Hello,
Boy has it been a year.
I'll be honest, when I originally started this blog it was called Monday Night Gaming. That was the night our boardgame group met. The same boardgame group I would try desperately to convert into a War Game group. That never took quite right but over time that group grew and changed and adapted. It would eventually become the group that met at the Hobby Shop I worked at and it would eventually more or less come to a screeching halt with Covid. Now having moved close to 40 minutes further, changed careers and started a family, I find myself missing the regular club nights quite a bit. I still find myself buying and painting and planning but the follow thru (which to be honest was never really all there) is now even sparser. This will not be an exciting post (fewer and further between now) but its a post I'd like to take the time to write. Lets talk about my relationship to the hobby and board games.
I've always loved table top games. The tactile feel, the dice chucking, the camaraderie. What I don't love is having mountains of figures and terrain to store, set up, transport. I've been an avid boardgamer since I discovered that board games weren't just Monopoly back in 2011. Board Games can be a lot of things, and don't be surprised if I talk about them more on this blog for reasons that hopefully make sense as this post drones on. Board games can be quick to set up, quick to play, self contained. My wife likes board games, though she'll occasionally humor me with a wargame (and has been bugging me to get Shatterpoint and MCP back on the table)
I've found great joy in a lot of these games. Origins game fair, (our second trip was a month ago) reminds me of my first trip to Fall-in. Coming home with 30 to 40 new board games and actually playing them all before the summer ends is not something you can do with Wargames. I'd be luck to paint a warband for a game before summer is over most years. I've become smitten with big experience boardgames like John Company or Arcs. I've delighted in solo games like For Northwood, Kinfire Delve, or Resist. Boardgames are just frankly so much more accessible and that means the world for getting them to the table.
I had all but taken my hands out of the wargame pot though I'd still buy the odd kit here and there mostly for games like MCP. I balk at the cost of some of these now thinking things like "thats a whole game" for the price of one box of figures. There are a few things I've committed to though. I bought some Wargames Atlantic knights for barons war, which in turn caused me to dig all of my First Crusades project out and actually paint some Saracens.
I found myself looking at the pre-order for two major GW releases though. First was AOS4. I looked at the beautiful skaven models, thought hard about how I never painted my Dominion Stormcast. I had wanted to convert them a bit, make them more low fantasy, and just had never actually taken cutter to sprue. I said to myself "eh, as much as AOS has been one of the only games I've played regularly, I dont really need this" I promptly opened my Dominion box and started assembling models I already had. In about a week I've built and painted most of the Spearhead force for Stormcast. Opting for a super simple scheme to plow through them quickly.
I found myself looking at the new Hive Secundus box for Necromunda as well. I ended up looking at that and thinking, it doesn't really fit on my "schedule" of goals. I opted to take a harder look at Mordheim. A game myself and a few of the gamers I still regularly talk to have been eyeing like hawks. I dug through my stls and found some files to print. More or less all stuff I already owned.
A lot of this hobby spending year has been pushed hard on to board games. Big experience games like John Co, or Wonderlands War. A lot of my hobby spending has been on Kickstarters. Mostly board games but I did cave on the Song of Ice and Fire Tactics campaign. Time spent looking in hobby shops has resulted in going home to start on projects already purchased. The allure of the collection is still there but it's been a huge motivator to dig out a pile of kits I've already spent the money on and revisit them as though it were brand new.
A decade spent working in a hobby shop changes your perspective on buying. Kits are purchased on launch to avoid them not being available when you want them. Stuff never expires but it does go out of print. I definitely consider myself privileged in that regard. As I find it harder and harder to find places to store these things though, it has really caused me to look at what I purchase now, or save for later. As I've moved out of the hobby as a career its caused me to reassess what I "need" vs "want" at a very different pace
I've talked about it before but I hate taking photos, its most of what slows this blog to a crawl. The follow thru, sure but the photos are what stop the starting. I find myself in a bit of a hobby renaissance again where I'm painting regularly and excited about figures again. Coming soon (or maybe never depending) I'll post another update to the goals but you can also look forward to
Baron's War Outremer and the First Crusades
Age of Sigmar Spearhead and slow grow
Mordheim
Some Boardgame Coverage
You can also look forward to continued poor impulse control. Some habits never die. Since drafting this original post (1 month ago) I ended up getting the AOS4 box as well as the Hive Secundus box. I've also sadly bought into the Wargames Atlantic 10mm samurai range (under the age old "but i only need one box" lie)
I do want to continue to use this blog for me but I definitely recognize that without pretty pictures my musings are a little dry. I just want stuff to show you and I promise it is coming. As a life update we're now less than a month off from our first child so we will see how that goes when it comes to hobby.
Thanks as always
