That Was 2017.

OK. it seems obligatory in Blogland to post a look back on the fast fading year.  Who am I to argue?  Anyway, I don't want the 'blog police' to arrest me.  So what were my own personal highs and lows, hobby wise?

I started 2017 playing through the Nexus Psi campaign for Deadzone.  I leave December with two games to play (although I have scheduled at least one game in the coming week).  Perhaps unfortunately I managed with the models I had currently painted,so there has been no real impetus to add to my Enforcers.  I do have one or two odd models that I do need to finish though, and I will get some sort of AAR up on the games.
Early 2017 was quite a good time for Deadzone, and I managed to get a good selection of Rebs painted.  I intend to revisit this force with some of the Star Saga minis as a combined painting project.  I also got some terrain built and painted, and improved on the quick sponge painting technique.

The middle part of the year seems to have been dominated by terrain and minis for roleplaying.  I got a few goblins (almost) done and some of the Conan boardgame mummies as well.  Lots of floorplans and similar, and even a few home built monsters for the Dungeons and Dragons game and I even got some of the Dungeon Saga furniture painted.

I discovered Blood Eagle in my search for the perfect skirmish system.  Its very good (based on a very limited experience of playing) and I am still looking forward to getting down to playing a short saga.  Illness put paid to the regular Christmas game in the Dales this year unfortunately.

I also got the urge to do something more with Frostgrave, so got a couple of warbands built and painted, and even some ruins to provide something to fight over/on.  My plans to start a campaign have yet to get any further though.

Mantic's Vanguard kickstarter encouraged me to paint a goblin warband, some of this will also come in useful in Kings of War, though as I multibase my koW armies, not everything fits in.

Towards the end of the year I looked seriously at what I had, and began a concerted effort to thin out my collection.  This led to the rediscovery of my 15mm Empire army for WFB, and the decision to rebase them for KoW, specifically a League of Rhordia army.  As is usually the case, a simple idea ballooned out, and led to some terrain building, and thoughts of digging out Orc's Drift to run with Dragon Rampant.  I do have a reasonable League force in excess of 1000 points, so it might be time to look at an opposing force in this scale, as its always easier to introduce new players if they can play a game.  I'll look at some of my historical minis to see if they might make a Varangur force, well the lighter infantry and cavalry anyway.

Acquisitions wise, the biggie has to be Bones 3.  As I still haven't finished Bones 1 yet, thats a huge pile (or several boxes) of 'Bonsium' waiting to paint.
I also got Frostgrave; Ghost Archipelago, which I have yet to do anything with, and Star Saga, which has a better chance of seeing the painting table given that I can use many of the minis in Deadzone.  Dreadball 2 is due, so yet more painting and another game to play. And of course, the odd eBay purchase and similar means that despite a lot of old stuff going via eBay, I probably have more at the end of the year than at the beginning.

Gaming wise I had a much less successful year, at least as far as miniature gaming is concerned.  The Monday night D&D game continues and seems to have a never ending need for minis and terrain.  I also got a good Delta Green campaign in on Thursday nights, but that is currently resting to a) give me chance to recharge the mental batteries and b) give me some free time for some tabletop gaming (but non has happened so far).  The Thursday night slot will soon be filled with a D&D 5E campaign at the FLGS.  More minis and terrain and less tabletop time.  This time though I am running through the Starter Set, as most of the players are new to the game, so I already have a chunk of terrain built.
if I count up the number of tabletop games its less than ten.  I think that has to change next year, otherwise I will have to look at if I need to refocus my attention away from miniatures for a while.  if that sounds a little whiny its not meant that way.  I think a game requires at least five games in a relatively short time to get to understand the rules and decide if its worth pursuing.  Fewer and infrequent games means that the rules have to be refreshed each time (I made some serious mistakes in the only game of Kings of War I managed this year due to lack of familiarity, aka 'forgetting the rules') and skewed results in one or two games can give a false impression of a game.

A long post, and I haven't done any looking forwards yet.  I'll get a 'Looking Ahead' post done in a couple of days, meanwhile,

Happy Hogswatch.