Friday 27 December 2019

2019 End of Year Hobby Review

Hello!

This might well be my last post of the year, so I thought I'd do a bit of a review of what I've done and what my next plans are. I'm going to divide up into a few sections based on what I tend to post about, hopefully this will make some kind of sense, rather than just a stream of rambling.


Overall:

2019 was the first full year of the blog, but I ended up with fewer posts than in 2018, mainly due to getting fewer games in (though, as we will see, there were some pretty special ones). There was plenty of hobby stuff though, and we saw a bit more of a divergence from the 40k content, justifying the 'Mostly' in the blog title. After this post we'll be sitting at 55 posts in 2019, which is an average of more than one a week, so I'm happy to continue at roughly that rate. Elsewhere in social media, I got more into Twitter and eventually Instagram, so feel free to find me on them and follow if you want some occasional WIPs and stuff that doesn't make it to the blog, as well as pictures of my dog.


Battle Reports:

We had fewer battle reports this year, especially with the regular opponent John who sadly became a very irregular opponent, but there were some excellent games played a little further afield. I had a series of great games with Stig (not the TTT one!), played in the awesome Rynn's World narrative game and had a lot of fun at the epic No Surrender 2. I also played in several recorded battle reports with Winters for DZTV and of course SorcererDave, the pinnacle of which was probably the climactic finale of the Morgan's Reach narrative campaign.

The good news on this front is that I've got plenty planned for 2020 already. I'm off to a local tournament at Grim Dice in January with old regular opponent John, and I'm planning to attend the GT 40k Heat 1 at Warhammer World in February, so I should have plenty to write about from getting smashed at those events. I've also got plans for a new narrative campaign with SorcererDave, which should prove well produced and edited at least!



Hobby Stuff:

A successful year I think on the building/painting side. I completed a number of projects, some small and some a bit more extensive. We opened up with Da Ork Project where I reorganised and rebased my Ork horde (or possibly hoard, either works). Started in January and finished in April, but I was worth it (probably.) I saved the final results for my 100th blog post. Elsewhere I painted up a few mini projects, finished up the Genestealer Cult and got into Adeptus Titanicus. (Which also produced a few battle reports.)

My main plans for 2020 are, so far, outside of 40k. I've got some Age of Sigmar minis to paint up and expand my Seraphon/Lizardmen up to around 2000-2500 points. Beyond that there are always bits I want to expand elsewhere. I'm particularly looking at adding a few more Tyranid monsters and maybe making a painting guide for them when I do it. I might also get my hands on some of the new Terminators for my Alpha Legion.


Other Stuff:

As mentioned, I've added a bit more non-40k content this year. Plenty of Adeptus Titanicus, which could loosely be considered 40k, but also a bit more Blood Bowl, some D&D and even a post about LARPing. Rest assured, this blog will continue to be Mostly 40k, but I am still doing all of these things, so I could well slip in the odd post from the wider world of nerd stuff.


So there you go. That was 2019. A decent year of hobbying I think, and I'm looking forward to more in 2020. Hope you all had a good holiday, and have a great new year!

8 comments:

  1. Excellent, long may it continue. Hobby blogs are on a general decline in numbers due to the insta-gratification of likes on social media which is a shame as blogs like yours and mine go into detail and thoughts and take time and effort to produce a post - I think hence the decline. Keep posting your random nerd posts too, its good to see other related stuff - I hope to get AT off the ground this year too, and more Titans in 28mm I think ;)

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    1. Thanks! I agree that blogs are great - they are a good way to get a bit of a look around at what people who aren’t running a YouTube channel or winning painting competitions are doing.

      More titans of various sizes can only be a good thing.

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  2. Sounds like a great year! Looking forward to more in the future.

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  4. Beautiful Tyranids army! Can I ask you which colours did you use for painting the last models? And which painting techniques?

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    1. Thanks. I’m planning to do a post at some point with a step by step walk through of how I do the Tyranids, as I’ve had a few people asking. Until then the main technique of note is that the carapace highlight is built up with lots of little semi-random lines, starting with orange and working up to the bone colour. Usually 4 stages. Each step the lines should overlap at some points and leave gaps at others, giving that sort of ridged look.

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    2. Cool, great idea! Thank you! Just a last question: did you used a black or white primer? How can the blue be so shine?

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    3. Black primer. I think the blue looks shiny on camera because it's got washes over it and it's quite a big contrast with the orange. I've not used any special techniques to make it shiny and insect like - it just dark colour highlighted up and washed.

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