My Hobby and Gaming Goals for 2014

So savage. I started these Orks around 2001. In the last decade I think I've added 5 models to the army.

A new year is here and I'm pretty sure just about every year since I started blogging 6-7 years ago I have posted my goals. Posting this year's goals wasn't on the top of my "to do" list either but inspired by Larry Vela's goals on Bell of Lost Souls, I felt compelled to post them after all. 2013 was a good hobby year for me with running a successful Adepticon event, getting out to several AWC tournaments, getting some games in at home, working on Wreck-Age with Hyacinth Games for a spell, and then starting laying the foundations for my own game. AND I also did some role-playing and board game nights dabbling in Zombicide, Gloom, Small World, Wreck-Age, Pathfinder, and Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play. I didn't love everything I tried (Pathfinder just left me yearning for 1st Edition AD&D) but I played lots of games and hung out with a lot of different people. It was a good year for my gaming end of my passions.

So what does 2014 hold for me for gaming and hobby activity? At this point I'm still working at Next Dimension Games, running an event at Adepticon, working towards starting my own game company, and of course, painting the stupid amount of models I already own. So what am I striving for this year? Here are my top 6 Goals in increasing order of importance.

This Ork is one of the last ones I finished painting. I believe he was completed in 2008 or 2009.

6) Orks!

I want to push my fledgling force of 40K Orks to 1500 points and bring them to at least one AWC tournament. One of the things I noticed at the AWC Tournaments this year is that people stopped looking at my Angels of Absolution army because I don't make drastic additions (because I paint so slowly) and I will only bring a 95% painted army with me. The Angels have become tired and familiar even if I love them. The rumors have indicated for a couple months now that a new Ork book is coming this year and its left me excited. I want to be ready. This year its time to get wild. I own tons of Ork models and have a case full of models started. It'll be a hard goal, but its a goal I want to achieve to push myself.

Poor armless librarian. A little TLC and you can Prescience your way to glory. I'm still proud of that head swap. The head is from a Rogue Trader era lead model.

5) Angels of Absolution Nephilim, Command Squad, Librarian, and Techmarine

The above four items will push my Angels of Absolution collection over 2000 points and will add competitive options to my army. The Command Squad and Techmarine have come to the last 2 AWC Tournaments and are not finished. This absolutely needs to be corrected.

You're one of a kind. The rest of my Tomb Kings were painted 12-20 years ago (depending). This one was painted in the last decade after I honed my painting skills. I love them. They also took forever.

4) Play Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Working at Next Dimension Games has shown me there are people actively playing WFB in the city that I can tap into since my own gaming buddies only dabble in the game if they own any models for it at all. I don't want to commit to painting any of my Tomb Kings or Empire models, but if I can get in 3-5 games of WFB this year I would be stoked. The current standard 2400 points people play is way out of my league. Let's play 1000-1500. I'd like to be done in 2 hours including set up and chit chat and not field 100 unpainted models. That's not my style.

Victorious in the face of rampaging zombies! This was the first time we survived the zombie apocalypse so it was a photo worthy moment. In the background you can see Ian Mackaynine looking on wondering, "wtf?"

3) Play Fifty-Two Games

I don't need to get in a game every week, One AWC tournament can knock out almost a month of gaming as far as I'm concerned. I just want to play more games. Lisa (my partner) and I love having game nights and had a regular game night going last year that petered out when the summer ended. Ultimately, I want gaming to be a regular part of my life, whether its board games, the occasional card game, or heavy duty miniature war gaming.

The ill fated full color 40K Warzone booklet I did last year that was too hard to read. :( I'd love to take a Photoshop class this year to prevent having a week of work being wasted like last year.

2) Gaming Events

I'm running the 40K Warzone Tournament again this year at Adepticon. Now that I work at Next Dimension Games a couple of nights a week I'd like to run some Zombicide nights and possibly some other events. One of the things I need to do though is sell off some of my less needed gaming tables so that I can make some that are more durable and easier to store and transport. The new Warzone I'm planning for this year fits in with that plan, but I need space and that involves liquidating some of what I have.

1) Broken Contract - Release My Own Game to the World

This is the big one. There are no guarantees in this world, but I want to eventually live doing something that I love instead of floundering around. Tearing my ACL gave me time to reflect and I sat down with a dry erase board and jotted down all of the ideas I've had in my life and the things that I've participated in that brought me joy and reward - some of them could potentially be parlayed into a long term career and some of them can't (I can't really make money being a DIY punk vocalist, and I can't do it forever no matter how much I love doing it). After some encouragement I started working on Broken Contract with all of that free time I had in those initial weeks after my knee surgery. I want to take a stab at turning it into something. It'll be a lot of hard work, but my experiences with Hyacinth Games reminded me that game design has always been something that I knew I would love doing, dating back to being in grade school and writing my own AD&D modules.If its bust, so be it. But at least I'll be able to say I tried. Any encouragement, support, input, and hype will be greatly encouraged and appreciated in the coming months. :)

So those are my goals. I do have smaller goals, like getting my friends playing or blogging again, and getting some other projects done. I want to continue to improve my photo skills, and I mentioned wanting to take a Photoshop class. But these are the biggies. The important ones. We'll see how it all goes.

-Nick

Close but No Absolution - 2010 in Review

"I cant believe another year has gone by

And still nothing, as if we dont even try

And theres nothing to be proud of

And nothing you can truly stand by

Its time to believe!" - Chain of Strength

I started off 2010 with some ambitious goals (though less ambitious than year's past) and I fell short. My most important goal was to get the Angels of Absolution to 2000 points of fully painted models. I started the year out at around 1500 points. I launched out of the gate early on, completing a couple of key models like a Devastator Veteran Sergeant and a Dreadnought, but the rest of this year's completions for the Angels were 4 counters, my first Scout, and one Tactical Marine for a brand new squad. It was a strong start to 2010 but a weak finish.

Other goals I intended to complete were:

- Get my Tomb Kings to 2000 points fully painted. This army was completely untouched throughout 2010.

- Complete the Ork Trukk I've been working on since 2008. I tried really hard in the last week of 2010 to at least accomplish this goal. I still failed. I also wasn't supposed to work on any other Ork projects in 2010, and instead I completed 3 models for the army - 2 Trukk Boyz and a Scavvie Slave (counts as a Grot).

- Complete my Humboldt Park/Chicago themed board. I didn't get this done but I made some solid progress. In October I posted some close ups of little details. I really want to go crazy on the detail and flexibility of this game table so I'm okay with the fact that this was left incomplete.

- Not listed last January but I was supposed to paint a bunch of models for my buddy Mike. The Blood Angels Dreadnought in the above photo was one of those models. I had like 4 character models I needed to paint as well. Fail. Fail. Fail. And fail.

My final failing was that Scott and I had a painting competition to see who could get the most models done despite our demanding schedules and snail like painting pace. I felt like I was setting the pace for the first several months but as my dad always told me, "Those who run fast don't run long." Sure enough, I got busy and lost all my steam. With the final model I am posting today, I completed 18 painting points worth of models - 2 Dreadnoughts, 6 infantry models, and 4 counters -compared to his 37 painting points.

Strangely, despite being doubled I sort of consider it a success. I feel like I accomplished more in 2010 than I did in 2009, and that's really what it's all about. Conversely, Scott only tied his previous year's output. In my eyes, this made the competition a success and I'm practically begging him to do it again this year!

So lets talk about my goals for 2011! This year rather than setting point totals I'm going to do something a little more suited to my own sense of accomplishment which comes from my display case and how full it is with completed models. In that spirit here are my goals. (Please note that for purposes of these goals a vehicle counts as 4 models.)

- Shelf I & II. Angels of Absolution (DA): I intend to complete 5 models of any type.

- Shelf III. Redemptors of Golinar (IG): I intend to complete 10 models of any type.

- Shelf IV. Bloody Fist Orks (Ork): I intend to complete the Ork Trukk plus 5 models of any type.

- Shelf V. Tomb Kings of Khemri (TK): I intend to complete 5 models of any type.

- Shelf VI. Marienburger Mercenaries (Emp): I intend to complete no less than 25 models.

Some people can complete this many models in their sleep. For me it is very ambitious. The most important things I have on my side are the visual driver that makes me want to fill the display cases I own, the small targets for each army that allow me to jump around with my project ADD, and (hopefully) a little bit of competitive spirit between Scott and I.

Also, it isn't reflected in my goals above, but Scott and I are both striving to have 1000 points painted of our respective Empire (me) and Skaven (Scott). With my hodge podge approach to getting armies on the table, 25 models could still end up being 1000 points with characters and war machines.

Fiinally, I noticed that our blog output dropped from 2009 to 2010. I'd like to put forth a challenge to the rest of the 2nd City Warzone crew - let's strive to have 50 posts this year - just under one a week on average. We can do it. Who's with me?