Fingers Crossed for 2021

With the understanding that these are difficult and unpredictable times, here are my goals for 2021.

My first target is to finish a crew of Clone Troopers to go up against the various aliens I painted here. That will give me two crews to try the rules out. I've already begun them, and I'm experimenting with Citadel's Contrast paints, I'm waiting to get some Black Templar to finish them off.  I may eventually build some terrain, possibly desert planet themed, but for now my existing terrain will be fine, I've certainly got plenty of useable stuff from Deadzone.

I got Armada for Christmas, so I'll try and get a couple of ships built and painted to try out the rules. I'll probably go for something close to the colour schemes in the book. I've seen some nice effects using Contrast paints for the timbers, so I may experiment with that.

Since I've gone to all the trouble of actually painting an orc army, I should really get them based, and I have a unit of dwarf cavalry that need finishing so I can get some opposition for the orcs in my demo set. I may eventually paint the whole dwarf force anew, but for now I think I'll just raid my existing dwarf army. Whilst I'm starting the year doing very small projects with no larger goal, I'd like to get this demo set finished, I know several people who would like to borrow it.

As part of the sorting out exercise I found a box of Deadzone orcs. I'd like to replace the orcs I did here with a new and more complete team. I gave the painted ones away to encourage a friend to play Deadzone, I hope he uses them. I'll use the same colour scheme, but I'll use the techniques I used for the orc demo army (basecoat, extreme highlight and wash). Once I've got a team I'm happy with I'll see about finding the rest a new home; its a very full box, containing pretty much every Mantic Marauder model bar some of the newest ones. There are vague rumours about a revamp of Warpath, or at least of Firefight, but any playtesting has been put on hold for this year, so there won't be any need for a horde of orcs any time soon.

I'll also get some paint on the ASoIaF Wildlings and Night's Watch I built last year.  I have enough for two teams for FfoL, though as we await the fantasy version there may be some slight changes in team building.  I'd also like to look at building and painting some Riverlands troops.  It's an interesting area in the history of Westeros, being the the scene of many skirmishes during the reign of Rob, the Young King in the North, there's also the potential for action during Robert's Rebellion, as the Tully's had to quell dissent among some of their bannermen before supporting Robert.  There's also the fact that the blue and red of the Tullys looks a lot like some of the Yorkist forces in the Wars of the Roses, though I won't be playing any historical games with them.

The idea is that eventually I will have enough minis to play larger games using Dragon Rampant or even Never Mind the Billhooks.  That seems like a long term goal though.

I've also decided that between each mini project I'll grab a random Reaper Bones mini and paint it. I've boxes of part and unpainted Bones and this will go a small way towards reducing the number. It'll also give me a chance to practice finer techniques that I might not use on groups of minis, where appropriate, and I hope it will help me regain that sense of achievement from painting just for the sake of painting, rather than for a target.

I'm also going to redo some of the pictures on the blog. Whenever I have a particular mini or group of minis to hand, I'll re photograph them where possible (obviously I won't be able to redo step-by-step guides), so there isn't a plan to this. I'll post a mention along with a link, whenever I do this.

I think that's ambitious enough for the current times.  I hope I'll eventually get some face-to-face games in, which will inevitably give me a purpose to my hobby time, but when that will be, who knows?

If and when we do get some games in, I'm looking forward to trying some of the Fistful of Lead games and it would be great to finish the Eiras Contract for Star Saga, which should get me finishing the furniture.  Once we can get back to the D&D I'm sure there will be more minis and terrain to prepare. I'd like to get some games of Armada in, so I suppose I'll need to get all the ships painted. I'm telling myself that I don't need to collect any more fleets as and when they become available, though if something really great comes sailing by...

Finally, I really should get at least a 750 point Trident Realm force painted, its getting embarrassing by now.