2017 Recap and New Year Resolutions

First off a happy new year to you all, I hope the upcoming year brings you everything you want it to!

In a completely unoriginal post I’m going to recap my 2017 and what I will be aiming for in 2018.

2017 Objectives

So at the start of the year I listed the following objectives. I’ve noted how I did against each of them in Red.

1. Continue with whfb but get my wood elves onto the table (and possible the high elves). I played one game with the wood elves. The High elves were loaned out to Steve, for him to use in the whfb competition which somewhat stopped the ability to use them.
2. Finish painting my dwarves. This means around 40 miners, 16 Quarrellers, a gyrocoptor, grudge thrower and crew, 2 doomseekers and a load of characters (3 runesmiths, 4 engineers, Bugman, a dwarf lord and the white dwarf on shieldbearers – in this case Bugman and Gotrek). I’ll ignore the raft of unit fillers I have lined up. Ok after  listing them out, it’s more than I first thought, so realistically i’ll be happy with completing the miners, quarrellers and the Gyro. Failed miserably. I managed to finish the gyro and a few of the characters. Basically the models I used in games.
3. Continue painting my wood elves (you can see where this is going). Most are painted but I definitely want to finish the 3 hunters (being used as treekin), the 10 Wild Riders and flock the bases of most of my older models. Although I didn’t finish the models listed, I did start to make strides into the Wood Elves, rebasing the older models and getting through a chunk of the unpainted older archers. 
4. Continue painting my High elves (ok, ok, so I enjoy building models and not necessarily painting them). Quite a few are painted but I definitely want to finish the Sisters of Avelorn, the remaining 10 Phoenix Guard and the Lion Chariot. As noted above I loaned out all the HE’s.
5. Finish painting the Beastmen. 10 harpies, 15 Bestigor, a Beastlord and Malagor to go, so this should be easily achievable. Done! (with the exception of Malagor). I have also picked up some additional Minotaurs (and have more due in 2018 through a kickstarter) that will also need painting.
6. Buy a house. Not at all gaming related but may definitely impact on it through time/stress. If we find the right place, I may even be able to finally move up all my other gaming stuff from storage at my folks (especially my legion of lead/white metal orcs and gobbos). Failed! The new aim is for summer 2018.
7. Continue the D&D campaign. The first session is already booked in so I can tick this one off already! Done!
8. Try KOW. This will definitely happen in the first 3 months. I just need to book in a date. The more I read up on this the more I want to try it. I’ll probably be shot for saying this but in some ways the mechanics are similar to AoS, if only as each unit has a fixed value that is needed to be rolled to hit or to damage (rather than looking it up on a chart). The main difference (that matters to me) is that KOW is ranked unit combat rather than skirmish and that is why I have limited interest in AoS. Mike Carter from the Blog, Until Somebody loses an eye, has written an excellent article on switching from Warhammer to KOW. Done! I did enjoy KOW and played a number of games in the inaugural club competition. 
9. Possibly try out Ninth Age rules. I was very much up for trying this out but after what seems like just a year of their version 1 being released, they are again revising the rules. Changing after such a short time period is putting me off slightly as it seems that there is potentially a lack of consistency. Either that or  after the initial beta the game was still rather unbalanced. (Although I do know that one of the changes with the next version is reducing the number of magic lores substantially – which is for the best as they went overboard last time with far too many). Failed!
10. Try Malifaux. We do have an official henchman at the club, so he should be able to hook me up with a game. I may still end up buying a starter set anyway as there are a few of the models that I really like (The Viktorias, Lady Justice and Lillith). You’ll notice a theme around the masters having swords. Failed!
11. Try one of the Starwars games (Armada or X-Wing). My preference is Armada, as who doesn’t want to use a Star Destroyer, however there have been a number of starter games of X-Wing at the club and a few of the chaps have already bought into that game so it may be the easier one to try (and potentially cheaper). Failed!

Lessons Learnt

So what did I learn. Stop making unrealistic goals and being too specific with them! Having a young child throws the best laid plans out of the window!

2017 Achievements 

So what did I achieve in the year?

Kings of War – Played 6 games and entered the club competition.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle – Played 10 games. This included finishing the 2016 competition and starting the 2017 competition.

D&D – Continued the ongoing quest line with the group.

Battle Reports – I ensured I wrote reports for every game played. This is an element I enjoy almost as much as the games.

Painting – I did get through a chunk of miniatures and the standard is definitely improving. Possibly for the first year in a while, the number of models purchased may have been less than the number painted!

2018 Objectives

So for 2018, i’m going to keep my objectives simple.

1. Continue to play Warhammer Fantasy. This will, as ever, be my primary objective. What can I say, I love the game, flaws and all.
2. Continue the ongoing Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
3. Continue to paint.
4. Try out the new 40k.
5. Enter the club Blood Bowl competition.

Although I would like to enter the 2018 Kings of War competition, I think realistically I won’t be able to commit to it due to time constraints.

And with the Blood bowl competition due to start in Jan, I was thrown a curve ball by my other half when she bought me these for xmas (New Edition of blood bowl, Dwarf Giants with dice and pitch and the Goblin expansion pack). Hmmm new team option now available!