Saturday 19 January 2013

2013's Hobby Resolutions

I said at the end of my last post that I'd set some new targets for 2013. The more astute amongst you will have noticed that almost two weeks have elapsed since then, but I'm claiming that this is actually a good thing, as I've been focused like a laser on getting my goblin Blood Bowl team ready for the start of the club's 2013 Blood Bowl season on the 3rd of February.

Just for you though, I've found some time to get back to blogging, so I thought I'd share with you my plans for the year.


I've decided to make these more measurable than the list for 2012 was - while it's nice to have some aspirational goals in the list, having clear objectives that I can count progress towards is going to be helpful in getting me motivated. It'll also give a handy way of providing a score card in my blog as I achieve things!

This means that I really have only one resolution for 2013: "I will stick to the list". Hopefully people will read this and complain if I wander off the list, to provide even more "motivation". Or "intimidation", as some people call it.

Without further ado, let's have a look at the list of goals then...

1) Get the Squig-fuelled Stabbers ready for the 3rd of February
Pretty simple one, this. The Squig-fuelled Stabbers are my goblin Blood Bowl team, based very loosely on one of my brother's real-life American football teams, the Sheffield Sabres.
This is a pretty good approximation of the team colours, actually

I normally get frustrated during Blood Bowl leagues that my ability to purchase new players is limited by the models I have available, so I've countered that this time by converting enough models to cover every possible combination of players on a gobbo team (not counting the star players, which I never really like using much anyway). That gives me 16 Goblins, 2 trolls, and 4 secret weapons.

2) Play a four player game of Flashbang at the club
Right, I still want to drive forward with Flashbang, a set of rules for small modern actions that I wrote myself. I have an idea for a multiplayer scenarion for this that I'd like to run at the club, so job one will be to work out what I need to get painted for that.

This is a flashbang, you see. Until it detonates. Then you can't see anything.
3) Paint a unit of my 28mm Napoleonics
These are starting to get embarrassing! I have a big stack of Napoleonic British Highlanders that I want to paint but have never worked up the energy for. I'm going to aim to get a single unit done first, so I'll decide which one and how many models that is as a first step.

Mine are unlikely to look quite like this.
4) Paint all my terrain!
I've built up a modest collection of terrain, but most of it is still unpainted (some of it not even assembled) so it's not of any use at all right now. This is the year where that changes! First job is going to be to figure out what I've got and what would be most useful to paint.

Couldn't think of a picture that suggested "unpainted terrain", so here's a photo of some giraffes.
 5) Paint enough Germans to give me two effective Flames of War forces
Or two forces that can sensibly fight each other, in fact. I've always favoured the US for Flames of War, but this means that when I do use my Germans for a game, the lack of painted support options pretty much condemns them to a loss every time. I want to turn that around so I'll work out what I need to paint to give me some options for different German forces.
At the moment, my version of this table would be a bit one-sided.

6) Sort out a force using the Nuts! book for Flames of War
I got Nuts! for Christmas, and I really want to do Easy Company (truth be told I've always thought of my US Airborne as Easy Company anyway). So, I'll work out a force from the new book, and paint up the bits that I don't have ready yet.

Nothing to do with this, of course.

I think that gives me a fair bit to go on. I'm not sure how feasible it is to get it all done in a year yet, as my painting time is much reduced now that I'm a dad and I'm supposed to be all responsible and stuff. Watch this space though, part one of following the list is to work out how many models each of these goals would take, and start keeping a tally. Public accountability, that's the way (to make sure everyone can see that I've failed...)!

5 comments:

  1. Why don't you begin your Napoleonics with the riflemen? Less fiddly than highlanders and suitable for skirmish gaming to encourage you to paint the rest.

    If you paint them as the 95th then they'll pass as the Glengarry Light Infantry and work for the War of 1812. That will encourage me to paint my Americans and Indians.

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  2. I would love to see the finished Gobos mate and good luck there

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  3. You've forgotten to mention the bolt action stuff i'm going to pester you about...

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    1. I assumed you were going to provide two forces!

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    2. You said you'd already got some! Get them painted!

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