Ruminatin'

Hi all,

With the new year fast approaching, it's time for one of my traditional "dear God, where has the last year gone?" posts.  I was just looking over my comments from this time last year, and it seems I was reasonably prescient.  The Quest for Work did indeed involve a fair bit of upheaval, in that we ended up moving half way across the country.  While there's still no word about whether this will last longer than the year's contract for which I was hired, we're making the most of the time that we're out here, especially in terms of spending time with the Cub.

Not to scale.  Quite.

As we slowly dig out from Christmas, I've had a chance to assess my "loot" for the year.  Against usual practise, I actually got some models this year (albeit with a bit of guidance), in the form of an Ork codex, some orky aircraft and several Deffkoptas.  I'm particularly partial to the orky air force (and have become rather fond of Deff Skwadron), so I'm looking forward to painting those up.  Books were absent this year, but I did get a rather nice collection of the first (and only) season of the Dresden files.  I'm a rabid fan of the books, but the series seems to have died a-borning, I think in part because it was rather divergent from the aforementioned books, which alienated the fan base.  I'm taking a leaf from the Beloved, who's a fan of both the Sookie Stackhouse books and series, and approaching the TV show on its own terms.  So far, it's been quite fun

You are now flying Ork air.  You poor bugger, you.

Of the list of geeky projects I set for myself back at the start of the year, I ended up making only limited progress on everything but Muskets and Tomahawks, where I did manage to finish my 400 point force.  Un-anticipated projects included getting a few points finished up for SAGA, rounding out a 1000 points of Bretonnians, and making a start on 40k orks.  In general hobby terms, however, it's been a bit of a slow year.  Some of that came of getting into pre-painted games like X-Wing, some came from getting right hooked on the Commander format of MtG, but honestly, a lot of it came from a year that was busy enough to put a real crimp on my time and energy.

That about sums it up.

I still feel the magpie nipping at me, and Lord knows I've got enough half-finished projects hanging about.  Unfortunately, the next four to six months are likely to be even more busy than the last six, as I'm taking on an even heavier work-load, as well as looking for alternatives should a permanent position not develop here.  While I'm definitely going to go with the "paint what you feel like painting" approach, there are two main things I'd like to make progress on over the following year:

1. Muskets and Tomahawks Acadie

While I've yet to put brush to mini on this project, I have been reading up a storm on it.  One of the advantages of living in a town that was founded to counter-balance Louisburg is that the local universities have a ton of resources on the subject.  I want to get something done on this in the next little while.  Terrain for this project is also something I'd like to work on.  In addition to the Christmas gifts I mentioned above, my Secret Santa send me a generous gift certificate to OG / Blue Moon, and I'm currently torn between some more minis (canoes, highlanders, guns) and buildings.  Both are rather appealing.  Nice to have these sorts of problems ;)

As opposed, say, to these types of problems.

2. Games Workshop (Brets and Orks)

My Bretonnians are what they've always been; my go-to when I want to do some fun painting.  The advent of the End Times in WFB has also blown the game wide open, and left loads of room for fun characters and army builds.  I finished up prepping the Bret lord I posted a while back, and have been waiting for the mood to strike to tackle him.  There's plenty of room in the army for small conversions as well, and the prospect of painting up a Bret Prophetess of the Lore of Undeath is giving me the giggles.

I tried explaining to the Beloved this was strictly for research purposes.

The Orks, as well as being one of the things I love about GW, are emerging as a real bonding point with the Cub, as he takes his first plunge down the rabbit hole.  As I write this, he's priming up a space marine bike ;)  While I may fit in some historical painting, I suspect the bulk of the gaming I do will be fantasy / sci-fi related.  I'm finding the orks to also be something of a change from the last time I did them, oddly enough, around the time of Cub's birth.  The last time I did them, it was primarily a footslogger force.  While that's where I've started them again, I'm having a ton of fun scratch-building and kit-bashing vehicles this time around, and may make this one a little more speed freaky.

I have no idea who Majestic Chicken is, but I like their style.

There's other stuff I might pick at to mix things up.  I still like ancients, still would like to add to my SAGA vikings and WWII stuff (even thinking about a scale shift on the latter).  I still lurk on TMP, God help me ;)  The thing is, I'm now working late at least two nights a week, weekends are for family, and it's harder and harder to shoe-horn in as much time for painting and playing as I once had.  This year, I think I'll cut myself some slack, and enjoy what I can, when I can.  If I don't post again before the turn, you've all got my best wishes for the new year,

FMB