Happy New Year Or 2020 - The Plan

Well here we are at the end of the year again for I think the seventh time and after nearly eight years of blogging. Mire time for reflection and planning. Yes it's me and it's been a bit of the blast from the past, I haven't posted in months. This has been a year of a lot of health problems. A couple, well several (I lost count) of minor operations got rid of a couple or armpit abscesses. Painting was difficult and typing was even harder. This was followed by a cough so bad that I couldn’t really paint. With a few other bits and pieces, this has been an entertaining year. Yet all is good now. So after a god start to the year things tapered off. Twelve hour days will do that to you.

I haven't stopped painting but the amount decreased. I went back to the real world of work largely because a small change of in circumstances which arrived on Christmas Eve. I am sure that this change is going to keep me busy this year and for years to come. This will undoubtedly lead to at least one more move this year.

All this seems likely to reduce my painting time. I still have the urge to paint. THINGS ARE LIKELY TO CONSPIRE AGAINST ME. No bad thing but pretty bad for the blog. I will keep blogging and hopefully things will get better.

The plan, well, this is going to be cut down. The New Cruelty will hardly deserve it's name this year. There is a lot I would like to do but I am not sure what I am going to manage. Without sounding too much like a politician, this is more about aspirations than realities. Money has been tight again this year but in the new year things are looking brighter. I have spent a bit of money on figures mainly in Star Wars Legion so this means that there have been fewer new figures than most years.

As money has been tight I have looked through what I have got stored away and gone through and painted some figures that were long overdue. The average age of figures in the lead mountain has probably dropped by five years. I have also painted a fair amount of figures that I have brought this year with the other stuff I have acquired being mostly prepped and ready to go. I have also been lucky with Christmas and Birthday presents this year, I would guess my total spend for the year would be around £200 with about as much in presents. In the coming year I think I will be back to being able to spend a bit more money.

Blood Bowl is still something I like to look at on line. I managed a full sized team of the Chaos All Stars this year. I didn't put a lot of effort in but they are a touch more than tabletop standard. Another team is ready to go and I got more for Christmas. Another team or two looks like it is on the horizon. Nurgle and probably Skaven would be my first targets with Black Elves and Dwarves are also in the wings. It would be nice to get an actual game in.

Having played Star Wars as an RPG this year I would like to paint some figures. I have spent a bit on it this year since getting the starter set last Christmas, this has been the main object of my figure buying and presents for the year. This has also probably been influenced by one of my step kids being a fanatical member of the dark side. I have even spent some money on it this year. My plan it to do some conversions. My plan involves creating figures that can be used for role playing and the rebel troopers box is cheap enough to make this feasible. This should be this big focus of the year. Who knows I may even get into the game. I could see me painting more than a hundred of them if I don't get board. So far I have two sets of Stormtroopers and one of Rebel Troopers. I can see this being my main focus this year.

My plan had been to do Zomtober again and maybe get some All Out War figures painted. Well Zomtober didn't happen mainly because of the coughing. I did start painting some of the outstanding All Out War figures last week and a few are even close to being finished. There are a few figures I have in mind to buy but they are not high on my list so after I finish what I have I doubt there will be much progress beyond the 15- 20 I am currently working on.

Post apocalypse has, over the years, been my most beloved genre for gaming. Earlier in the year Ross took me down to Salute and I spent some money on urban stuff and rubble as well as the This Is Not A Test rulebook. This was with the idea of playing some games. Well no games so far. I haven't painted that much. I have probably painted less than ten figures but I have painted and in some case built a lot of scatter terrain. This includes some of the stuff from Salute, bits I already had in, some bits box work to create scatter terrain and six foot of fencing and gates. 

On top of the post apocalypse terrain I have worked on other stuff too. Over the summer the weather was good enough that I could work in the shed. For some reason I have always wanted mesa terrain. I found myself with some thin fiberboard and a whole load of polystyrene. So now I have mesa terrain. I prepared a load on fibre board bases cut and ready to go, The advantage of bit power tools I guess. You would be surprised how many bases you can cut if you have the right power tools.

Fantasy was an area I didn't do too much of although there was a fair bit done which was a bit of a shame. There still isn't much I want to do. There are a few figures for the Viking game I would like. I have my eye on some hobbit and gnome figures. As they don't really fit what I am doing I haven't brought any although that didn't stop me painting the lesser lizard men. I have been looking at the gaps in the figures I want for The Viking Game. Right now the most pressing thing is light elves. For these I was planning on using early Saxon nobles with a suitably different paint job. I am still taken with Frostgrave and that looks likely to feature at some point. There are still a number of monsters I want to paint.

Kingdom Death Monster is still a game I would really like. I have put it off buying because of the cost. I might look at making this as my big purchase for the year. I just need to find some players.

Sadly I haven’t had the money and whilst I could be looking at it it as a present that is just too much money to spend. This project looks like it has died on the vine.

Titansgrave has crossed my mind a couple of times. That is as far as it has gone. I still like the idea but don't see it coming.

World War Two became a thing for me this year but not in the conventional sense. Six or seven years ago I was set on doing a Weird War Two Game. Most of them are now painted with only the Germans left to do. I may go a bit further with these this year and if I get the urge to run the game maybe I will buy some more figures. I think I have painted about sixty across the year with another thirty Germans to go. With the thirty plus British paras this is not a bad size to start running a game.

I am not sure about the overall totals this year. There have been at least three hundred 28mm figures painted. I think I painted about three feet of post apocalyptic barricades and ten supply tokens which were mostly made up of things from mantic. I lost count at about thirty small pieces of scatter terrain most based on 2p coins but there were a few bigger pieces. The mesas were a big piece of work as were the post apocalyptic walls but these are not fully finished yet.

X-Com. I think about this game every year. I was planning on using figures from a game I brought off Kickstarter. Not only did it take three years to get into production but I still haven't had my copy yet. Thus has kind of put me off the idea. Still a back burner.

I have been fooling around with a game that was originally big mecha but has developed in to power armoured troops. My brain has moved over to using 25mm figures. I have a lot of old stuff which would work the bigger suits. Maybe I will get onto this at some point. A nice story line is developing in my head and I like the idea all round.

Random was the interesting find for me this year. Normally I like to paint stuff in batches, It makes life simple and the painting quicker. The necessity of finances made me paint what I had. This forced me to paint to paint odds and sods figures simultaneously. Oddly my productivity went up not down and up by a lot.

The aim for the year is about 240-250 figures or about five per week. Normally I say five a week and hope for ten but this year I think that this is optimistic because of the recent arrival so no bad thing. Star Wars Legion is looking like it will be the forerunner with some Blood Bowl too. I would hope that there is going some terrain complete with post apocalypse looking like the main target.

Thanks for reading the blog this year. I really do do it for me but it is nice to know that somebody else is out there and reading what I have to write. A happy new year to you all. Hope it’s a good one and brings you everything you want.