Monday, January 6, 2014

Finally a free day: 2013 in Review


Wow the start of 2014 has been rough. I have been drunk, sick, working, sick, working, visiting family, sick, and out of town. All in the first 6 days of 2014.  But that is not important now, lets do a Year in Review for 2013.

At the start of 2013 I set up 10 goals (some with multiple parts and added a 11th which was my Total Painted Model count for the year) for myself to try to complete.  They were ambitious and while I did not complete all of them, they did push me much harder hobby wise this year than I have been in a while, and also allowed me to complete several armies  

Lets look at those 10 (11) goals one at a time and see how I did: (Green is complete, Yellow is incomplete but satisfactory, Red is a fail, and Blue is sold/incomplete-able)


1. Play no more the 3 faction for Dust Warfare, finish painting armies of at least 300 AP each for all 3, and play 10 games with each:
  • SSU - 594/300 AP Painted, 8/10 Games Played
  • Axis - 0/300 AP Painted, 1/10 Games Played
  • Allies - SOLD
I feel pretty happy how I left things off with this goal.  I did not completely finish off any of the individual army goals, but I did manage to paint well over my desired goal of models for the SSU which ended up nearly doubling my goal actually.  While the army is not finished completely I am happy with this army and plan to keep adding to it as I have time in 2014.  Here is an army pick with most of the current finished minis:


As far as the Axis stuff goes, I am deciding what I want to do with the army.  It need a few things added to it to make it competitive again, I may try to tackle it later this year.

2. Finish 2000pts of one of the 40k armies I already have, and play 5 games with it

This goal was a big fail for me.  If that wasn't enough, I Purged most of my 40K collection this year ending up with only some unpainted Chaos Space Marine models (my Chaos codex was destroyed by a water leak to, I keep hoping it become available of Android, to no avail) and some random partially painted space marine stuff (parted ways with my Blood Angels, Howling Griffons, and my 30K Death Guard on 2013). 

I did however manage to paint up a 2500pt Chaos Warriors army for WFB and get in several games with them, so I did not turn my back on GW completely this year. Here is a pic of the Chaos Warriors army I finished up:


3. Paint 100pts of Warmachine/Hordes plus at least 6 Warcasters/Warlocks, and play 20 games
  • 172/100pts Painted
  • 6/6 Warcasters/Warlocks Painted
  • 61/20 Games Played
  • Commission: 70pts Painted, 1 Warcaster/Warlocks Painted
Goal 3 was a big success for me this year, probably my Biggest of the year after #9. I managed to paint up almost double my 100 point goal and meet my Warcaster/Warlock painting goal too.  I ended up painting up most of my gigantic Khador army, part of a Circle army before trading it away, and did some beginning work on my Retibution of Scyrah army. Here are some pics:




I also managed to more then triple my goal of 20 games played this year with 61 total.  This is the most active I have been in Warmachine in a while and it was great to get to play so many games. If that wasn't enough of an achievement, I also managed to paint up 70pts of Warmachine/Hordes minis on Commission this year and a Warlock too. Here is a sample:


4. Paint 2000pts of Early War Germans and play 4 games

In 2012 I purged most of my FoW collection because I wasn't playing the game.  I kept my Germans because I figure if I was going to get back into the game it would be with them.  In 2013 I decide to not get back into the game, and sold off all  3 of my German Armies.

5. Paint 2500pts 28mm Saxon Army for War & Conquest, and play 5 games with it
  • 628/2500pts Painted
  • 0/5 Games Played
I managed to start the year of strong on this project, painting up the 628pts of models that I did to use in the game Saga.  But after that I got distracted by WFB and commission projects.  I still have the army as I enjoy the War & Conquest and WAB rules set it is intended to be played in, but this army may get sold this spring in favor of a new Historical minis project I will be tackling.

6. Paint 2 Relic Knights Demo armies and play 20 games

Unfortunately I was not able to complete this goal as the models I ordered from the Relic Knights Kick Starter are still delayed and were not shipped to us in 2013. Sux, I was looking forward to this goal.

7. Paint and play no more the 4 new games I do not play now
  • Pride of Lions, 15mm Fantasy - 100 Years War British - SOLD
  • 28mm American Civil War, Leaning towards Black Powder or modified War & Conquest: Napoleonics for the Rule Set.
  • "In Her Majesty's Name", 28mm Victorian Steam Punk. US Marines.
  • Star Trek Attack Wing
I managed to keep things down to 4 new games this year, so I am going to call this a success.  However the only one I really ever did anything with was Star Trek Attack Wing! which I managed to participate in two tournaments for this fall.  I also painted up several ships and I am looking forward to playing more of it this spring.  

The Civil War project is still one I want to tackle at some point, though I doubt I will get to it anytime soon.  "In Her Majesty's Name" is sitting in painting limbo right now, may or may not get to it this year.  Pride of Lions was the unfortunate one for me.  I picked up my army right as everyone else because sick with the game and stopped playing it.

8. Participate in 5 Tournaments or Painting Contests
  • Dust Warfare Tournament 1/19 - Played SSU, 0-2-2, Placed 7 out of 8 Players
  • Dust Warfare Regional Tournament 4/6 - Played SSU, 1-1-1, Placed 4 out of 8 Players
  • Gargantuan Release Event (Warmachine/Hordes) 5/4 - Played Khador, Earned 14 Game Points
  • Bolt Action 1000pt Tourament 5/25 - Played Germans. Went 1-0-2 placing me in 3rd of 6 players with the guy above me having the same record but killing more total squads.
  • Warnachine/ Hordes Tournament 6/1 - Played Khador, 2-2-0, Ended up mid field. Got wiped out twice, wiped a guy out, and had one close... down to the wire game.
I completed this goal pretty early in the year, by June, and actually played in around 10 total Tournaments in 2013 for a variety of games.  I enjoy tournament play, but by the beginning of November was pretty burned out on it and not enjoying myself at all.  So I took a break from tournaments, focused on painting, and played some less series games of Bolt Action in an escalation league to finish out the year.

9. Continue reducing the size of my collection by Selling, Trading, and giving away more models
  • Around 4000 models sold or traded in 2013
This one was a huge success.  2013 saw my collection thinned down by half or so (though I did build several new armies for a number of games too)  I got out of a lot of games last year, parting with multiple models that I have not use in 2 years or more.  I am probably going to continue to thin my collection down in 2014 as I have a big move and change in priorities coming mid year, more on that in another post.

10. Post 52 blog posts on my personal blog
  • 22/52 Blog Post
This was a big fail for me though until a few minutes ago I was happy with how I did.  In looking at 2012, it turns out I was more active then I thought with 34 blog posts spread out over 2 Blogs.  Definitely a goal I need to work on in 2014.  The best way to improve this number I think is that when posting picks of painted models on the one or two painting forums I read, I need to post them here on my blog too. I will work on it.

11. Total Models Painted in 2013 = 931

The big winner for me though not part of my original 10 goals Between personal projects and commission projects I managed to paint 931 models over the course of the year.  That is pretty good.  From 12 in 2011, to and undisclosed but productive 2012, to 931 models in 2013 is a good trend. While I doubt I will get even close to as many models done in 2014, I am going to try to shoot for 500 models completed, probably with the majority of them in the first few months. I hope I can manage it.

That is it for now, I will leave you with some additional pics of minis from 2013. Next up, my goals for 2014. 

SSU Attack Helicopter "Burner"

Nurgle WFB Chaos Warriors Chariot

Russian Bolt Action Army


IG Manticores (Commission)


German Bolt Action Army (about half what I have painted now)

Khador Widowmakers and Widowmaker Solo

US Paras for Bolt Action (Painted on Commission, Army totaled over 100 models plus vehicles)

US Tank

Scottish Universal Carriers (2), Wasp, and Mortar Carrier for Bolt Acton (Commission)

British Tanks (Commission)

No comments:

Post a Comment