2021 Yearly Review

 Hi!

Sadly I've been too busy with work to really post much this December but I do have time to take a peek back at what I have got done throughout the year and ponder a bit about what I hope to do in 2022!

Miniatures Painted 2021: 177 or +29 on 2020

Unsurprisingly I got more done this year than last, largely due to lockdown 2.0 which saw me getting a ton of hobby stuff completed or at least worked on and a surprising return to the joys of 28mm scale after pretty much writing off any interest in the scale I had in previous years. 

I think this is partially due to me having some stuff lying around that I've had sat unpainted for literally decades in some case and the lockdown forcing me to actually do something about it all and partially due to me delving deeply into character driven skirmishes in a more RPG lite sort of game than larger skirmishes and finding the experience rather rewarding.

My Inquisitorial agents Fisher, Geralt and Vash even managed to stir a proper campaign with several interconnected games being played and more figures getting painted to add to the choice of foes, rivals and allies and I suspect that this approach will be what I will be trying to duplicate in 2022 as super small skirmishes between half a dozen figures is actually manageable without having to paint an absolute ton of stuff, construct large amounts of terrain or spend vast sums of money!

Sadly as the year proceeded, work picked up and hobby time began to suffer and my man cave was largely unused for gaming but I did manage to keep going with the effort and painted up a surprising quantity of figures that by in large, I'm really pleased to have finished.

With the addition of several odds and ends I think that I'm set up for trying to beat this years score with the painting front as I have still got lots of bits and bobs lying around that will come in handy in the coming twelve months and want to set myself a challenge to paint at least one figure a week throughout the year. Obviously some weeks will have more done than others but I do like a bit of an achievable objective to work towards, especially as we won't hopefully have any more lockdowns to leave me with time on my hands!

While I would like to be a bit more focussed on getting individual projects completed, my scattergun approach seems to have worked as whenever I've started to flag on one warband or genre, I skipped off to another and succeeded in keeping myself entertained and not burning out and the eclectic mix of figures have given me all sorts of ideas for ongoing campaigns, games, warbands and any number of other random hobby goodness that I'm keen to explore!

Thats not to say that there aren't things I'd really like to work on further, be it my Alternative Imperium, Brutal Quest Dark Age project that got started but not finished or any other thing that I've pondered on but I do want to try and keep the randomness going into 2022 and if it means that I have lots of mini projects on the go at once but am enjoying myself, that's all that matters!

Speaking of plans for 2022, I have big plans for both my Rusty Robots and Somewhere on the Border collection and will be aiming to dedicate a bit of time and effort throughout the year to keep building the warbands and terrain and playing some games and campaigns as I go. I'm also pondering some small scale stuff, be it my Fantasy Land Ironclads or some VSF Aeronef, I'll see what I can come up with but my primary goal will be to keep enjoying myself, painting figures and playing games.

Speaking of games, lets take a look at how I did:

Games Played 2021: 47 using eight separate systems or +25 games and +2 systems from 2020

Whee! I averaged almost a game a week over the course of the year and while I've not managed to post battle reports of all of them, the total has been really heartening and hugely enjoyable and the fact that I've managed to play such a variety of them has been fantastic fun and I'm aiming to play even more and different games in the coming year.

I've played lots of sci-fi skirmishes in steaming jungles, abandoned bases, derelict space hulks and rundown cities. Adventures have been had and villains thwarted, heroes acted heroically and xenos threats purged! I've really enjoyed the experience of mixing systems and bodging rules to play the sorts of games I love. The model count has usually been no more than about 15-20 a side but its been great fun and even the smallest of skirmishes featuring as few as two figures on a side and on a 1'x2' board have been utterly great fun.

I've even managed that holy grail, to play an interlinked series of scenarios in a loose sort of mini campaign which saw my Imperial Agents battling a shadowy foe and while the campaign never ran to its conclusion, mostly due to me running out of time, it's been a great experience and again something I'm keen to replicate and build on in the coming year!

My Boar Company even managed to get an outing, giving their hated foe Marik Goldhelm a thrashing and once again sending him scurrying off to hide which was awesome fun and reminded me that my own sculpts are something I really enjoy working on and playing around with and deserve more of my attention.

We shall have to see what 2022 brings but I am hoping that no matter what lockdowns, pandemics or other shenanigans it brings, I will at least have my hobby to retreat to to keep me sane and thank you all for spending the time to read my ramblings and put up with my random posts and I hope you all have enjoyed Tales From Farpoint and despite Bloggers increasingly annoying bugs and quirks I hope to keep posting here every week with progress reports, random pondering and lots of miniatures, games and other stuff so until then, All the best and I hope you all have a fantastic new year!

Richard