That Was the Year that Was - 2012

With another year drawing to a close, it's time to look back on the progress and projects that we've been up to in Warblog Towers over 2012 and see how they match up with the planned activities.

It's certainly been an eventful year and one full of change and various goings on within the hobby and out, daughter getting married, getting made redundant and now getting several job offers for the new year, all sorts of visitors (friends, family, and others) from around the world, a few people gone and some new arrivals. The ups and downs have generally kept me away from the hobby a great deal but it's been a blast.

At the beginning of the year I laid out (very roughly) a plan of attack for my hobby activities and this was really the first time that I'd really thought about what I wanted to achieve in the coming twelve months and found the process quite rewarding on several levels.

The 'Plan' for the year could be broken down into three main categories; 1 - Ongoing Armies/Projects, 2 - New Armies/Projects and 3 - Terrain Projects and all have had varying amounts of success and progress through the year.

1 - Ongoing Armies/Projects

• El Cid Berber Army - Has been an ongoing project for some time and I had thought to get at least two or three units finished off over the year. Progress has been mixed for this army and though failing dismally to get units actually finished, I've managed to rebase a multitude and progress several units to the point of 'nearly completed' status. I'll put that one down to 'must try harder' though progress has been made.

Berber Skirmishers

• Hungarian Black Army - Had thought to do a little on this project but really only targeted one unit to be completed. Total failure there, but I did manage to get some semblance of order to the planned army and got a few bits assembled and under-coated.

Armigeri WIP for Black Army Project

• Italian Wars Project - Thought to get this project moving towards the end of the year but though lots of lead bought and a fair number of figs prepared and undercoated, no real progress. This one gets a 'must try harder' sticker too.

Italian Pike WIP

• Warhammer Empire Army - A low priority in the painting stakes, but though the troops have had a few outings over the year (and didn't manage to win a single game I may add), the paint brush didn't get used here either much. No progress.

Empire Flaggelants WIP

• Mordheim Project - One that was really a bit more of a success in that several figures were painted up over the year and the first campaign was played and brought to a conclusion with all that participated having fun and another campaign planned for the new year. I would put this under the 'completed successfully' category.

Gunnery School Cadets for Mordheim

2 - New Armies/Projects

• Future Wars - Probably the main thrust of my interest over the first part of the year, though I didn't manage to get the platoon finished off it is well developed and the idea grew over the year to encapsulate a whole game including the original platoon, the Enemy, game rules and planned out terrain. Though not completed, I did get this one moving and will be high on the agenda for next years plan.

First Section completed with Pin-up

• Malburian Project - No progress at all here. 

3 - Terrain Projects

• Abbey Terrain Project - Planned progress here has actually been met and largely exceeded with the parts started all finished, the next parts planned and well under way. Really carried out early on in the year and casting and material gathering since but pleased about this one. and will be continuing with the build next year.

Abbey Ruins 003

• Scatter Terrain - Didn't manage to get any other miscellaneous bits and bobs done through the year as planned so no progress on this one.
• Misc Modelling - a slow steady march on things which took my whim but nothing to shout about.

All in all a pretty poor showing from what I thought at the beginning of the year would be a bumper one in modelling and modelling terms and though I've managed to get more done this year, in terms of overall progress, than the last two years combined, I didn't get as much done as I had hoped.

The reasons for this are many fold and all fairly mundane and the usual life bits that get in the way of all of us wargamers at some point, mine all seemed to come this year from about April onwards, so from that point of view I'm actually quite pleased that I managed to get done what I did.

Though the painting and modelling progress has been disappointing overall, I have had lot's of great gaming through the year and picked up a fair bit of experience along the way too. I've expanded my gaming network in several unexpected ways and now in contact with more people than ever before in the hobby which is fantastic on all sorts of levels. The FDWC has had a very good year and with lots of new and active members there is another good bonus and different thoughts and games and preferences appearing there, the pot pouri that is the club is an even better source of inspiration and chat. All good there.

The real learner from this year (baring the unforeseen life bits) is what I can and should be able to achieve for the next year and so I'm planning the wargaming activities for 2013 with an open (and probably optimistic) mind. Lot's to build on and projects to explore and will be doing a bit of planning over the next few days and see if I can get 2013 off to an even better start.

Can you guess what I'm adding to my projects for next year?