2015: A Year in Review

Wow!

This last year has come with many changes on all facets of my life. First and foremost, and most importantly to me, my son was born in April of this year. That puts the little future gamer at just over 8 months old now (Gosh, how time flies). This adventure in parenting has had the profoundest effect on the rearrangement of my time and energy and has led me to put down the models, paints, primer, and glue for most of the year. Though there was one last opportunity to end the main Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition tournament series with another trip to San Francisco for QCR 10 last July.

Let's take a look at how this last year played out in gaming and blogging terms! Ready?

Tournaments
Despite the birth of my son, I was still able to get a few Warhammer tournaments in last year (though quite a few less than in previous years, obviously). I'd like to thank my wife for being very accommodating of my tournament play during her pregnancy. This last year I managed to play at the following tournaments:

• Waaagh!Paca 2015 - Came in 13th place overall playing a Host of the Eternity King army list without any special characters. I was quite pleased with myself as I have continued to place higher and higher at this tournament each year.
• U.S. Fantasy Masters 2015 - I also attended the 2015 Fantasy Masters tournament as I had qualified the previous year based on my performance on the West Coast tournament series. I performed poorly with a combination of poor army design (I'm looking at you, distinct lack of Way Watchers) and bad-match ups and game mistakes (I mean really, how many times can I fail to wound a model through three turns). 
• West Coast GT 2015 - One of my favorite events of the year, simply because I get to hang out with the hosts of West Coast Hammertime, Fred Whitney and Bill Curry (and yes, even Josh "Bad for the Hobby" Stuart). This year I went with a better, more updated and deadlier list of what I should have brought to Masters and I performed much better with the list than I did at Masters, going so far as to easily crack the top ten.
• Quake City Rumble X 2015 - This was the tenth Quake event in San Francisco and the first to be held at the new venue. Despite having had my son three months earlier I was determined to make this trip as I knew it would be the last tournament I was going to be able to attend for the year and the trip did no disappoint. I finished out my 2015 tournament season with a really nasty Wood Elf list that had only a single drop of two characters. I did fairly well in the tournament despite letting myself lose a game by not going after one of my opponent's units in the last turn of one game, netting myself a top fifteen for the tournament and solidifying a spot at the qualifier for the 2016 Masters event in Las Vegas.

Army Construction

I had set out earlier in the year to finish off several units for different tournaments. I managed to finish some of them, like the warlocks, and get started on several others, like the Sisters of the Thorn, but overall, 2015 was not a huge year for army construction and painting. I probably finished painting less than 1000 points of models overall. Some of this had to do with the units that I had chosen to play with at tournaments as I had been steadily painting the same models for the previous year, so there were not as many new units that needed to get painted for a tournament. But another major impact was the death of Warhammer Fantasy and the rise of Age of Sigmar. I lost a lot of my model mojo when those rules dropped and I didn't see anything new or flashy for the armies that I played come out. 

I also was not as ready as others to switch game systems completely and paint all new miniatures as with the infant being around there was less time to find a new group to play a new game with. In fact, I still don't know if there is really a competitive Infinity or Malifaux group close to where I live and so I just haven't been as committed to looking for a new game. This has kept my hobby mojo at relatively weak levels. And then, any time I even think about wanting to paint a miniature I realize that same limited time between 8 pm and 10 pm most nights could be spent playing Fallout 4! I am sure you can see where the energy went the last two months.

To make matters worse, earlier in the year - right after the West Coast GT, in fact - my house was broken into and all the models that I took to the tournament were stolen (along with other much more important stuff). This left me with fielding what limited models I had for QCR as I was not in the mood to repaint a ton of glade guard or other models.

Thus, at the end of the year I find myself with even less painted models than I started the year with. I am still planning on keeping the Dark Elves and Wood Elves and finishing up several more units, but my motivation is just not there yet. Maybe when spring hits and people are interested in playing more games. Who knows? Though I do look at my large collection of models and am slowly deciding which of the other armies that I have (dwarves, skaven, goblins, lizardmen, etc.) that might find there way to someone else so that I can clear up space for something knew that may come along.

2015 Resolutions

Last year I had some pretty high resolutions for 2015 in gaming terms. Looking at them now, I really got no where close to finishing these. Here they are:

• Paint 50 Glade Guard - Close. I managed to paint up 30 of these bad boys including awesome looking tree unit fillers. The completed units are available to see here in a much longer post.
• Paint 20 Way Watchers - Completed! And then they were stolen! So I had to have a friend of mine paint another 20 so I could use them at QCR. But now these guys look much better than what I had in mind anyways. Thanks Scaletti!
• Paint 20 Glade Guard Scouts - Nope
• Paint 20 Glade Riders - Nope
• Paint a mounted Sorcerer - Nope
• Paint a Sorcerer on Foot - Nope
• Paint a mounted BSB - Nope
• Paint a BSB on foot - Nope
• Paint 20 Dark Riders - Nope
• Paint 20 Wild Riders - Completed. And then they got stolen. I haven't even thought about replacing these guys yet.
• Paint 20 Sisters of the Thorn - Almost completed 10. And then they were stolen. (Sad face as I really liked these chicks)
• Lose 20 lbs - Lost 10 lbs. Apparently I really like food. I don't know why this was knew to me.
• Clean up the office/gaming room - Room for improvement
• Clear out of games and models - In the process
• Qualify for U.S. Masters 2016 - Accomplished. See you guys in Las Vegas!
• Play in at least 5 tournaments - I managed 4. I had to drop 2 due to the birth of my son and 1 due to work issues.
• Platy at least one game a month - Not even close, unless you average tournament games into this.
• Update battle reports more frequently - Sometimes. Not always great with this as work and life constantly gets in the way.
• Increase readership by 20,000 views for the year - Started the year with a little over 40,000 total hits on the site and managed just slightly over 52,000 views for an increase of about 12,000 views. I see this slow increase as a result of my lack of constant updates on the blog (there were several months were I barely did anything) and the fact that I stopped posting updates to the blog on forums so that other people could see what I was doing. I stopped mainly because the forums had really begun to die off during the year as more and more rumors of Age of Sigmar began to drop and people quit wanting to play and read about what was going on.
• Keep enjoying the game - Well, I tried GW. I really tried. But I just can't get my head around Age of Sigmar at this time. Maybe I will come back and look at it in a new light. But right now I am looking for something else to play and am swinging towards Kings of War (as there are no 9th age players close to me) and Malifaux. 

Blog and Website Update

This year saw many changes to this blog. I ended up writing 36 articles whether they be tournament reports, painting updates, army lists, and other articles of interest. Overall readership of the blog increased by seven new followers and there were over 12,000 total views of the site during the year. Not too bad. Not as much as I was hoping, but I also didn't manage to write as many articles as I was hoping either. And as I am a fan of total disclosure, the add revenue generated by having adds on the website netted me a grand total of $6.14 for which I am eternally grateful. Another few years and I might actually be able to buy a model. Though I don't do this blog for money, but as a labor of love and to keep me attuned to the miniature wargaming community that I love.

Also this year I updated the blog with a new face and am in the process of getting a Twitch account (for both video games and live tournament feeds) as well as a YouTube account for better battle reports, tournament interviews, and other gaming videos. I hope to have the first run of these completed after the 2016 U.S. Master's tournament.

Now to see how things go for 2016!