Welcome, welcome, one and all, to see the rare. the bizarre, the unsettling. It is said that once, this creature would be seen often, making bestial noises on virtual street corners, attacking random competitive players. But in modern times, few indeed can claim to have seen the elusive Incarias, and fewer still to have heard it speak.
But here, beyond the curtain, you, my ladies and gentlemen, can behold this gruesome spectacle. Who knows when the chance will come again? Come one, come all.
Dramatic as always, eh?
It's no secret I do not write here often anymore. I have the ideas, occasionally, but rarely the energy or clarity of mind to actually manage a full post. But I'll give it another go.
This one's not complicated. It's a look back at 2022, and what I've done for the last year, hobbywise. There will be pictures, even.
First of all, I will cheat, and look a little further, all the way back to November 2021. Why? Because that's when my second child was born. Grownup points all around.
Being a father has had a profound effect on my life, as you would expect. It has eaten into my me-time in a manner which could be described as 'alarming', if it weren't for the fact that I am not an idiot, and was prepared for this. Of course small children take time. That was always part of the expectation.
But, and this is an important but, the hobby is important to me. I will not go into any detail about mental health benefits; others have done so before me, with care and depth I would struggle to achieve. But when I say the hobby is important, please understand that I mean it.
So, the challenge for the last few years has been to find time for hobby in a suddenly rather crowded life. I started going into details here, but decided not to. Suffice it to say that juggling responsibilities and leisure has become a bit complicated.
That said, I have managed to make it to the club fairly regularly, more so than might be expected. I've had less time for gaming than before, but it could have been much worse.
The hobby is bigger than gaming, however, and while that piece of the equation was solved failry quickly, the other bits took a bit of time. In 2019, when my first-born entered the picture, I painted 53 miniatures. In 2020, 78. In 2021, 94. And while I'll admit that 94 isn't necessarily bad, it's not enough to keep up. The Pile of Shame (it's only a Pile of Potential in the sense that it has enough potential energy to cause significant bodily injury in the case of a collapse) grew faster than it shrank.
Something had to be done. Enter Twitter. Huh? No, actually, enter a certain trend on Twitter. People started showing up in my feed with the phrase 'hobby streak' followed by a number. This gave me an entirely original idea.
For the last year, I have tried to do at least fifteen minutes of hobby each day. More surprisingly, I've succeeded.
The rules I set myself are as follows:
1. At least fifteen minutes a day (that is, between getting up in the morning and going to bed at night; after midnight is fine, if it's been that kind of day).
2. Painting is preferable. Airbrushing counts, other priming does not. Assembly of models is acceptable, but 'assembly only' days should be kept to a minimum. 3D printing does not count. Sorting miniatures, building lists, or reading rules do not count. Terrain does not count. (Yes, all very arbitrary).
3. The models don't matter. It makes no difference if I paint models for a board game, for a miniatures game, or as one-offs. Fifteen minutes painting Bardsung hobgoblins is just as valid as fifteen minutes spent glazing the apron of a competition entry (see the last picture).
4. The technique doesn't matter. Contrast paints count. As mentioned, airbrush counts. Meticulous layering counts.
5. No excuses. If it doesn't get done, it doesn't get done. No travel days, hotel stays with the in-laws or Covid cases change that. This, in particular, has motivated me to get at least those fifteen minutes done, to avoid breaking the streak. Have I always produced impressive results? No. But basecoating seven Plague Marines is productive, if uninspiring.
With this ruleset in play, I managed 285 models painted during 2022. Is this impressive compared to every other painter? No. Some painters put incredible amounts of time into their hobby. Some are exceptionally fast. But it is a new personal best. With a two-year-old and a new baby, and later a three-year-old and a toddler. Something is working.
This is starting to feel like one of those recipe blogs that give a full life's story before getting to the ingredients, so, without any more prattling, what have I actually done this last year?
Games played
In one way, the year has been truly poor. I have played two (yes, two) miniatures games. As in two sessions. One was my first and so far only game of Marvel Crisis Protocol, the second a game of 40k. That's it. I won both, for what it's worth.
I have had ten games of Blood Bowl, which I insist is a board game, not a miniatures game. The first nine were in the local league, taking my Tomb Kings all the way to the trophy, and the last one was against a new, younger member of the club, with me using my newly painted Lizardmen. That one was a draw, and did very little to help me decide whether I actually want to play Lizards.
We started the year off with Gloomhaven, continuing a campaign from 2021. That lasted for six sessions (a session being a Saturday evening, and often containing more than one scenario). Then we moved on to Bardsung, with a total of twelve sessions. Unfortunately, it has become clear that I am not the only one with grown-up commitments elsewhere, and so we haven't been able to play as often as we might once have. So, in between, with one or more of the regulars missing, we've had time for three sessions of Shadows of Brimstone, two of Darkest Dungeon, two of Eldritch Horror and one each of Spirit Island, Fallout and Sword and Sorcery.
All in all, not too bad, if worse than previous years.
Miniatures painted
285. This one is going to require a deep breath.
Let's do it by system, shall we?
Age of Sigmar
Yep. I painted models for Age of Sigmar. Three of them. These three:
So, yeah. Half an army, basically. Very poor numbers for the area painted.
Also, they're three very different models. One is the Games Workshop Mega Gargant whose fault it is I painted the others. The middle size one is 3D printed. And the smallest one is a resin model from Greebo, mostly meant for Blood Bowl. So that was fun, but to finish that army I need to assemble and paint a third little one (heh, little) and buy, assemble and paint another two big ones. It might happen this year. It might not.
Onwards.
Warhammer 40k
I have painted 84 minis for 40k during 2022. Most - 46 - of them are Necrons. That is most of two half starter boxes (the Necron half, bought from people who wanted Marines), plus a C'tan. A fair bit of an army, and a decent chunk taken out of the Pile.
Then there are 24 Orks and 12 Death Guard (including a 3D-kitbash Defiler I'm quite proud of).
And finally two lonesome models from very different armies, and different ends of the year. One is a Nightlord Helbrute from the depths of the Pile, one a newly 3D printed Eldar Ranger for an upcoming project.
Here they all are:
The Necrons are a few models away from being a finished army. The Death guard are a finished army, as much as any army is ever finished (which means I've bought another twenty models for it). The Nightlords were a finsihed army, but have been relegated to a box by the march of time. It is unlikely they will come back out in the foreseeable future. The Orks are a side project. They will never be finished, even if they are. And the Eldar is the first of many(ish).
Blood Bowl
This is where it's at. This is where my interest has been most focused this year.
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Not the most numerous (third, in fact), but at 71 models, I would argue the most impressive. Those are models from five teams, four of which were entirely (or at least mostly) done this year. There's a few bits missing from the Lemuryn (to make them playable as Snotlings, as well as Black Orcs) and Necromantic teams, but close enough. And those Necomantic are being finished before the week is out.
I did mess up a bit when taking this picture. The lone skeleton in the lower right-hand corner should be two skeletons. I forgot his buddy. All very sad, but he's dead, so what does he care?
Necromunda
These guys have been standing around in a box, assembled but unpainted, since they were released. They are no longer unpainted. A couple of their friends still are, but they weren't even assembled. Still, six minis gone from the Pile:
Bardsung
A lot of my painting focus from March onwards was on Bardsung. I acknowledge that it is even less a miniatures game than Blood Bowl, but the minis were a large part of my decision to back the game on Kickstarter, and 79 of them got painted during the year:
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That's most of them. A few were stored in a different place, and got a picture of their own (along with some models from Rise of Moloch that were also painted this year, albeit for more experimental purposes):
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For anyone counting, that is most of both the base box and the Fables expansion. Not quite all; there's a Duergar King, a wandering monster or two and the final boss missing. The King was, for some reason, uninspiring to me, but will get finished soon (we're nearing him in the campaign, I believe). The final boss is far off, and quite large.
Of course, I have a full expansion and a bunch of extras left as well, but we'll get there if we get there...
Marvel Crisis Protocol
A new game for me to actually do something with, Marvel Crisis Protocol has hovered in the periphery of my awareness since it launched, largely because of one large name or two on the development team. During the summer, one of the club members started a bit of a frenzy, with maybe a third of the club getting in on the game while I was off on holidays. when I got back, I spent a week and a half on these:
...and was promptly accused of inciting a frenzy.
Interest has died down a bit during autumn, but who knows if we get back around to this? It is a nice enough little game.
Malifaux
This is another bite out of the Pile.
I like Special Edition models for Malifaux. I've had a bunch of them lying around for a while now, and it was finally time to finish (not to mention start) some:
At 19 models, that's four boxes of Rotten Harvest (kind of; Baby Kade and Candy came in ziplock bags), a very small (but official) Hooded Rider, and a random Flesh Construct.
Rumbleslam
Six orcs. One is a star wrestler. The others have an unhealthy relationship with fungi:
Together, they make up something approaching a playable Rumbleslam... team? Crew? Whatever.
As with Marvel above, there was a period of interest, although it was much less frenzied, and I painted these models up, just in case. Have I played with them? Of course not. Will I ever? Maybe.
The leftovers
Okay, that's unkind. But there are two models left, each from a different source.
The first:
...is a weird hand-monster from Aeon Trespass, a game that isn't Kingdom Death, but clearly takes some inspiration from Kingdom Death. I painted this late in the year, for one of the regular board gamers, and have a few more I've said I'll get done.
The second, and last for the list, is this lovely lady:
This was my entry for the club painting competition. It got the most votes, by a comfortable margin, but since I'm the one running the competition, the prize went to the runner-up, and it's a small affair anyway. Still, I won a painting competition. Yay me!
Time to wrap up 2022
So, that's it. A year in hindsight. A part, at least, of a big year, in many ways, both in my little world and in the big one (I'd rather focus on the little one, as much as possible).
It's been a year of moderate purchases (children, would you believe it, are expensive), and record-level productivity. I estimate I've purchased somewhere around 120 models (this includes the 60 from my unopened copy of Cursed City, but not Bardsung, because - and this might be controversial - Kickstarter board games don't count). Assuming I've missed a few, that's still a hundred and fifty more models finished than bought.
So, it's been a rare year in which the Pile actually shrank. Who'd've thunk it?
Looking forward, I've got Eldar to print and paint. I've got a few more Blood Bowl teams rattling about. I've backed a couple more Kickstarters. There are more Death Guard, and some monsters from the Pile. And, then, who knows? I intend to keep the streak going. Will there be a post at the beginning of 2024? Maybe. Will there have been miniatures painted in 2023? Barring something truly unforeseen, yes.
And with that, it only remains to sign off, with wishes for a happy 2024 for all who do not actively make the world a worse place (and an absolutely terrible 2024 for those who do, but I doubt they'd come here. If you're reading this and have, for example, started an invasion in 2023, kindly leave and do not come back. There, that's the politics done).
Well then.
Ta.