My 2015 - hobby review

The second half of 2015 didn't go quite as hoped for me from a hobby perspective, but fortunately looking at the year overall is a somewhat rosier picture.

Gaming

The highlight of the year for me was BOYL, and within that (amongst lots of other good stuff) the Fallout / Rogue Trader game.

So I thought I should review that aspect first, and actually things were pretty good -

• The aforementioned BOYL, and especially my caravanners' outing there, was about the perfect gaming experience
• Back in May I had a great day chaos warband-ing with a fine bunch of Oldhammerers
• As hoped I spent a bit more time at my local club and got drawn into SAGA amongst other things
• And in October I got to visit Tékumel courtesy of Barry Blatt

There's always room for improvement, especially in the quantity of gaming, but on the quality front it was spot on. 8/10

Painting

Actually things aren't so bad here, if I take the long view -

• Inspired by the guide over on Lead Plague I finally made myself a wet palette, and they really are as game-changing as I'd read repeatedly that they were.
• As a result my blending has greatly improved - the wet palatte making the mechanical aspect almost trivial, and my technique is getting better with practice. Still no where near some of the beautiful work I see out on various blogs, but maybe 10 years from now...
• On the volume front the year was a bit of a failure though. Depending on how I count my progress with the Vikings I've done about 24 models for the year, or 4/10 of my target

Purely on the quantity front I was going to give myself a much lower score, but allowing for the first two points that would seem a bit harsh. But the second half of the year was seriously unproductive, and my colour mixing often doesn't result in what I had in my mind's eye (although that too is improving). 5/10

Collecting

I'm thinking I should drop the collecting category - in a way I now think of it as "increasing my list of things still to paint"! But for the sake of the review -

• The hobgoblin thing didn't get very far. I basically want to create a force of Fantasy Tribe hobgoblins, without paying through the nose on eBay. And unfortunately FT hobgoblins don't really look like anything else. My current conclusion is that it'll require a fair bit of converting (and hence time), and between the time factor and the draw of the Fallout game I shelved my plan to get these ready for BOYL, since which they've been firmly on the back burner. File as a project for some day...
• I've also not yet had the One Ring come to the top of my acquisition list

Score: 1/10

Blogging

I was no where near my target here - a bit more variety early on, but decidely thin on the ground throughout. I have plans here for the coming year, but the limiting factor will always be time / priorities. I am finding it really useful though to look back and see the journey. 3/10