Merry Christmas! (2019)

Merry Christmas everyone.  And Goodbye 2019, it feels like we hardly knew you.

I've generally stayed away from rambles and personal stuff over the past year; instead this has become a sporadic dumping ground for whatever projects I was wrapping up that were worthy of sharing.  But let's wrap up the year with a retrospective.


This past year was quite a blur.  I guess it always feels that way, but this year went especially fast.  Gencon doesn't feel like it was that long ago, and it feels like we just got home from Denton TX and Reapercon.  Work is the culprit; it is a mess and will continue to be a mess, and on top of that I had a heavy work travel schedule in October and November.  Between work and personal travel, I count 13 U.S. states that I visited in the final weeks of the year. 

Early in the year, the focus was Dropfleet and finally getting my army ready to play at Adepticon.  We also took a bootcamp (2 full days of classes) from Sergio Calvo; which was a large investment of time and money but has paid off in expanding our understanding.

I came home from Reapercon with a renewed focus.  Much of 2018 and the first half of 2019, I felt that my hobby time was tied up in high investment contest projects and Dropfleet ships.  Meanwhile, I had nearly all of KDM Wave 2 and Shadows of Brimstone Forbidden Fortress sitting and gathering dust.  People talk about their pile of shame; mine was growing into a small mountain. 

I took some of my own advice - just Shut Up and Paint - and started working through some bits and pieces. My methods aren't "speedpainting" but I am definitely refining my methods to churn out consistently good pieces at a rapid pace.  I picked one piece - the Dropfleet 2-Up Beijing to work on as a contest piece and am otherwise focusing the next year on tabletop content.

I started with Kingdom Death.  Gigalion was a Gencon addition that came to the top of the stack.  Finished him and his 4 survivors.  Gorm is next; slowed a bit by my work travel schedule.  The Gorm, Gorm Armor, Green Armor expansion, and Flower Knight are at this moment all on my bench and will be batch primed while we're off for Christmas. 

We also played quite a bit this year.  Started a campaign in Shadows of Brimstone (that we really should pick up again).  Dropfleet at Adepticon, Gencon, local tournament, and Michigan Grand Tournament.  Marathon sessions of KDM at Gencon and Thanksgiving, with incidental play here and there at home.  All in all, it was a good year for gaming.

I also picked up a few awards:  First Place at Gencon for the SoB Darkstone Scorpions.  Bronze at Reapercon and 3rd Place in the DGS Games Manufacturer's award for the Bear Cavalry.  Best Painted for Dropfleet at MiGT.