2017 Hobby Year in Review Thread
Posted: 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 ) 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!
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 ) 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!