The 2014 Round Up

Cot blimey guv'nor! What a year it has been. What with all those pirates, spaceships, Russian cavalry, Korean monks, Mongols, gangsters (and the cops and G-Men taking bribes them on).

Even though the year was disrupted by a return of my fatigue during the summer (bleedin' building works!), I was still quite productive overall. I think my favourite bit of painting this year was the 1920s Jazz Band from Eureka.

So, various bits of round up to do:

4th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

I placed 8th overall with a quite impressive tally of 1959 points. There was a wide range of submissions, including a few points bombs, You can see everything in this post-Challenge post.


At the beginning of the year, I had set myself various goals, so let's see how I did:

Painting
1. Place well in this year's Challenge
8th is good enough for me!
2. Finish my Buccaneer army by my birthday and get several games of FoG:R in with it
ermmmm, yes, well...
3. Get my 6mm ACW armies painted up and play some games with them
The less said, the better
4. Get my NSL fleet painted by my birthday and my Japanese fleet painted by the end of June
Success! Well, partial success. The NSL got painted during the Challenge (although I have since purchased even more NSL ships...gulp!), but the Japanese are still languishing in a drawer.
5. Finish painting my Sarmatians and Scythians
*cough*
6. Get a decent bunch of my 15mm SciFi stuff painted
errmm, yes. I do remember that goal. Oh, hang on a sec - I did paint some - the aliens and the loader!

In my defense, I did manage to paint up quite a lot of stuff that wasn't on the above list.

Gaming
1. Try to average at least one gaming session per week
Yup. Didn't manage that.
2. Avoid tournaments this year
Total success! Yay, me!
3. Get the following armies on the table as many times as possible - buccaneers, Koreans, Swiss, Sarmatians, 30YW
Well, the Koreans, Swiss and Sarmatians have all had games. I think my 30YW bos did get a run-out or two.
4. Play lots of Full Thrust
Played a few games of Full Thrust
6. Play several games of Saga
Played a couple of games
7. Play a few games of Polemos ACW when my 6mm armies are ready
I've got a good excuse here - the armies weren't finished, so I couldn't play any Polemos with them!
8. Organise a multi-player 30YW FoG:R game for a bank holiday weekend
Didn't happen

Shows
Attend the following - Salute, Broadside, Colours, SELWG
I was stymied by Colours not happening. I did attend the other three.

Spending
I've already made a small start to this year's spending - some figures and parts I need for my Challenge entry fee. I couldn't find the exact figure I wanted, so I'll have to do some conversion work.

As my plan for this year is to concentrate on painting stuff I already have, I shouldn't be purchasing any new figures. Well, apart from whatever I buy using my 20% discount voucher for GZG. And bits I see at shows, But definitely no new projects. No, sirree. Just bits to expand or complete existing projects.Or bits to provide opposition forces. Oh, look - shinies! Must buy, must buy!

I did spend rather a lot this year. I hate to think what the gangster project has cost so far. Just the Seven Years War Russians. Oh, and spaceships. Lots of spaceships. And War of the Roses. Not forgetting 15mm SciFi. And more spaceships! and mustn't forget all the little extra purchases to fill out existing armies, like the Koreans.

Blogging
I'm hoping to post more frequently this year than I did in 2013. I'll aim for at least 4 posts per week.
Didn't manage that one either.


Statistics

Blogging (2013/2012 stats in parenthesis)

Posts:                     137 (169/300)
Comments:            1879 (2903/2441)
Page Views:          117k (125k/53k)
New Followers:    57 (168/301)

Getting hit with a bout of fatigue certainly had an effect on my blogging and on the related stats (comments and page views). I think in terms of new followers, I didn't expect to get even that many as I reckon I've found most of the audience who would be interested in my ramblings already.

Gaming

Again, my fatigue took it's toll and I haven't done as much gaming as previously.

Painting (2013/2012 in parenthesis)

15mm Mounted       86 (220/414)
15mm Foot              464*(851/407)
15mm Artillery        20 (8/6) - includes limbers
15mm Elephants      0 (2/0)
15mm Horses          16 (0/76)
15mm Vehicles:      1 (0/0)
28mm Mounted       0 (18/0)
28mm Foot              68 (122**/46)

Challenge Painting Points:  1774 (3452/2862)

* I've scored the Alien queen and king as being 28mm foot as they are so big
** The two ogres are scored as each being equivalent to 3x28mm figures

So, how come my Challenge Painting Points are down so much? Well, the fatigue stopped me painting for a few months, but the total doesn't include all the spaceships I've painted.

You can see a list of everything I've painted on my 2014 Painting page.


That's it for now folks. I might do another post later on to update you on my WIPs, but in case I don't

***Wishing you the very best for 2015. May your dice roll high (or low - depends on what game you're playing!), may your painting be excellent and may you receive (or buy) an abundance of shinies ***