Goodbye 2016… Hello 2017

What an eventful 12 months it's been!

The year started brightly with some Guildball action, laced with a handful of Frostgrave skirmishes. The latter had so much potential but I found the combat rules so frustrating and unbalanced that it made the game almost unplayable for me.

A game or two more of Guildball was had in the lead up to this year’s Salute - we even bought the Season 2 rule book. Then things just sort of evaporated. I was out of work at the time, on daddy-daycare duty, so rather preoccupied. When I finally started a new job in June I became very focused on that. Hobby time switched to Zombicide for ease and I speculated about a dream team for Black Plague - an interesting diversion when there was no hobby news to report.

Towards the end of the summer I tried a few things to get me back into painting, such as buying an entire Eldar army, but it was too big a project for such little spare time.

The only thing I found that I could focus on this year was writing my own rules again. I even joined an online group for advice and encouragement, but found them not very helpful and almost dismissive of my efforts. Having tired of all things medieval during the first half of the year, I went back to my sci-fi rules and Project Out Of Time in the autumn. I ploughed some serious hours into this and posted throughout November about various aspects of my draft rules. The end of the year was a bit of a washout. Several family birthdays, a funeral, two trips to Scotland, and then Christmas preparation all clogged up in a single month left no time to even think about hobbies

Outside of the hobby, first quarter of the year was pretty atrocious for us. The latter half of the year picked up amazingly and I have to admit that we’re in a much better position generally at the end of the year than the beginning. Dark clouds do have silver linings, you just don't often see them till later.

The hobby has declined dramatically for me this year. I may have acquired a new gaming cupboard in the house, but I've done less gaming or painting than ever. Aside from a few Eldar guardians I don't recall painting anything of significance this year.


THE YEAR AHEAD

It's difficult to lay out any plans for the new year given how little the hobby has featured in 2016. However, I thought about it over the holidays and have come to a modest conclusion. For 2017 I'd like to paint six models to a decent standard. That's one model every two months, so I'd like to think that even I can achieve that. I'd also like to play twelve games of something this year - that one game a month, but on game days we're likely to play a couple (or more), so that boils down to six game days I guess.

Hey, the ball still counts as a model!

My final hobby resolution for the coming year is that I would like to ‘finish’ one of my rulesets that have been bubbling along for some time now. When I say finish, I mean a first complete draft up online for fellow gamers to download. That will involve a lot of work and actually making a decision on combat rules and character abilities, so don't hold your breath just yet.

So, thanks to everyone who keeps dropping by the blog, despite the dwindling posts. I can't promise there will be any improvements but I hope to post something of interest in the next twelve months for you.

Happy New Year!!