That End Of Year Post - 2022 Edition

    Another year over, what have I done this time? Mostly not quite as much as I thought I was going to, gaming was definitely down on previous years, but I think the quality of gaming was mostly higher, I don't know if this was because I was more grateful to be out or more time in advance was put into thinking about a game instead of grabbing some boxes on the day of a game. 

   I painted about the same amount of figures as last year but bought a lot lot less, I've played less games than any other year since I started collecting data (half of my two lowest years to date) and read less books than recent years. All sounds doom and gloom doesn't it, but I think the game photos from this will show that it wasn't.

Here are the aims I set myself at the end of 2021;

1. Definitely need to start focussing on projects a bit more. I have so many half finished things and while painting numbers in 2021 were high, the actual number of usable armies that came out of this year are shockingly low. Minimum of 1 finished project a month. - This is a fail. Finished 8 but bought 6 new projects and topped up a single unit or two for a few other projects, meant that I not only missed the target but I'm slightly over my year starting numbers.

2. For the love of whatever deity is up there I need to buy less figures. Have a strict 2:1 painting to buying ratio and cannot buy more figures than are painted at that point. - I can probably say I failed this one, the buying spree I had in September ruined a target that I had been passing until then. I have painted more than I bought but not to a 2:1 ratio.

3. No new projects unless for playing someone who is already invested in a game - don't want to be starting loads of new stuff in 2022. - A fail as mentioned above but not disastrous.

4. If 2022 is going to be a repeat of 2021 in terms of wargaming I want to focus on prettier games. Only agree to a game when I have finished all the figures, have scenery and the time to get the game in. Aim for 12 photogenic games. - I've purposefully been harsh on this score and tried to pick the games where I genuinely stood back and said, that's a pretty board, but to be fair, I think I've only played one game this year where I wasn't at least happy with the board and that was the 1st game of Bolt Action at Wayland Games, where I hadn't packed any scenery and they were too short staffed to get me any out of storage, so we just grabbed odds and sods from under the tables. Counting 9 I think.

5. Play more smaller scale games - I still think that smaller scales might be the right way for my hobby to go, but I only managed to get 2 games in with a smaller scaled army, so I've not proved anything to myself or anyone else. Aim for 12 games in 15mm or smaller. - This year I played 3 games with 15mm models, so barely better than last year, but those games I played looked really impressive and proved my ideas do work - to the point I have a lot more 15mm to paint for games next year . . .

   What do I think are my trends from this year? 

1. I have painted a lot of cavalry and while I've not used as much of it in games as I had planed, my non-WW2 gaming has included a lot more mounted troops than I ever have in the past.
2. Too many armies played too few times. I played with 26 different forces/collections this year (albeit that some armies included multiple collections in) but only 7 of those collections saw the table more than once. It would be nice for the same collections to see the table a few times in a row next year.
3. The surprise of Bolt Action and Lord of the Rings being in my top 3 most played rulesets - although Lion Rampant was my most played single ruleset. I knew we'd play some bolt action but I was surprised by how we played and LotR was a complete surprise.
4. Also surprised by how few board games I played this year.

   As I didn't expect to be playing many games this year I thought it would be a good idea to keep a photo of every game I did play as the year went on, with the aim of seeing what my year looked like, and while the number of games was higher than I thought it would be, I've kept to that plan;

Necromunda in January. Really enjoyed this game and slightly gutted it didn't turn out to be the start of a campaign

WW2 - Bolt Action in January when I didn't realise Waylands wouldn't supply any scenery at all . . .

Crisis of the 3rd century - Lion Rampant in February. My only criticism of this game was that the green mat at Waylands was just too dark* - this was fixed by buying myself (long over due) a green mat of my own

*my painting is dark enough as it is

Seven Year War - Rebels and Patriots in March at Neil's house

The first board game got it's outing in the last week of April

Napoleonic naval action in early May

A couple of games of Bolt Action were played on the same day in mid May using my Soviets

The battle of Hastings at the end of May inspired by a trip to Battle Abbey

WW1 Naval game in June as I started to try and be more regular at club

Quatre Bras (ish) scenario in June. A dark looking game that looked better in person but proved my basing for 15mm Rebels & Patriots worked

A couple of games of Bolt Action in June using my Winter Germans (top) and my US (bottom)

War of the Roses game at the end of June

I tried the new edition of the Horus Heresy rules in early July

We played two games of Lord of the Rings Battle Companies in late July with both of my brothers and one of their partners. Possibly the game I laughed the hardest during this year

A couple of games of Lion Rampant set in the crusades one club night at the end of July. The first game was over in less than an hour but getting a second game in wasn't unwelcomed

It took until the last day of July before I got my second board game of the year in

15mm Goths and Middle Imperial Romans had another go out in August refighting Adrianople (ish)

A couple of games of WotR in the same week in August with a battle of Towton refight above and another game, at Neil's house, below

An afternoon in a board game café with my wife in August added another 5 games to my running total made up of Patchwork (a game I need to buy now) and Tiny Towns. Much food and drink was eaten at the same time

After a few weeks off gaming we were back at Neil's house to put some ACW on the table

Another 6 weeks off gaming before I played a small game of LotR with my youngest brother who wanted to test out his new collection of Minas Tirith. I was feeling pretty smug until Faramir very nearly killed my troll in the first round of combat.

In the same week we then had a couple more games of LotR, this time more Battle Companies.

These turned out to be, messy . . .

Agincourt played the day after the anniversary. The French faired really badly in the mud, but setting up 42 mounted knights was a great feeling. I do need to paint some more foot troops for the French, however.

A couple of linked games of Bolt Action in Mid November based around an US intelligence officer.

The very next day, yet another game, this time American Civil War to try out my new horse holders and dismounted cavalry figures. So obviously neither side's cavalry showed any inclination to follow orders. . .

Then we had a couple of English Civil War/War of 3 Kingdoms games in quick succession, starting with the battle of Upper and Lower Sodmire at Neil's house where I learnt that Royalist Cavalry are really good fun . . .

Followed by a last minute St Andrew's Day game on the last day of November using my Highlanders vs Covenantors where my opponent found out that both Highlanders and Royalist Cavalry were fun . . .

A couple of goes at Flamme Rouge a game I had been trying to get on the table all year. Cannot tell you how good this game is

Britannia AD43 (or so) in December at the request of a wargaming curious mate from Dad's club

3x 3 player games of Lord of the Rings Battle Companies while it turned out I was suffering from covid

So, next year, what do I want to do differently?;

• I'm looking to limit the armies and time periods I will be playing next year to focus on gaming the period right if I can. Hopefully this will also allow me to finish armies and projects off properly as there will be fewer last minute rushes where I realise I need to buy a limber for a game or something like that.
• Improve my scenery for more periods. My WW2 Normandy scenery is pretty good now, although slightly lacking on the building front, while some of my other time periods/places aren't doing as well. I need to finish my desert terrain and have another go at modelling the jungle.
• I definitely need to spread my gaming out a bit, this year I had a lot of hobby gluts then fallow periods. It would be much better to game every other week fairly routinely than play 3 or 4 games in a couple of weeks, then do nothing for a month. Its just the way it worked out this year but I'm sure I can do better.

My aims for 2022;

1. Focus my gaming. Going to try and focus on desert warfare for the first few months of the year then Normandy in the last few. But happy for a few other games in be mixed in. Going to be hard to score this one.
2. Play more 15mm - 6x 15mm games in 12 months can't be unreasonable?
3. 2:1 painting/buying ratio - a return for this aim.
4. 12x photogenic games - I quite enjoyed this aim in 2022.
5. No new projects bought at all. This one feels like the sort of aim I will accidentally break in the first 2 weeks of the year but we'll see how it goes. Also I have bought a few projects for 2023, so I'm probably already cheating in the spirit of this aim.
6. Play more scenarios - Go into a game with a set scenario and limit the amount of games that are just line up and kill them all's.

Lets see how this goes