Well it’s the start of the year and that time where the foolish amongst make all sorts of promises about what we are going to accomplish in the year ahead. Based on last year I’m not going to make any promises but I am going to stick my head above the parapet and say that there are some things I’m going to do. The first is very much dependent on being able to see friends again but once we get there I’m going to work a lot harder to get some gaming in. I’ve been lazy when it comes to learning games and painting models up for games, so I’m going to make more effort to get involved and not take our hobby nights for granted any more. The second is that I am going to finish more projects this year. Now just to be clear I’m not saying that I’m going to finish all of my projects but I am going to finish more of what I start. I’m also going to try and mix up the things I paint so that I don’t get bored with painting the same things for a long time.
Now that I’ve laid out what I’m planning on doing for the rest of the year I thought I would have a look back at last year, mainly because it’s an easy way to get some content prepared in advance so that I can have an update for you today. Because I really didn’t want to start the year without something for you.
The highlight of the year should have been a trip to Chicago for Adepticon with five days of being a tourist in Chicago itself followed by the full four days of Adepticon. Arriving on the Wednesday night and enjoying everything I could fit in right up until a Sunday night of drinking and gaming. All of that went out of the window the US banned travel from the UK and just before the even the organisers made what I’m sue was a very difficult decision to cancel the event. All very disappointing but I’m really looking forward to attending again at some point in the future. That aside what else did I get up to this year.
January saw me working on some WarCry Covus Cabal and I had a very clear idea about what I wanted to do with them. I didn’t want them to be dark but instead wanted to go with bright colours. My thinking here was they would be based on something like parrots or birds of paradise but that they would also keep a chaos feel with something of Keeper of Secrets feel.
Whilst still thinking that Adepticon would be going ahead I had been working to get some Built a lot of Grot Bots as a present for Greg. Like any project with a deadline I kept thinking that I would have loads of time but ended up working like made trying to get them finished in time. With the event being cancelled I didn’t want all the work to be for nothing so I ended up posting them out for Greg. Which was something of a lockdown surprise for him.
One thing that had nothing to do with hobby but ended up being a cheeky part of lockdown was my discovery of Rumbullion! Rum. When mixed with a spiced orange ginger ale made for some very pleasant lock down evenings.
Keeping the WarCry feel I painted up but never based some Ogres for WarCry. I really like the models and you only need a couple of a war band so I should really get them based up. I’ve also been working on some characters for them but they need a bit more work.
I then went back to what I love the most and that is Orks. Whilst I haven’t played a game with them for years they still hold a special place in my heart. For me it’s the hobby side of things and the creations that you can get away with when building for Orks. I have a thing for mechanical or fast armies so any troops that will be with them will need transports. The GW Ork Trukk is a nice model but I wanted something different and came up with the idea for a more UK type flat cab. I also wanted it to look like trukk with a covered bed but it had to have the option of being WYSIWYG for games. The end result has been a couple of trucks and one piece of towed artillery. I still need to do one more truck and a couple of guns but that’s for the future.
Also in the middle of lockdown I acquired a cat when my mum was no longer able to look after her and that has been a real experience. She absolutely rules the roost in this house now, although she hasn’t destroyed any of my minis yet.
I also put quite a lot of work into a wheeled Ork Dreadnought but never quite got it finished. It really only needs a base and the close combat arms finishing off and it will be done but I just lost interest.
All that time spent working on different Ork projects left me wanting a change so I moved to painting something based on my passion for D&D. Atlantis miniatures make some really nice models that fit this theme and I picked up and painted some Dwarves, some Goblins and some Ogres. What I really wanted to do was to go with some colour schemes that I haven’t used before, in this case that was going with something different with the skin tones. And I have to say that like how they turned out.
And that is just about where the year ended. It started with such promise and then petered out into something of disaster. As is said at the start of the blog I have a quite a few things that I want to try and do this year but the one thing I am going to do is pay more attention to my friends and family. I’ve not had a good year but for some of you out there it has been much worse. So let’s put last year behind us and instead look forward. Let’s all keep safe and just as importantly let’s keep each other safe and on that note I’ll end this review of last year and with a fair wind I will catch up with all again next week.
