New Year (Hobby) Resolutions 2013.

End of year time! Last day of vacation time! Time to sit down and look at this year in review and throw out some (random) resolutions for the next year. So first let's see how I did this year on the resolutions I made in January 2011.

• Update the Bellower blog with "real" content at least once a week all year - FAIL
  I think I updated the blog maybe 10 times all year. So sad! So much potential but I am busy maintaining this blog as well as my metal blog for the Grind. I guess two blogs at a time is my limit. I want to contribute but not be the person who runs the whole thing. Hope someone in the Ogre Kingdoms community wants to step up and take a crack at it! *hint hint*

• Finish painting all of the Blood Bowl teams I have started - WIN/FAIL?
  Well I took a stab at it and probably would have gotten them all done if I had started a bit earlier in earnest. I "finished" my Chaos, new Necro/Undead/Human (wasn't on the list at the start of the year), Khemir (also not on list), and most of the Lizardmen but not the Orcs. Both the LM and Orcs are teams I want to look really nice and I stopped painting both earlier in the year when I realized my skill level wasn't high enough yet to get the results I wanted. I feel better about tackling them now so that is a success! Plus now I have a bunch of teams to choose from for both league and tournament play. So it's a mixed bag but mostly good.

• Play some WHFB somewhere, somehow - WIN?
  I managed to get exactly two games in this year. The FLGS I was playing at really fell apart and wasn't fun to play at. I have a friend who wants to play, and there was a local escalation league going, but I just couldn't get my arse up to play. 8th has let me down a bit but I am feeling the urge growing again. I expect I will play a couple games this year and maybe even paint some unpainted models from my huge (and growing) collection!

• Attend as many Blood Bowl tournaments as possible - WIN
  Was able to attend 7 NAF tournaments this year, two of which were large two day events. Felt like I was playing almost every month! Certainly more in with the BB scene now and it feels good to go to tournaments/events and see your friends even while you lose game after game after game.

• Paint more models then you buy - WIN?
  I bought more models but I painted almost all of them. Not counting that insane Reaper Bones KS I got into (like you probably) I think I did alright. I did buy new VC stuff that sits unopened under my painting table...

Well done Randroid... you've pleased the giant skull cloud this year.

 
Here is a list for this year:

• Update this blog at least twice a week all year: Been getting into the habit of posting almost daily while on vacation and I have found it helps inspire me to do more, paint more, and want to play more. Of course it's easy to say that when you don't have the time and energy suck of a 50+ hour work week waiting for you every day. Still... a goal worth pursuing!

• Finish painting all of the Blood Bowl teams I have started: Lizardmen and Orc teams gotta get done. Also have a Dwarf team in route from a KS campaign. That's all I have on my table at the moment but I have been thinking I "need" some sort of "elf" team to represent Wood Elves and Dark Elves (the only ones I would ever consider playing ever... don't look at me that way I HATE ELVES)

• Play some WHFB somewhere, somehow: Just for fun. Want to keep it going since I have thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of my time and money put into the damn game! Plus it is fun?? And new WoC book might help get me motivated too. 

• Attend as many Blood Bowl tournaments as possible: 7 this year so I need to attend at least 7 again this year. First one coming up is my very own local tournament the Dog Bowl in Feb! Then Headbangers, then ....

• Win an award in Blood Bowl league or tournament play: Going to try not to play terrible teams all the time so hopefully I can place or win some kind of award. This year I won a couple wooden spoons and also MOST BRUTAL but I would love to get a painting award or place somewhere in the top three at an event. We'll see... 
• Complete 12 monthly painting pledges at the Ogre Stronghold: This "new" forum tradition seems to be coming along nicely. I finished about 75% of my pledges this year but I want to get 100% this next year!

All in all that seems pretty doable. Notice I removed the "paint more models" resolution. That's because of the Reaper Bones KS miniature BOMB that is going to drop on me. No way I can or want to get those all painted. Well I can't do much worse than I did last year, but that is still a pretty intense list. The focus is really on painting and playing games so it shouldn't be too hard to get done. We'll see how I fare when we review this again next year! What do you hope to achieve in your new year of hobby?

Tavern Talk - Looking Back

Time for another edition (the final one for this year) of Tavern Talk courtesy of the Trading Post! This time around Kuffy asks:

"So, another year ends.  As we wave bye to 2010, I wanted to get your thoughts on your hobby throughout it.  What are your proudest achievements?  Where did you fail?  Just how has your year in Fantasy been?"

I have a detailed list of my resolutions from last year that I will be going through later this week, but just as a quick run down of my biggest failure and achievement for the year...

EPIC FAIL: Planning on painting and finishing my VC army this year and not getting a single model painted after moving from Austin, TX to Michigan. I played a few games with the army this year (in fact I didn't lose a single one of them) but I just didn't find the "spark" I needed to get this done.

EPIC WIN: Starting Blood Bowl and finishing up one team (the Nurgland Germs). I know of at least two BB tournaments I will be attending in the coming year so I see this as a good way to continue my tabletop competitive efforts while I work on building a WHFB scene here in my hometown. Also... Blood Bowl is a lot of fun to play!

Overall I would say my year in Fantasy has been a mixed bag but in the end I came out a stronger hobbyist with a love and appreciation for more games. Fantasy started off strong with a good showing in the WHFB team tournament at Adepticon 2010 before quickly dropping off due to lack of players/interest here in my local gaming scene. While there are more players and interest now I have a hard time getting myself motivated to play the game again. Hoping a new force (WoC) will get me pumped up enough to dive back in head first with the Fantasy action!

How has your year in Fantasy been? Any major success or failures you'd like to share? 

2009 - A hobby year in review.

2009 was a busy/productive year for me and my hobby but also a trying year for me personally. Major life changes punctuated by a lot of hobby firsts makes a review of the year a fitting theme for this update:

Hobby

• "Completed" the painting of my first WHFB 2,250 force - my Beer Gut Tribe (Ogre Kingdoms). I still need to go back and touch up and finish the paint of a few models, but this was a big milestone for me (couldn't have done it without the help of my gnoblar painting champion Franki).
  
• Participated in my first WHFB tournament, including my first IGT event. In the local tournament scene I finished 11th or 12th, just shy of the top 10. Not bad for a newbie playing Ogre Kingdoms!
• Played about one game of WHFB a week on average, sometimes two or three. I would still like to play more but finding the time to do so is not always easy.
  
• Played in the first round of 'Ard Boyz and placed second. I wasn't able to participate in the second round but I passed my place off to a friend (Mike G) who took Beasts of Chaos and managed a second place finish in round two - a moral victory for me.
  
• Collected and built my second WHFB army, the Vampire Counts. Working on the painting now, but I plan on having these done soon so I can begin on my WoC and Beastmen forces next.
• "Built" a gaming table for my home. I still don't have any good terrain though, just a few pieces of painted foam with flock (something I need to remedy next year).
• Read a whole bunch of Black Library books, both Fantasy and 40k related. Maybe next year I will find the time to add reviews of them all to the site!
  

Blog/Community

• Joined many WHFB online communities, spent countless hours answering questions, collecting and sharing information, and discussing tactics and army lists. Probably spent too much time doing this but I did make some internet "friends" along the way so I can't complain too much.
  
• Greatly increased the post amount on this blog, and gained many new readers/followers along the way. Thanks for reading, and please don't be shy with the comments!
• Joined the BoLS blog community and discovered a lot of great (new to me) sites in the process.
  
• Began moderating the Ogre Kingdoms section of the BattleReporter forum. Not super busy there but the small community is very friendly and helpful. You should check it out!
• Pitched, planned, organized, and laid out the first issue of the Bellower - the first (and only) Ogre Kingdom webzine. First issue should be out in the next few weeks! Most exciting.
  
• Became a part of the Stronghold Guard - a moderator for the Ogre Stronghold. I can honestly say I wouldn't be half the player or hobbyist I am today without the support I have received from the kick-ass community there. Looking forward to a new year of Ogre greatness!
• Started brewing my own beer, something I have had to put on hold for the past few months but will take up again once I have moved and settled back in. Lots of beer reviews sitting around too, I should find the time to add them to the blog.
  

And there you have it, the short list of my accomplishments in this year of hobby. It seems less exciting when I see it listed in bullet points, but I have still come much farther than I thought I would. Here's to another year - new challenges, new armies, new location, new (old) friends, and a new gaming community. It should be interesting.

In other totally unrelated news - take a look at the new tattoo I got the other day (and my incredibly pasty white arm).

It is a raven done in a slightly modern Haida style. The raven is your classic "trickster" god/spirit, and now he sits on my shoulder looking me in the eye. You can never tell what he is going to want me to do ...