years ago on this day (20 December 2006) I started this blog.

I’m still using that same computer.

Ten year old imac is starting to have the same troubles the original one did – slow to load certain websites. Every month there are new ones that I can’t load at all. Haven’t been able to look at Fantasy Flight Games website for a year now. Gmail now only loads the "BAsic HTML Version". At the beginning of the summer the MEC started giving me this when I tried to go there:


Smart asses…

I am loath to get a new one. Amanda has a slightly newer one that her and the kids are using. I don’t like the new photo program – it doesn’t have the same function as the one on this computer – how does THAT work!? A newer program on a newer computer can’t do the things I like being able to do on my old one!?

Also this computer has a 10 year old versions of Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. I use them once a month or so. Apparently you can’t even load those on to new computers – you have to pay monthly fee to use them online..?! Is that right?! Ugh…. I don’t’ use them that much, but I do use them once in a while and it will be a super pain in the ass not having them. Not being able to edit photos in the same way…

Anyway… This was meant to be a celebration of 10 years of blogging and a little look back, but instead it’s turned into a whiney rant about computers and the annoyance of having to buy a new one every decade.

I should have got on this earlier, so here are a few random highlights of the last ten years.

In those ten years I managed to crank out 1475 posts. (Damn… if I’d only cranked out 25 more this could have been the 1500th post!). just before the 6th anniversary of the blog I posted my 1000th post: A Bit About Me, which itself was a bit of a retrospective of all the gaming I’d done over the years (so I guess I don’t need to cover that again…).

 One month after I I started this blog I announced the Original Plan for the Vimy Project. You could almost say that this blog has simply been a chronicle of that mad hair-brained scheme – and all the distractions I faced… (if there are more distractions than work on the project, can you really say you’re still working on it..?)
 While trying to think of what I was going to write for this post I got to looking at the Blog labels (over on the left there) and considering how much of the blog was devoted to which subjects. I should point out the blog post labels aren’t necessarily the best indicator of how many post there are on a particular topic sometimes posts on a given topic might fall under two labels and I know sometimes I might both, but other times I may have only used one or the other…. At this point, though, I’m not going to go through 1475 posts to make sure they are all accurately labeled!!

Of the 1475 posts over the last 10 years at least 875 of those posts fell under the label Painting Update, which are just posts showing off what I’d managed to paint since I last posted stuff. I think the next more prevalent were Hordes of the Things (at 184) and DBA (at 127), which makes sense as I played a LOT of HotT and DBA (and painted a lot of miniatures for those games) – especially in the earlier years… but not-so-much lately. I was surpeised to notice WW2 was at 140 – especially since Flames of War is at 3, Blitzkrieg Commmander is at 28, Bolt Action is at 14 - but after thinking about it a bit I realized a lot of those would have been painting updates on all the 28mm WW2 figures I’ve painted and were at first used for Savage Worlds.

Savage Worlds is currently at  91, which I also found a bit surprising – because in 2008 I started a whole separate blog (Savage Timmy’s Playhouse) devoted just to Savage Worlds gaming – I did this because a lot of my Savage Wrolds gaming was getting more RPG-ish than tabletop miniature wargaming and, at the time, I wanted to keep this blog, just about the miniatures… That has changed as and this blog has become more of a generic gaming blog (there are 32 posts with the Board Games label – indeed there are a number of labels now for specific board games. I don’t really post about ALL the board games I play… but I do sometimes.

125 posts have the Great War label, but only 35 have the Contemptible Little Armies, which had been my “go to” game for most of the Great War gaming I’ve done. So most of those posts are probably just of painted miniatures. There are 60 posts with the Vimy label.


There are 113 posts with the Fantasy label. This is a good example of where I’ve used a label sometimes or started using it after a time ut not all posts about fantasy have been given this label. As mentioned above Hordes of the Things - a fantasy game - has 184 posts devoted to it… yet Fantasy only ended up on 113 and a bunch of those would also be on the 48 posts with the Song of Blades and Heroes or the 36 with Frostgrave label – and 20 posts have the  Dragon Rampant label – and I’ve only played the game twice.

Cold War Commander Cold War Commander (50) and Savage Worlds Modern Ops (18), and more recent ones would be Force on Force(19).

Sci-Fi accounts for only 54. 41 posts have the 40K label – I know most of those are painting, becaue I’m pretty sure I’ve only actually played 2 games of 40K in the last 25 years… and both of those were in the last year! Future War Commander has 17 posts – so clearly not ALL Sci-Fi related posts were getting that label…

Samurai have 60 posts devoted to them, though it should have been labeled Feudal japan as I’m sure not all of those were just about Samurai… Although Feudal japan may not have been the most appropriate either as I’ll bet some of those Samurai posts were also about Legend of the Five Rings…

There are also 59 posts relating to Taking Stock of all my toys – the latest being last months count of ALL my 28mm figures (Stocktaking 2016)

There are at least 56 posts about Ancients - 34 on Ancient Greece, 14 on Ancient Egypt, and 28 on Romans… which doesn’t quite add up either…

Seven Years War comes in at 41, Terrain at 29, and I was a little surprised to discover there are actually more posts about
Zulus (34) than Zombies (34)!?

Other stats of interest...


Blogger has really only been tracking my stats since 2010, but for most of those last 6 years my blog has been getting, on average, about 12000 hits – something screwy has been going on since the spring because they went WAAAAAY up in May, June and July – that can’t actually be humans checking – especially considering there was nothing overwhelmingly exciting and new on the blog at that time.


Some of the most popular posts continue to be The DPM painting tutorial, A Ranger and a Mage Walk into a Forest…, 28mm Moderns Complete, and Vietnam in 28mm… I’m not sure how Odds and Extras and Other Minor Distractions, Long Weekend and Assorted Great War Canadians, Beavers, Brigade Staff and Trench Mortars, or More Medieval Stuff and Blathering About What to DO Next?! ended up with so many hits…? Or how they surpassed some of the other big hits of the past like Quest for the Skull Sword, or 10th Annual Wargaming birthday Bash – Ronin Report, or The Dark Ages DBA Campaign…?

The following spring I set up a Board Game Geek Account and I’ve been tracking game plays ever since. Looking back at the games played in the last 10 years, I have pleyd the following Miniature War Games:

232 games of Savage Worlds.
113 games of Hordes of the Things
68 games of De Bellis Antiquitatis
43 games of Song of Blades and Heroes
33 games of Ronin: Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai
21 games of Frostgrave
16 games of Force on Force and another 16 games of Ambush Z
14 games of Cold War Commander
10 games of Blitzkrieg commander
9 games of Ever Victorious Armies
4 games of 40K
4 games of Bolt Action
4 games of Fear and Faith
3 games of Modern Ops
3 games of Black Powder
3 games of X-Wing
2 games of Flames of War
2 games of Dragon Rampant
1 game of AK-47 Republic, Broken Legions, Canvas Eagles, Dystopian Wars, Flying Lead, Flashing Steel, Future War Commander, Fleet Action Imminent, Fast Play Grand Armee, and Lion Rampant

Some games may not have been tracked… I’m sure I’ve played a few games of Wargaming 19th Century Europe in there… Or maybe I just missed them when copying and pasting stuff…? (not going to bother listing all the board games… go to the hyertextified-link above if you want to see those too…).

Well that’s enough blathering… I think I should just stop now. I’ll finish up by saying the most rewarding part of the whole experience has been, as I originally set out to do, connect with other game nerds out there. I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated every comment that people have been so kind enough to take the time and post. You guys are all awesome! Thanks for a great 10 years. Hopefully I’ll be boring you with another retrospective in another 10.

 If you've got a moment how about drop me a line below and remind me how long you've been following the blog and what your favourite post was so far!

Thanks again!



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