Happy Hogswatch. Given the parallels with a Roundworld festival, its perhaps surprising that Hogswatch is at the start of January (or Ick) rather than a week earlier.
Anyway, as is traditional, it's time to set some goals hobby-wise for the coming year.
Firstly, I plan on sticking to the five box system. It's working really well for me at the moment, and I think it has both helped me to organise myself and be more productive.
That means that any new projects will have to wait until I've cleared a box of an old project. Fortunately, I've tried not to fill the boxes too full, so I can see the end of a project and work towards it, rather than there just being a huge pile of stuff to paint.
If you want to know what's in the boxes at the moment, its still pretty much as I wrote about here. The Frostgrave stuff is pretty much complete though, so that looks like its going to be the first empty box. I've already got plans for it, my Trident Realm of Neritica. Rather than throw everything in the box (see above) I have worked out a 500 point force to begin with, and I am looking at a Vanguard warband too, so I can practice paint schemes on the individual models.
My Vanguard box has the beginnings of three more warbands (undead, dwarves and goblins) as well as three orcs to finish off. This is too much really, my excuse is that the box was a convenient place to stick stuff in the pre Christmas tidy up. I do want to do some terrain for the game though, probably starting with objectives since I didn't get the ones with the Kickstarter.
I aim to get more dungeon tiles done, and possibly a better version of the cave tiles I made recently. This is intended to go alongside my new 5th Edition D&D campaign, as we have nearly finished the current one (Lost Mine of Phandelver). I think I have enough tiles to start with, but I'll build some special tiles and keep on making furnishings as well as painting Terrain Crate. I'll probably need more monsters for the game as well, so probably more Bones painting.
I have a couple of small demo armies for KoW, Dwarves and Undead, that don't quite make 500 points. A few additions (17 minis total) will make these nicely playable. I'd like to have a box that can be handed to interested people that contains the two armies, a rulebook and perhaps even scenery. It's not a top priority project, but I would like to have something to help spread the word about KoW.
Given the focus in Clash of Kings 2019 on siege games, I suppose I'd better get a castle built as well. I have a toy one that should easily convert, but again, I think this is a long term project.
As with last year, I'll state that I'd like to get the minis for Dungeon Saga and Star Saga painted. The later particularly as some of the new ones will fit in really well with my Deadzone Rebs. A Dreadball team or two would be nice too, it's not as if I'm short of teams to paint.
I'll try and keep up with the one table top game a month. I'm pleased with last year's efforts, but it would be great if I could get even more games in.
The end of the Monday night D&D game will help; I doubt we will be doing a table top game every week, but we will probably intersperse much shorter series of RPGs (Call of Cthulhu first I think) with tabletop games. Vanguard will be featuring quite heavily at first I'm sure. I'd better get the last three orcs done, and perhaps move onto the Trident Realm pretty quickly.
I'm also hoping to be a bit more up to speed with this blog. I'm aware that there are quite a few projects that I've finished that haven't been showcased on here, such as my 15mm Greeks and the dungeon tiles. I'll try and get these covered in the next few weeks.
And on the subject of blogs and similar, I am starting a Facebook group to help people keep track of new army/warband/striketeam etc projects. The idea is that we can all encourage each other and show off what we have done. You can find it here.
A few final words about RPG. This blog is intended to be mostly a crafting and painting blog, though the gaming obviously informs what I make and paint. I currently only have a 5E campaign going, and that is close to its end now. I have some Call of Cthulhu planned for a few weeks play, but the Monday night group might revert to table top games. I have wondered about trying a series of different games, perhaps using various starter or quickstart rulesets. I don't generally like new things, but I do sometimes succumb to temptation, especially if there is some sort of nostalgic connection. A roundabout way of saying I just got the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition starter set. It looks very good, but I suspect I will read it rather than run it.
Anyway, as is traditional, it's time to set some goals hobby-wise for the coming year.
Firstly, I plan on sticking to the five box system. It's working really well for me at the moment, and I think it has both helped me to organise myself and be more productive.
That means that any new projects will have to wait until I've cleared a box of an old project. Fortunately, I've tried not to fill the boxes too full, so I can see the end of a project and work towards it, rather than there just being a huge pile of stuff to paint.
If you want to know what's in the boxes at the moment, its still pretty much as I wrote about here. The Frostgrave stuff is pretty much complete though, so that looks like its going to be the first empty box. I've already got plans for it, my Trident Realm of Neritica. Rather than throw everything in the box (see above) I have worked out a 500 point force to begin with, and I am looking at a Vanguard warband too, so I can practice paint schemes on the individual models.
My Vanguard box has the beginnings of three more warbands (undead, dwarves and goblins) as well as three orcs to finish off. This is too much really, my excuse is that the box was a convenient place to stick stuff in the pre Christmas tidy up. I do want to do some terrain for the game though, probably starting with objectives since I didn't get the ones with the Kickstarter.
I aim to get more dungeon tiles done, and possibly a better version of the cave tiles I made recently. This is intended to go alongside my new 5th Edition D&D campaign, as we have nearly finished the current one (Lost Mine of Phandelver). I think I have enough tiles to start with, but I'll build some special tiles and keep on making furnishings as well as painting Terrain Crate. I'll probably need more monsters for the game as well, so probably more Bones painting.
I have a couple of small demo armies for KoW, Dwarves and Undead, that don't quite make 500 points. A few additions (17 minis total) will make these nicely playable. I'd like to have a box that can be handed to interested people that contains the two armies, a rulebook and perhaps even scenery. It's not a top priority project, but I would like to have something to help spread the word about KoW.
Given the focus in Clash of Kings 2019 on siege games, I suppose I'd better get a castle built as well. I have a toy one that should easily convert, but again, I think this is a long term project.
As with last year, I'll state that I'd like to get the minis for Dungeon Saga and Star Saga painted. The later particularly as some of the new ones will fit in really well with my Deadzone Rebs. A Dreadball team or two would be nice too, it's not as if I'm short of teams to paint.
I'll try and keep up with the one table top game a month. I'm pleased with last year's efforts, but it would be great if I could get even more games in.
The end of the Monday night D&D game will help; I doubt we will be doing a table top game every week, but we will probably intersperse much shorter series of RPGs (Call of Cthulhu first I think) with tabletop games. Vanguard will be featuring quite heavily at first I'm sure. I'd better get the last three orcs done, and perhaps move onto the Trident Realm pretty quickly.
I'm also hoping to be a bit more up to speed with this blog. I'm aware that there are quite a few projects that I've finished that haven't been showcased on here, such as my 15mm Greeks and the dungeon tiles. I'll try and get these covered in the next few weeks.
And on the subject of blogs and similar, I am starting a Facebook group to help people keep track of new army/warband/striketeam etc projects. The idea is that we can all encourage each other and show off what we have done. You can find it here.
A few final words about RPG. This blog is intended to be mostly a crafting and painting blog, though the gaming obviously informs what I make and paint. I currently only have a 5E campaign going, and that is close to its end now. I have some Call of Cthulhu planned for a few weeks play, but the Monday night group might revert to table top games. I have wondered about trying a series of different games, perhaps using various starter or quickstart rulesets. I don't generally like new things, but I do sometimes succumb to temptation, especially if there is some sort of nostalgic connection. A roundabout way of saying I just got the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition starter set. It looks very good, but I suspect I will read it rather than run it.
I am looking forward to seeing what you do with your Trident Realm figures. You now have me trying to use the 5 box system-but I keep changing my mind about what should be in the 5 boxes!
ReplyDeleteAh, that's the secret to the five box system. You pick the projects and stick with them, but choose sufficiently small projects that you can empty a box quickly if you want to move on to something new. I chose my boxes by thinking about what I enjoyed painting and what I wanted to get done to use (or needed for D&D). Some of my boxes might be quite full (and get regularly topped up), but I have others with very small projects in. One box is just for trying out things or urgently needed stuff.
Delete