That End Of Year Post - 2025 Edition

   Another year that didn't go as planned - although, I appreciate no year really sticks to how you expected it to go. My wargaming actually slowed down this year, with very little actual gaming, Wayland Games still not being open and my regular gaming friends being as hit by real life as I was. Less projects started but also fewer projects finished as my buying and painting were both down on previous years. I think the ultimate thing I will take from this year was that the lack of gaming really made my buying and painting disjointed - normally a new project will be put on the table fairly soon after either buying (so I rush to get it done) or once I have painted enough, I purposely organise a game to make sure I then finish it. Missing out that last step has really made a difference and not in a positive way, with at least 3 or 4 armies being finished and just not seeing the table top, and a couple of game projects not getting completed as I just lost momentum.

   But then towards the end of the year, I took up running, doing a 50km challenge for Cancer Research UK in October with no pre training (I ran 90km that month in the end) and getting medals for a pair of 10km runs - with more booked.

1. Play 20 games - keep it low - 19 games. Not a success but it could have been a lot worse. We have just had a date for Waylands reopening, so hopefully 2026 will be better

2. Complete 6 scenery projects - then for bonus points, play a game with each - Not even close

3. Finish the year with less models in my backlog than I started with - 3rd lowest year in terms of models bought/sold, which is pretty good. Then, somehow, 4th highest year in terms of models painted - but I suspect that was because I painted a lot of small scale figures in bulk early in the year. The end result is the backlog has substantially gone down but is still too high.

4. Play games with 10 armies that I've not used - 4/10, so another failure. This was not helped by the lack of games and how most of my games ended up last minute panics instead of planned and organised where I would have used newer collections

First game of the year in late January, doubles Space Marine combat patrols.

First game for my August Lions 1/10.

Little game of 15mm Napoleonics at the end of January using Rebels and Patriots.

A game of Star Trek Attack Wing using my Cardassians. This is a ruleset that is still my most played (keeping different editions of a game as separate games otherwise Bolt Action just beats it to the top) but had last been played in 2021 and last seriously in 2018. 

Our yearly game of D&D towards the end of March. I believe the young white dragon attacking the town we were staying wasn't supposed to be the whole session but here we are.

The English are enveloped somewhere in northern France in a 100 years war game I played in very early April.

A couple of board games with my 4 year old the day after Salute. He always asks to play games but is a bit young for anything more than Snakes and Ladders (where if he doesn't win he gets sad). This wasn't the greatest success but I think he mostly enjoyed himself.

My middle brother gave me a game of Wingspan one night on my other brother's stag do in late May. This is a game I've heard a lot about but never managed to get in a game of.

My next wargames was in mid June when I tried out a new gaming club, the Hutton Hearthguards. I cobbled together a World Eater/Khorne Daemon army to take down and was utterly thrashed, but after nearly 2 months without a wargame at this point, it was just nice to get toys on the table again.

2/10

I got my mate back out for a game again and we played a game of combat patrol. I got absolutely slapped, but it was totally worth it.

I played a couple of games with my brothers in early July, one using our new knights (plus one of my older ones to make up numbers) and then a 3 way combat patrol below

3/10

My second game at the new club in July using my regular Chaos. I learnt a lot about from this game.

My next game wasn't until late September when the Necrons awoke and took on some space marines.

The first in a couple of October Games - ACW on a slightly too small table. 

We didn't actually play much of this game, spending the bulk of our time chatting, but it was still a fun evening.

Then the next week, I got a second game in with one of my brothers - two games in two weeks?

Another 2 month break until 3 games in December within a few days of each other.

My Beast Snagga Orks vs my brother's Orks

4/10

My Chaos Space Marines vs my other brother's Tau - this game was over in a turn and a half

My Chaos Space Marines vs my brother's Space Marines - this was a fun game

So what are my aims for 2026?

1. My first aim isn't wargaming - it's just to try and do a single organised run a month. These are mostly going to be 10kms but I do have a half marathon booked for the Spring and I have plans for a full marathon in mind for the Autumn. If I have something booked for every month, I can't let this new hobby slide, goes the theory.
2. Play 20 games - bringing this one back and keeping it a sensible number just so I don't overload myself with ambition. As I type this, table bookings have gone live for the new Wayland Games and I do have something booked, so fingers crossed.
3. Finish the year with less models in my backlog - another classic brought back as it really pushes what I would like to be achieving for my backlog.
4. Finish the year with less unplayed armies - modifying this yearly target to show the aim is to be playing older armies that haven't seen a table and not just be buying lots of new armies and using them instead
5. Play more historical games - I love putting historical armies on the table and I would just like to use more of my collections

Projects I'd like to focus on early this year;

• Tempestus Scions - this is a Combat Patrol sized force I started and finished this year, but I would like to grow it to a fuller army - 1k minimum and then make sure it sees the table
• Beast Snagga Orks - another Combat Patrol army that I kind of thought might be done, but one of my brothers bought me the centre piece unit for Christmas, so I want this to grow to 1k too. Ironically, I need to buy a second combat patrol to finish it . . .
• 15mm English Civil War - a project started years ago that I'm really close to being able to put on the table - it just seems daft not to finish it off when I am so close
• 15mm Feudal Japan - another project that I am just so close to finishing
• Dark Age Welsh - this one will take some more explaining and I'm just not going to here, but it's an achievable project to get on the table

Speed Freaks

   In my head, I have half a plan of doing about 1000 points of both Beast Snaggas and regular Orks so that there can be an Ork element to out campaign* with me still being able to play any side that needs covering. The Beast Snagga combat Patrol is done and the regular Ork one is being worked on**, so when the combat patrol magazine added a BoomDakka SnazzWagon as the extra kit to their magazine for a tenner, I knew I needed one***.

*as one brother has decided to focus on them

**the kopters are worrying me

***I bought 2 . . .

   The more I have thought these two models over in my head, the more I like the idea of a mini Speed Freaks army - only 500 points or so, but it will be able to be added to either Ork army that I am building to boost numbers without it being against the canon.

   With that thought in mind, the first one built had to be in the traditional Speed Freaks colours - red with touches of yellow with weird little details all over it. This was one of those models that I built, did the metal undercoat and then had a block on what to do as it felt like a big job. Once I got started blocking out the red and greens, it was really good fun to paint and I'm looking forward to doing the next one - I just need to work out how to make it look different.

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Bigger Bugs Pt 22

   Another backlog post, this time for a unit from the Combat Patrol magazine, bought to round out a full unit, rather than for any need. These have sat maturing in their packet since the start of the year, being moved every time I've had a tidy, so, if nothing else, it's good getting them off of the floor.

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The Grand Old Duke Of Norfolk's Backlog?

   I'm still carrying on with a backlog army in the form of the Yorkist Duke Of Norfolk for the War of the Roses. As I am painting them I am really getting the urge to put them on the table, but as I explained in the last post about this army, this is very much a painting project to just clear some backlog at the moment.

   This post should be the last of the 'basic' army - the last unit of leveried archers, another couple of units of foot knights (one not shown but it has the flags) and a unit of billmen. Looking back at my Lancastrian armies, I used a lot of the fully armoured models as billmen to balance those numbers out, so there is a risk the two units of knights are actually billmen.

   I have since found a pack of metal billmen that I don't remember buying and aren't on my backlog spreadsheet, but they are built and sprayed and will be painted at some point soon.

  I also need at least half a box of the Perry Mounted Knights, but as they are my least favourite models to paint - even if they are fun on the table top - I'll hold off buying them until it looks like I might actually use this army. I must keep the backlog in mind rather than add to it.

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Where Did Our Horses Go?

   After my car crash a few weeks back, I've been stuck in the shoffice* far more with a lot less to do, this has meant I've been able to spend time trying to get on top of my backlog. I decided that the best thing to do was focus on just getting units off the list, without any order of priority or worry about whether I needed them for an upcoming game or not.

*shed/office

   I did end up focussing a bit on my Yorkist War of the Roses army as they were to hand, but I'm also going through whatever units are built and sprayed on the shelves near me. This post is about the ACW Confederate dismounted cavalry - after I finished their mounted versions back in 2023.

   I bought these figures in at least 2023, but I suspect a bit earlier, as we were trying slightly amended rules for cavalry in the American Civil War, with them dismounting to really shoot. I ended up rush painting the mounted versions for a game in 2023 and these were ready to be painted but didn't get close to the top of the queue.

   The horse holders for the unit were also built and sprayed about the same time, but were actually painted a month or so ago when I had a game of ACW lined up and I used it as an opportunity to just try and paint something for the project, but I didn't feel they deserved a post.

   I'm not going to rush to paint more for this project, mostly as I don't have any space in the boxes it would live in, but I do have another cannon with associated limber built and sprayed, I just can't find the cannon crew for some reason.

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Ork Boyz

   Another post slightly out of time as I was trying aiming to get some more painted and get a game in all about the time I started posting this project, but there it is anyway.

   While I was painting my Beast Snagga Orks, I very much had half a plan on doing a small regular Ork army as well. As per normal, starting with the combat patrol for a 'legal' army and working from there, but as it wasn't a priority and as I knew they were being covered by the combat patrol magazine, I kept the project on the back burner.

   Then July and August had the models in the magazine and I bought fairly conservatively, buying slightly more than I needed for the patrol itself but not clearing shelves as I would hope the magazines I left would be bought by kids new into the hobby*. The first unit I built and painted, as is my rule, was a unit of regular troops - the boyz. These were built completely as per the magazine with no funny business and then I got on with painting - all 10 in a single batch in a single sitting, which wasn't the plan going into it.

*Although I know one guy in my area was definitely clearing shelves to sell on ebay as he sometimes beats me to the shop

   I kept to a similar theory as my Beast Snaggas, keep the clothes fairly plain - in this case brown trousers and black tops (as the other Orks didn't have tops to worry about), but as I didn't have the blocks of skins to plan into my colours, I allowed myself far more freedom with brighter colours on the flat armour plates.

   For a first squad, I'm quite pleased with them. They can happily fight in the same army as my other Orks without looking identical. They are covered in dags, checks and flames, all the good stuff Orks love to paint, and because it's Orks, I don't need to do them perfectly, so I can just enjoy trying ideas.

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Atakam the Defiler

   Atakam the Defiler, his origins are obscure, dating back over 10,000 years but it seems he was a sergeant in the World Eaters' legion during the events of the Siege of Terra, quickly rising through the ranks with Khorne's favour in the years afterwards. Ultimately achieving Daemonhood on Chetis 4 during the Imperial invasion.

   The model is a Daemon Prince using the new version of the model. This is a rebuild of an old Daemon Prince I did over a decade ago that I was never really that happy with. The power claw arm is from an old resin Ghazghkull and took a bit of hacking to make fit, but it looks so good in person.

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