So before launching into a list of goals for the coming year that, at this time next year, I'll likely have to acknowledge, with a sigh, that I didn't accomplish at all, let's see how 2014 shaped up from a gaming perspective.
First, I suppose it's a good thing that, despite my desired intent for the blog, I never gave it a specifically miniatures gaming-oriented name as 2014 saw my level of such hobby activity decline further yet. While a 100% increase in production from 2013, this past year didn't see the explosion in productivity I had been hoping for, with me knocking out only the 4 figures you see below - a Malifaux Rotten Belle in April and some Lovecraftian fishmen in August. Making things even worse, all of these figures were painted for others and thus don't represent even a small dent in my troves of unpainted figures.
While stalwarts like 7 Wonders and King of Tokyo dominated the instances of play this year, primarily due to their use as gateway games for a couple, new to the hobby, with whom we struck up an informal gaming group, two new games snuck into the upper echelons. First, and tied for the second most number of plays, was Netrunner. While the old AEG CCG Warlord was the only card game into which I really bit, and I never played the original version of this game, the rebooted FFG Android: Netrunner has hooked and pulled me in wholesale. The assymetric and bluffing aspects of the game mitigate the troubles I have in identifying card synergies during deck construction that have always made me a weak CCG player, and Netrunner has become the game I play any change I can get. Plus I love what FFG has done for the setting, which I think would be stellar for an RPG.
Speaking of RPGs, Pathfinder was the other new game to the top of my list as the nascent campaign mentioned last year has gotten legs under it and really developed into a deep, involved story. Our GM has taken one of the published adventure paths and draped so much original design in the form of side quests and overarching plots that it's nearly indistinguishable from the original. I've had a blast, but I can say without hesitation that this has been solely because of our GM. While I love Pathfinder for the same reason as I loved 3rd edition - the massive toolbox allows for players and GMs to model nearly any character concept - I've found the book-keeping to be a chore and have even started bringing a laptop to the game so that I can rely on Herolab. The rest of our gaming group has been doing this from the beginning of the campaign, and I think the temptation to surf the web during the game or pull up game stats and information a player shouldn't do are detrimental to the experience. Fortunately I also grabbed all three of the new D&D 5th edition books this year and, while it might be some time before I'm able to get behind the GM screen again, I think 5th might represent the most perfect blend of old-school, story-telling first systems and more modern design that I've yet seen.
With all that said, what am I hoping 2015 looks like? Obviously boardgames will be a large part of that, as it seems we're adding new folks to our circle of gamers at a steady rate. The Pathfinder campaign will likely still click along, taking us well through this year as I believe our GM has notebooks full of plot points yet. And I'd really like to spread my cyber wings a bit and test the local Netrunner tournament scene. With only a handful of players in our group, you could say our "meta" is pretty local.
But this is supposed to be a miniatures blog, right, so what are my plans in that niche? Has my waning productivity and lack of miniatures gaming (note I didn't include a single minis game amongst my most played, above) indicated and end to this particular passion? Not a chance. But it has made me consider more thoroughly than any hobby should just what I want out of it. The days of active playing, and thus the need to stay competitive, are over. Barring an unforeseen change in interest, it's unlikely I will ever walk into a store for some pick-up gaming again. Instead, my desire is to make the hobby more project focused. No more buying figures for a faction that I find the most interesting in order to "get into" a new game. Instead I'll be thinking of the miniatures gaming experiences I'd like to have, and distill that down into a project entailing the necessary figures, terrain, and rules, as appropriate. Sometimes this will be gaming-oriented, as with the long-suffering late war WWII project, and other times this will be purely hobby-oriented.
Exactly what these projects will be for this year I cannot say for sure, but I'm fairly certain there's going to be some "Oldhammer" activity (though Oldhammer for me represents the early to mid-90s as that was when I first stumbled across GW), some Warzone and Chronopia stuff, as well as 15mm Germans and Malifaux (the only current miniatures game I've never faltered in my love for). In order to vainly attempt to put some structure around these projects and prevent me from flitting from one to the next, I'm going to resurrect an activity in which I once engaged and tally both my painting production and miniature acquisitions/sales for the year. The optimal goal is to never have the "Models Purchased" total exceed the sum of the "Models Painted" and "Models Sold." Given that I know that things like Wrath of Kings and MERCS Recon will be arriving this year, and I'm not going to overlook those simply because they were purchased earlier, meeting that goal continuously will no doubt be difficult, so the more likely goal is to achieve this balance by the end of the year. We'll see how things go.
Hopefully you too have big hobby plans for the year, regardless of how "pie in the sky" they might be, and I wish you luck. Have a great 2015!
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