2021 in Review or Where it All Went Sideways

It is that time of year when we look back on what happened as we swung around the local star. And I think the very best that can be said of my own hobbying was that it was a mixed bag. Gaming is a fairly social activity and I am a rather extroverted person, so the ongoing plague isolation did me no favors. And the fitful and at times perhaps foolhardy reopening of things meant I had to remember how to do those non-hobby endeavors too all of a sudden.

2021 got off to such a decent enough start, miniatures wise, but went sideways fast and heavy  and I never really quite got it back on track. I might have actually played more games than usual, but the modeling output was a record low. And I documented it unusually poorly. I managed to paint a handful of spacecraft early in the year and a few characters late. In the middle I got starts on a few other things, but they're not finished so we'll put them on 2022. First, here's the new toys:

1-4 were three Tartarus Rim cruisers and a merchant liner.

5-7 were pointy Terran Galleons.

8 was a mining survey ship.

9 was a big honking Tartarn battleship with balls.

10 and 11 were two kids who can hopefully stay mostly out of harm's way. . .

And 12 was a Kev Adams zombie compliments of Brian Kirkell of Upstream Games House.

And that's it. That's my year in miniatures. Wow was that a bummer of a year. I think that goes down as my most measly output in a decade. 

Add to that a whole three posts, one of which was a review of the previous year. But I did say more dice were rolled than usual, even if I didn't write about it. We started with several games of Full Thrust testing a home-built adaptation to GW's Space Fleet.

Midyear I managed to get out of my house and game with some fine folks a few hours away. Played unfamiliar games with other people's toys and the whole nine yards.

In the fall I played mostly pickup games of Pulp Alley with friends:

At the end, I even ran a little birthday party micro-convention of my own:

We might also have played a few games with the folks below. Obviously, this isn't a picture of one of them, just of the toys. But we did use them. :)

Honestly, in terms of rolling dice that wasn't too bad for me. Not perfect, but not bad. And as the old year fades in the rear view mirror I'm wrapping up the annual Oldhammer Forums miniature raffle. I think the gang is all here. Once I'm sure of that we'll pull a name out of the hat and send them to their lucky new owner. Which is always a good start to a new year. Someone gets an extra Christmas in January. :D

Happy new year, everyone! Here's to a more adventurous, but less dangerous and difficult 2022. Let's turn the difficulty setting back to casual and just have some fun! ;-)

Sincerely,

The Composer

2020 In Review

2020 has been . . . 2020. And may there never be another year quite like it. But in spite of all that (and I do mean in spite) I at least got a few things painted. Not so many as I might have in a normal year, but I am making no apologies for 2020.

So here's the rundown beginning with 28mm vehicles:

1: The Half Jimmy

2: The Eldar Skimmer

2020 was in many ways the year of the farm animal on Moab 2. I painted up lots of 'em. (Probably more than anything else, save possibly scatter terrain. More on that later.)

1-6: Noiffen

7 and 8: "Babe" Blue Oxen

9-11: Terror Birds

12: Mr. Donkey

13-20: Pigs in Space

21-23: Also goats in Space

I did also get some people painted. Not tons, but enough.

1-4: The Duchess of Pain Court and her Boudoir Noire.

5: The Pieman

6: The Ringmaster

7-9: The Sushi seller, the pilot, and the honeymooners.

10: A Goat with a Gun

(I'll leave you the little preview of 2021 as a teaser for what comes next.)

To this we can add a fair bit of scatter terrain, including the pizza kitchen seen with the pieman above, the carnival barkers platform, and . . .

Ore bins, hazmat casks, 50 gallon drums, wheels, road cases, beer kegs (all local brews) and even a few wine casks. (I should really post about that. Meant to. Got distracted by plague.) All manner of loads and a couple of shipping pallets
(not pictured) to hold them.

Last but not least I painted a whole new collection of spaceships, many of which have not as yet appeared elsewhere on the blog. And while these have o-fee-shul GW names I'm ignoring that in favor of fun:

1-8: Space Swords (which are not cancelled)

9: Space Galleon With Fun Gun

10-11: Space Galleons with Pokers

12-13: Poncy Elven Sailboats in Space

Like nearly all great empires Games Workshop got their navy started with ships designed by and purchased from foreign builders. And since these would be those I'm going to utterly ignore what GW thinks these things are and make it up myself. After all, that's what the Caster of Nottingham did before me!

14-20: Space Destroyers and Space Cruisers with Balls!

(Ignore the home-build. Though maybe if I add balls . . . )

21: Space Battleship with Balls

22: Big Honking Freighter with More and Bigger Balls

It really was not a banner year. Adequate, but only because the first six months punched above their weight output-wise. But then . . . 2020. Oh boy! Will that ever mean the same thing again? Hindsight is surviving 2020 and looking back and saying "Nya nya! I'm out, you sneaky plague rat!" 2020.

But the tally:

2 vehicles

23 heads of space livestock

10 people (It started so well!)

22 spaceships. (Might actually have been 23. I think there was a little atmospheric shuttle lost in there.)

A lot of scatter terrain. (Not going to count. It was all pretty quick. Though putting local brew labels ont things did take a little work. And I created my own space label logo. Maybe that'll come up when I do the scatter terrain catchup post.)

It's not terrible. But not what I'd been hoping for. As to 2021? I make no promises. Let's survive what I hope is the tail end of the plague, find our mojo, and move forward.

Congratulations living through all of this. May none of us ever again live in such interesting times. ;-)

Sincerely,

The Composer