It's over...
It's finally over...
The sun has finally set on 2020 and whilst it's definitely been one I'd like to forget for a LOT of reasons, it's certainly been a productive one for hobby.
Like many of you readers, hobby has been a lifeline for me over the course of the year. My co-bloggers have been invaluable gaming and painting companions over the year, both in person (between lockdowns) and electronically, and painting/ modelling has offered a much needed escape while the world outside turned upside down.
In this retrospective I'll go through the year, the various projects I've worked on, to celebrate some pretty big project ends. I'll then cap things off with some initial hobby ambitions for 2021
Let's start by rolling back the clock...
The year began brightly, the horror of Covid-lockdowns were still a fair way away, and we'd just welcomed a Fifth Warlord to our hobby blog.
To celebrate Tom joining the crew we decided to kick off a Tale of Five Warlords project in the Mortal Realms - a short Path to Glory Campaign.
Whilst my fellow warlords bothered themselves with the lesser factions of the Mortal Realms, I turned my attention back to the #1 - Destruction! Both the Ogor Mawtribes and the Gloomspite Gitz were on my "To Build" pile, and I just needed to decide what to build!
February
In usual "me" style I opted to paint a small force of both Gitz and Ogors, to see which worked best. After a few small games I decided the Ogors were the way to go - big and beefy boys were much more fun! Plus I had a sizable Beastclaw Ogor army desperate for some allies!!
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| Feels like a century since I painted these guys! |
March
March regrettably saw the end of out Tale of Five Warlords. A clash of competing interests meant the project kind of fizzled, as projects tend to do. I still managed to paint up a Ogor Firebelly, but he regrettably never saw combat (maybe 2021 will be his year!)
March did see me compete in my first (and last) tournament of the year - an 8th Edition event at Alpha Games. Neil wrote up a post-event review for his forces... which I neglected because I did less well. I took a combination of my Knights and AdMech from my Vigilus series, and whilst they performed admirably I still went 0-2, with a "win" thanks to a bye in the second round. I did win best painted army though! Thanks guys!
April
April was a quiet month for me, with no hobby update. The UK was in full country lockdown, and I took the time to throw myself into a few projects (and a lot of World of Warcraft).
With so much time working from home I kind of fell off with blogging for a little while too... typing at my desk felt a little too much like work!
May
Unlike April, I was back in full force in May!
My Blood of the Angels series kicked off with a huge update - 5 Space Marine Scouts, 15 Intercessors, 14 Sanguinary Guard and 5 Death Company Marines featuring in the update!
I also finished off my Necromunda Warband, the Black Roses...
... a big chunk of Stormcast Eternals backlog...
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| 10 Liberators and a few characters joined the ranks of my Stormcast in May! |
... and completed another painting guide for my Orruks. I look back on this Orruk Megaboss and still feel pretty proud!
June
June was another big month for me. Not only did I knock out the Iron Golems and Corpsewrack Mausoleum for Warcry (naively thinking I'd be gaming in 2020!), but I also dipped my toe into WW3; Team Yankee, starting my America force.
In between these two smaller projects I also managed to finish off another chunk of Blood Angels; Smash-Captain, 5 Intercessors, 5 Hellblasters, 6 Inceptors and a Primaris Ancient all joining the ranks
June also saw a number of teasers drop for Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition, and we jumped on board with a new Xenos on Crusade project.
July
July was a pretty random month for me! I continued to add to my WW3 Team Yankee force, painting a second starter set, and dipped my toe into another game system with a Marvel Crisis Protocol Unboxing (regrettably this is as far as I've made it with Crisis Protocol... thanks Lockdown!😡😡)
40K continued in earnest, with my Blood Angels receiving a slew of new Characters (including the fantastic Primaris Mephiston!)...
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| Two Captains, two Lieutenants, Apothecary, Librarian, Chaplain and Mephsiton joined the ranks of the Blood Angels this month! |
... and the first installment of my Tau series began! Oh how deluded I was back then...
August
August saw my rampant mid-year hobby pace slow a little. Lockdown was easing, and the likelihood of gaming increasing. As a result I focused on fewer projects, looking to get stuff built ready to play games with.
For WW3; Team Yankee I picked up the new US starter set and rule book, knocking out an unboxing guide for the box. Mistakes were made in the build, but I hope that added to the charm...
I also made significant gains towards my starting 50PL for the Tau, with the aspiration of getting some gaming in late August/ early September with the new Crusade rules
September
September landed... and how how it landed.
Lockdown had been eased, and backdoor gaming was back. I threw myself into this a little too hard... knocking out a starter game for Team Yankee and 9 games of Warhammer 40k 9th Edition with the Tau in the space of 3-4 weeks, including painting up additional units to try and force the Tau to work.
It destroyed me.
It's no secret the Tau SUUUUCK this edition, and compound a weak book with even weaker unit selections and an inexperienced commander... and things were always going to go badly.
It wasn't burnout... it was a dousing. I was utterly deflated with hobby and needed a break.
October
Restrictions on socialising were slowly coming back, the weather was turning wetter, and I was still miserable from a bad September.
October began with a lot of PC gaming - Vermintide 2 took a lot of my time. Emerging myself in some Warhammer video games really helped me get my enthusiasm back, and I set off to complete my Tau project; updates three and four focusing on what I'd painted in September to try and make a bad Tau army functional
November
With the apathy of September and October firmly behind me, I got back into some good habits in November.
How to Paint Tau was a short post I wrote to help me refocus on blogging.
Blood of the Angel Part 4 was a major milestone for me; the two Repulsors and the Redemptor Dreadnought representing the end of my 8th Edition Space Marine backlog!
Finally I started a new series, Genesis of a Chapter, which focused on my custom "Non-Blood Angels" Chapter - The Celestial Serpents. This was a great post to write and really helped relight my passion not only for blogging, but also for narrative writing.
December
Finally we reach the end of the year, and a relatively busy month for the blog.
Over the year I'd worked on a few "odds and ends" projects that didn't really amount to much - little pieces to alleviate burnout or to try and restart some hobby enthusiasm dugin lockdowns 1 and 2. These were captured in my first proper Bash the Backlog post all year
With the horrors of Septembers games long behind me I was also able to return to the Tau, knocking out a big chunk of extra models and finishing all my outstanding Tau models - another milestone!
I also finalised my third mini-project for the year - the Tempestus Scions kill team. A kind of "out of the blue" project, the Scions were a small piece of backlog I worked on to break myself out of a rut... and I fell in love with them. Expect more next year for sure!
I also started writing a short story for the Scions too; a bit of a vanity project to be sure but I hope it gathers some traction online. Time will tell I suppose!
The Year in Numbers
I can be quite prolific as a painter (speed and model count... not quality!), so I find it interesting checking in with how many models I've painted over the year. Again, it's a little self indulgent... but after last years monumental effort I'm definitely interested to see if lockdown sped me up or slowed me down!
To recap... last year I painted:
46 models for the Adeptus Mechanicus
8 Imperial Knights (4 Armiger class, 3 Questoris Class and 1 Dominus Class)
84 models for Grand Alliance Death
49 models for the Grey Knights, including two Rhinos, a Dreadnought and a Nemesis Dreadknight
Guilliman
29 Blood Angels (10 Primaris and 19 Firstborn)
and three Warhammer Underworlds Warbands (The Chosen Axes, Thorns of the Briar Queen and Sepulchral Guard)
for a total of 237 models
this year I've painted... well... less than that!
For the Tau:
12 XV8 Crisis Battlesuit
9 XV24 Stealth Battlesuit
1 XV88 Broadside Battlesuit
1 XV104 Riptide Battlesuit
1 XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit
1 XV86 Coldstar Commander
2 Ethereals
30 Fire Warriors
10 Pathfinders
1 TX4 Piranha
1 TY7 Devilfish
26 Drones of various types
Total - 95 models
For the Tempestus Scions:
1 Lord Commissar
2 Tempestor Prime
8 Militarum Tempestus Command Squad
15 Militarum Tempestus Scions
Total: 26 models
For Necromunda
10 Chaos Cultists
10 House Escher Gangers
Total: 20 models
For the Blood Angels:
5 Space Marine Scouts
20 Intercessors
14 Sanguinary guard
15 Death Company
1 Space Marine Captain (Slam-captain)
1 Primaris Ancient
5 Hellblasters
6 Inceptors
2 Primaris Captains
2 Primaris Lieutenants
1 Primaris Captain
1 Primaris Chaplain
1 Primaris Librarian
1 Primaris Apothecary
Mephiston, Lord of Death (Primaris)
Converted Lemartes (Jump pack Chaplain)
Sanguinary Ancient
Repulsor Executioner
Repulsor
Redemptor Dreadnought
Total: 81
For Warcry:
8 Iron Golems
6 Furies
1 Corpsewrack Mausoleum (containing 7 Buildings and 8 fence pieces)
Total: 29
For Grand Alliance Destruction:
12 Squigs (including Herders)
5 Boingrot Bounders
3 Rockgutt Troggoths
1 Loonboss on Giant Gave Squig
1 Firebelly
1 Tyrant
6 Gluttons
2 Leadbelchers
1 Orruk Warboss
Total: 32
For the Stormcast Eternals
1 Lord-Veritant
1 Knight-Azyros
1 Knight-Vexilla
10 Liberators
1 Knight-Incantor
Total: 14 models
Other miscilaneous:
1 Grey Knight Librarian
1 Primaris Lieutenant (Celestial Serpents)
1 Space Marine Legion Preator
Total: 3
Team Yankee:
3 M1A1's
2 Cobra Attack Helicopters
3 M60's
6 HMMWVs
Total: 11
Combined total: 311
That's STAGGERING! I'm genuinely blown away
300+ models is a CRAZY amount of models to knock out in a year, and may explain why I felt so burnt out at times!! But with lockdown trying to drive me insane it's been great to be able to work on something quite, with clear goals and a well defined end point.
Completing a model/ squad gave me a sense of achievement and joy during a pretty bleak year, and it's something I'm glad I had!
2021 goals
This post has gone on for a while already, so I'll be brief!
The Lament of Angels (Blood Angels) need some work to make them 9th Ed ready so I'll be looking to add some Vanguard units to them to started. Once I've got some Infiltrators/ Icursors added to the force I'll need to start playing games and looking where I'm lacking. There's some key "meta" pieces I'm missing (looking at you jump-Apothecary with relic chainsword!) which may be picked up along the way...
I've also got the contents of the Indomitus and Start Collecting: Vanguard to work though as backlog now... so watch that space!
The Tempestus Scions need some armor if I want to play them at all, so a Taurox and/ or Valkyrie will likely visit my desk soon
The Tau are a project I'm committing to, regardless of how it affects my sanity! I'm looking to pick up a new Commander or two, along with a second Riptide and Broadside battlesuit
I'm also eyeing up more AdMech... it's been a few years since I've heeded the Omnissiah's call...
Beyond 40k... I've got plenty of Team Yankee still to paint, and Crisis Protocol still to build (hellooooooo backlog!)
BUT Age of Sigmar is my biggest demon this year though, with four armies in my backlog I need to look at clearing through expect to see a lot of AoS models passing through! Who knows... with the new Morathi book dropping recently we could see some really exciting stuff by years end!
Thanks again for reading my ramblings, and I hope you all enjoyed as prolific a year as I did!
2020 is behind us, let's look forward to a brighter 2021!
Happy New Year!
Medge
That is a great tally. I also smashed a record for painting points this year, culminating in a fully finished Reaver Titan. Have a decent 2021 and good riddance to Covid sometime around summer I expect... vaccinations will take a while until we can have some sort of semblance of normality return to gaming tables.
ReplyDeleteOOOPH! A Reaver! I'm very impressed. I'm so intimidated by the Titan kits, not just from a build but also a painting perspective! Maybe one day... :-)
DeleteI'm holding out for spring - if we can get some decent weather and can mix outside again then we can at least at least some garden-gaming in. Get a BBQ and some beers and it's a real party!