The year in review

The year was quite good overall, but overshadowed by the end period. My November review was already half-hearted. Well, December was even worse from a hobby point of view, as I did literally nothing. No games. No painting. On the flip side, we moved home to a bigger apartment. Not quite finished yet, but I'll soon have my own office/cave to work and/or paint miniatures in, with a very large display cabinet planned. This is also why we don't have any pictures for this review, as most of my stuff is still in boxes.

So... let's move on.

Gaming wise, it went well.

I attended an Age of Sigmar tournament in March. Lost interest in the game after Be'lakor was nerfed into the ground. Got back with Maggotkin by the end.

I painted up a new army for Warhammer 40,000 and got some games in. Happy Word bearers. By the time of the Daemon release, life had already caught up with me, so no games with my true army. Yes, very sad. Anyway.

D&D is ever going forwards, with Zyn the necromancer now level 11. Just learned a bunch of new spells (29 to be precise), some of which are useful enough to be unleashed when gaming resumes in the new year.

MAGUS is now a staple, although we didn't quite reach far enough into the dungeon yet.

And finally, video games made a comeback now that I can't do my proper hobby. I'm grinding through the Assassin's Creed series, which is fun, but sometimes a grind. It's something I can do with my daughter now, although we only gather treasure - no fighty stuff yet. I blitzed through Space Hulk: Deathwing, which was not a great game as games go, but the visuals were very striking, as was the atmosphere. 5/7 solid game. I tried Diablo: Immortal, which would actually be a great game, if it didn't try so hard to be a mobile game cash cow. I find it unplayable with the 99 types of virtual currencies and constant reminders of the social aspect. Leave me alone to play the story, and find out just how many times the "find X pieces to reconstruct ancient magic item" trope can be monetized! However, I was itching for some "real" Diablo afterwards, and played around with a zookeeper necromancer in Diablo 2 Ressurrected. All around fun.

And yes, I'll talk a bit about painting as well. 2022 was the first year when I kept track of what I'm painting, curious whether I can reach the 1 miniature/day average. I managed 199 painted minis, or 254 with a 5x multiplier for vehicles/monsters. This is actually less than last year's 206, but bearing in mind everything that came up this year, I'm pretty happy. I also jumped into LEDs, with Be'lakor, the huntress, 4 tanks and 2 daemon engines lit up. That would need a bigger multiplier, to be fair.

So what comes next year?

I'm pretty sure January will be rough as we are still accommodating with the new place. Then, I'll be designing a display cabinet as well as storage space. Did I mention I have my own little terrace for spray painting? This will be great.

Once I do get down painting, I'll probably eye another bigger project. Packing all my stuff made me realize how much of a "pile of potential" I possess, so let's grind through that. Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch are all candidates. Expect the usual commissions, as well as D&D minis on the sidelines.

The painting competition for March is already announced, and I'll have to come up with something appropriate.

Gaming wise, some new stuff on the horizon... but I'll be happy if I manage to keep up with the usual stuff.

So happy new year everyone! And happy hobbying!