The end of the year show

With 2017 coming to an end, it's time to think about how my hobby year has gone and whether I managed to achieve my overambitious goals for the year.

But first, I've got one more painted model to show for the year...

Woo! purple shooty thing again!

It's yet another Shaltari model! I can't really picture anyone caring too much, but this is a second Jaguar warstrider. I've had a single Jaguar for a while and it's probably the only Dropzone unit I have that doesn't consistently explode. That's not a high bar to clear, but I'll take success where I can find it, so I've added a second one. Presumably this will encourage my opponents to find effective counters to these, meaning that they can explode regularly too. So that's something to look forward to.

Anyway, returning briefly to the point. My goals for the year were to paint more models than I gained, and to avoid starting any new projects that needed me to buy new stuff.

Looking back over the year I can see that I've painted:

Lots of Dropfleet Commander Shaltari spaceships
Not so many Dropzone Commander Shaltari ground units
Some 6mm American Civil War units and terrain
Some modern frogmen, which have yet to reach a table anywhere
A selection of Terminator Genisys machines and resistance, also yet to see a table
A handful of zombies and survivors (ditto)
A post-apocalyptic caravan outpost thing (ditto again)
Some Bolt Action Germans (ditto once more).

That's a lot of text, so here's the caravan again.

This all amounts to 182 painted models. That doesn't sound too shabby, although some of the models would almost pass through the eye of a needle.

However, I also bought, and was given... too much stuff to go through again here.

I will say that I stuck to the goal of not buying anything to start a new project... but then I didn't need to given the diverse array of projects I already had.

It's particularly telling that my two biggest bouts of "getting new stuff" (spending a warlord voucher I got at Christmas and my first ever trip to Salute) netted me something like 70 models... none of which have been painted since.

I've also been given another 19 models today, what with secret Santa and the usual generosity of Kieron coming into play.

Totalling everything up, I've acquired 181 models over the course of the year. This also includes the Ainsty castings school bus thing that I've wanted for ages and got for Christmas.

So, if I compare the models I've acquired to the number I've painted, I get this:

Painted: 182
Acquired: 181

I've done it! However, it's by the smallest margin possible. This doesn't really tie in brilliantly with my bold statements a year ago about "making a worthwhile dent in the lead mountain".

A Shaltari ship, for more texty-breaky-uppy help

I'm going to take another crack at it though. I do find the large pile of unpainted stuff that I have lying around... annoying, more than anything. It all represents ideas that I've been really keen on at one point or another, but have then never managed to turn into anything real. Bah.

So here we go. Once again, my goal for the new year is to paint more models than I get, so that the pile of unpainted stuff gets smaller instead of bigger.

I've got a bit of a better chance this year because:

A) I've spent this year's traditional Christmas voucher from the mother-in-law already, and I've gone for 5 models that I think I'll actually paint, rather than 57 models from all over the place like I did last time.
B) I don't have a huge Kickstarter pledge on the way to dump loads of extra stuff on the heap again.

Right, that's lots of words and now I'm bored. I might post something soon about some of the projects I'm planning to go at soon... but then again I might not. So there.

Happy New Year everyone!