Hobby Retrospective: 2016 in review

Greetings all.

So it's kind of the done thing to do some sort of hobby round up for the year, so I'll do something along those lines too.

It's been a pretty good year for me hobby wise, with a total of 140 models painted (of various shapes and sizes). The majority of these are for use in Frostgrave in some form or another. I've now got virtually every model I could possibly want for my warband, and a pretty big collection of wandering monsters and other enemies.

I've also had the pleasure of painting a few special pieces this year, including the private commission of Bad Ash (sculpted by Bob Olley), and the excellent "Time Traveller" (Eddie). I even had my face sculpted on a model by Kev "Goblinmaster" Adams, which then promptly jumped to the front of the painting queue.

Here's a big ol' picture dump of everything I've painted this year:

In terms of how it all matches up to my resolutions from last year (such as they were), I guess kind of well... I vowed to paint a whole load more models, and play a whole load more games. I actually achieved both of these, mainly thanks to the excellent Frostgrave. I didn't manage to make any progress on my Khorne Daemonkin army this year, nor did I manage to paint my Orc Blood Bowl team. I don't feel too bad about either of these things though, because a) I've barely played any 40k this year, and b) I was deliberately waiting for the new edition of Blood Bowl before I slapped some paint on the Orcs. I have had a real blast this year though, both in terms of painting and gaming. I've played a hell of a lot of fun games (mostly Frostgrave), been to BOYL for the first time, and had the pleasure of attending an exhibition of the work of Ian Miller, where my brother-in-lead Alex picked up an original piece!

The plan for this year is:

1. Actually paint my Orc Blood Bowl team! Now that the new game is out and I know what has changed (or mostly not, as the case may be), I can actually crack on and get these done.

2. Revamp my daemons for 40k. I was going to tackle my KDK army, but given that there is a new edition rumoured for sometime this year, I don't really want to start something from scratch. I've already got hundreds of daemons painted, and there are a few bits I want to work on just to make them into an army that I can start playing with again.

3. Work on my familiars side project. It shouldn't take me long to get them all done, but I'll only be working on them as and when I feel like it.

4. Paint a big bunch of Nurgle daemons for Age of Sigmar! I've finally been drawn in, and decided to give AoS a try. I never really played Fantasy, so I don't have any of the hang-ups about it that long time Fantasy players might have. It looks like a fun game, and seems to be growing well, so I'm gonna give it a try!

All of this will no doubt change as the year goes on, particularly as the wife and I are expecting our first child in June... It's good to have a plan though, so that's what I'm aiming for. I'm also looking to start attending a club again, and looking forward to tackling some more Frostgrave campaigns with my good buddy Alex.

Happy New Year!