2017 Hobby Year in Review Thread

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The Other Dave
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2017 Hobby Year in Review Thread

Post by The Other Dave » Wed Dec 20, 2017 1:38 am

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 28mm

Another year wraps up! I've developed a habit, at this time of year, of taking a look back and assessing what I got up to, hobby-wise, throughout the year - and this year has been a pretty good one, with some resolutions made and put into practice.

A quick look at the model count in my signature shows pretty clearly that has been the year of returning to 28mm for me. Starting from zero, I painted up a whole Malifaux crew (which, to be sure, is just like a dozen models), a Viking warband, and most impressively / surprisingly, what has turned into a pretty big Space Marine force for 40K - I had bits done for Advanced Space Crusade, but even then I've got myself able to field an all-Primaris force in something less than 6 months. And it's been fun! Painting things up with an eye towards using them in a game next month, rather than someday when I play Epic again, has been great for the motivation factor.

Which brings me to the resolution part - mid-year, after a post by Prim and ensuing discussion about spreading ourselves thin, hobby-wise, I decided to focus solely (save a prior commitment to Saga) on 40K and Malifaux at the monthly Nagoya game days. After (to be quite honest) a good few years grumbling in a corner like Gollum over my preference for smaller scales - and therefore, and there's a direct correlation here, owning and painting a lot of games and models that at most one or two other people in the group also played and collected - it's been a pleasant shock to kick the doors open to one very popular, and one pretty popular, game system, and find myself having a lot of fun playing a lot of games with a bunch of different people. 40K 8th edition not being a dumpster fire helps, of course. It has its issues, and is still 25-year-old-system 40K at its heart, but it's certainly "fun enough", and - and I can't stress this enough - being able to play a bunch of games with a bunch of different people turns out to be a really good thing. There's still other games I want to try - I'm making the jump into Shadespire, and while I'm very much on the fence a nice Delaque kit (in Q4 :roll:) might pull me into the Necromunda reboot, and of course I will always love Epic and still hold out hope for trying Chain of Command at some point etc. etc. - but trying to make the monthly games days all about those two popular systems has definitely made a difference in my gaming life.

I also made a resolution to try to reach out to the Japanese gaming community more (again, based mostly on the discussion here with Prim and others, but my formative gaming-in-Japan memories as the only gaijin in the Fukuoka game club way back when also had a lot to do with it), and I've been up to visit the small-but-good-natured game group in Ichinomiya a couple times, and that's been good fun as well. This resolution has also been the prime motivator in going all-in on Shadespire, since that game is proving very popular in the Japanese gaming community.

So that's where I am at the end of 2017. At this rate, it does look like next year will be "40keighteen" for me, although I do want to evangelize for lunch-break Shadespire a bit, get some more games of Malifaux in, and hopefully organize an Epic day as I try to every year. And of course if anyone's up for Drop<foo> or 6mm Napoleonics or 15mm WWII or the Warhammer Quest card game or Sails of Glory or or or... on an off day, I'd be very much up for it! But so far, narrowing my focus for game days has proven to be a strategy with a solid net positive result for me, and I'll probably be sticking with it!
Feel free to call me Dave!
-----
Miniatures painted in 2023: 252
Miniatures painted in 2024:
Epic scale: 9 vehicles, 56 stands of infantry, a whole buncha terrain
32mm-ish: 3 infantry

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Primarch
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Re: 2017 Hobby Year in Review Thread

Post by Primarch » Wed Dec 20, 2017 6:46 am

2017 is nearly over? Wait, how did that happen? I could have sworn we had only just started the year. :o Yeah, this year seems to have flown past to be honest.

Some stuff at home seriously curtailed my hobby time this year, especially my opportunities for gaming. I'm sure I have done some hobby stuff this year, but I think my output has been pretty low. Aside from a large mob of Saxons, I don't feel like I have achieved as much as I had hoped for. These last two months have been especially barren on the painting front. I have a ton of minis started, but not an awful lot finished. On the other hand, I have enough minis to play the games I want to, so it's not like there is a lot of pressure to add more to my forces.

I'm in the middle of a complete sorting/tidying/cleaning of my hobby room at the moment. I'm slowly getting to the point where I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it has been a massive effort so far. Hopefully it will set me up to make some serious progress in the new year.

I have been pretty good with my spending this year, generally limiting myself to only buying new toys with money made from selling older ones. I have occasionally bought the odd set of paint or some brushes with my regular money, but 2017 has been fairly self-sustaining as far as my hobby budget goes. I have invested heavily in Dark Ages minis, picking up a large horde of Saxons, some Vikings and trading for some Normans as well. I have a couple of armies for Bolt Action awaiting painting that I picked up this year and a Fantasy army as well. Black Friday spending this year was mainly for terrain and carrying cases, with very few actual minis being bought.

Gaming wise, I think this year has largely been Bolt Action, Malifaux and Saga, which I am happy about. Just this month I tried Frostgrave, which was fun. I also played Magic the Gathering for the first time in ages, which again was fun, though not so much that I want to get back into it. At NagoyaHammer I played a bunch of games including GorkaMorka and In The Emperor's Name. I haven't gotten back into 40K, despite ToD's evangelism, :D though a recent decision to try it with Bolt Action rules has inspired me to put brush to model again for GW minis. I haven't actually tried it yet, but I feel pretty positive about it. My taste in rules and gaming styles has definitely drifted further and further away from what GW are doing over the years, so even with their newfound altruism, I'm not jumping back into their games. (I may buy some minis if they catch my eye. This isn't a Spevna Stance so much as apathy towards their rules). On the whole, I'm pretty content with what I am playing at the moment and fingers crossed 2018 will be more of the same.

As Sinatra sang "Regrets, I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention", there were a few things that kind of fell by the wayside or that I never got around to this year. Some things took more time than they should and I wasn't always able to focus on everything. However, I'm not going to dwell on them. There is always next year.

So overall, 2017 was a pretty steady, stable year of gaming and hanging out with friends. Thanks to everyone, see you all in the 2018 New Year's Resolution thread!
Painted Minis in 2014: 510, in 2015: 300, in 2016 :369, in 2019: 417, in 2020: 450

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