Happy New Year 2014 & 2013 Highlights

Happy New Year everybody!

As is tradition at this time of year lets start with looking back at those pesky resolutions I set this time last year and see how I did.

1.  Finish the damned high elf unit

Oh so close, 20 out of 25 painted and the last 5 75% done, that's very nearly a completed high elf army, which should be featuring on this blog soon.


2.  Paint all the models from my Hobbit boxed set.

Yep, all completed some time ago, a great set with a lot of great models.


3.  Paint all the models from the dreadball kickstarter and actually play a bunch of games.

Only around half painted, but we have played quite a bit.


4.  Don't buy any models between new year and easter (clearly silly, but another attempt to reduce the queue).

Not even close!


So this years resolutions:

Actually I'm not setting any for next year, it looks like it's going to be a complicated year and I'm not sure how it's going to pan out.  I would like to see all the deadzone stuff painted though, but we will see.


For a bit of a change I am instituting an awards ceremony for my blog, alas no prizes or statuettes for anyone, it's  just a bit of fun.  This is going to mainly look at my collection and gaming over the last year.

Favorite Project finished in the last 12 months.

Without doubt painting all the models from the Hobbit: escape from goblin town boxed set.  Great book, great film, great models.

Most Popular Post

The post written this year that generated the most interest was by far this look at my Imperial collection for star wars miniatures.  This was a bit of a surprise for me as star wars miniatures is a dead game, but the force is obviously still strong with this one (sorry!).

 

 

 Best Wargame

A tricky on this, the game I've played most of this year has been 40K, but whilst we've had some good games it's not really generated any true excitement.  The winner is deadzone, which even though recently arrived has got my gaming group excited about a game in a way I've not seen in ages.  We've a lot more to explore with this and I'm really looking forward to it.

 

 

Best Card/Board Game

 

Another close one, with dreadball nearly making it a double for Mantic games, but actually I'm giving the award to this little dinosaur fighting card game that I love.

 

 

 

Favourite new miniatures

 

The toughest and ultimately most important category.  And the winner is this Victorian adventurers and explorers from wargames foundry.  I never quite got around to finishing off the rules for the dinosaur hunting project I had planned, but these are fantastic miniatures nonetheless.

Best Trip

As always I've been out and about to many places this year including a few, like Pembroke and Pendennis castle, that I never quite got around to writing about.  The best day trip this year was undoubtedly to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford.  There is just so much awesome stuff there and it completely filled a day.

 

Best Wargames Company 

 

And finally what was my favourite company of the year?  Well despite some great stuff coming out of GW, like the Hobbit minis, and the new Space Marine codex, plus all the new expanded digital offerings ultimately the prices mean I've had to go elsewhere for a lot of my hobby fix, as great as most GW products are, I don't think a lot of them have value for money (for me anyway).  

 

The winner is therefore predictably Mantic games, the minis aren't as good as GWs, but for the value for money is much much higher.  Dreadball and Deadzone are both fantastic games and Kickstarters are great entertainment.  Then you have things like the crazy Christmas box.  Overall mantic are just more fun.

 

That's all folks, thanks for reading, and feel free to disagree in the comments!