THE GAME PLAN 2008

Happy New Year!

It’s a New Year and time for a new plan. I thought I’d more or less follow the same format as The Game Plan 2007. (Do also check out – if you haven’t already – 2007 In Review - to see what I actually accomplished).

CONVENTIONS

I’ve kind of lost interest in conventions. The ones I went to were all very well organized – but some of the participants… well… they’ve kind of turned me off. Life’s too short to play games with arses. I think I’d rather plan some gaming weekends with just friends so….

TIM’S 4TH ANNUAL WARGAMING BIRTHDAY BASH/1ST (HOPEFULLY ANNUAL) WINTER WARGMING WEEKEND

The weekend of 22-23-24 February is going to see a mini-convention in my basement War Room (and maybe the garage if I get the heat hooked up and more people show up than I’m expecting). It will be an invitation only affair with just the friends I actually enjoy gaming with.

MAYDAY (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)

Okay now that I think about it everyone I played with at Mayday were pretty good blokes. Friends that promised to be there did show up for games (well the important ones did - I love you guys!). So I think I'll go again this year, but maybe just PLAY games!

CALGARY GAMING WEEKEND?

Last year this was Fallcon. Fallcon is a supremely well-organized convention - an example for all to follow. But some of the players that show up there… well… auction or no auction I just don’t think I’m going again…. So hopefully sometime during the year I can organize a weekend in Calgary that my friends WILL remember and WILL show up to play at…!

REGULAR GAMING

Thursday Game Night

I’ve had some success with a regular wargaming night on Thursdays this fall with a really excellent bunch of blokes (John, Christian, Gary, Britton – thanks guys!). I think I will continue with it in the New Year. This has mostly been Blitzkrieg Commander and Cold War Commander and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future… until I finish up some Warmaster Ancients or Seven Years War armies… or sit down and bang out some rules for “Great War Commander”.

Savage Saturday

I have another pretty good bunch that are showing up regularly on Saturdays for Savage Worlds. In the past this had been strictly skirmish war games – but the group has shown some interest in – and considerable talent for – role-playing so it has turned into a more straight up role-playing game. The action is still played out on the tabletop with miniatures, but there is now as much, if not more, time spent role-playing – which is a nice change of pace.

The current campaign is a Fantasy campaign set in a world of my own design. As it gets fleshed out I may start another whole blog to chronicle the campaign.

PROJECTS

Well now… here we are at the “meat” of the plan. What to do with all my hobby/crafting time? So many toys to paint, so little time… I was feeling a little overwhelmed earlier when I actually started taking stock of all the stuff I own and have yet to paint – nevermind the things I’d need to still buy or make to finish up any of the projects I am working on…. Also having taken out and had a real good look at things while taking stock of them I’ve gotten really pumped about a whole bunch of things simultaneously…

So to make some sort of plan I should look at what games I’ve got coming up – the Wargames Weekend. Most of the stuff I’ve got planned I could do right now without adding anything… the one that would be NICE to have a bunch more stuff would be the World War Three game on Sunday – I’d need some more Russian stuff.

Also for my regular Savage Saturday games it would be nice to have some more bad guys… the same old zombies are wearing a bit thin… so it might be nice to paint up some Orcs and monsters and other baddies that I happen to have kicking around. (…and I should really get some of those figures John Burt gave me to paint finished up since he’s planning on playing Hero Quest and all…

So… THE PLAN for January and February

January
2 weeks – paint a pile of Fantasy Skirmish Figures.
2 weeks – Assemble and paint 5 remaining BMP-1

February
2 weeks - Assemble and paint 2x T-80, 1x T-72
2 weeks – paint more Russian infantry… maybe some American infantry…?

I’m too all-over-the-place to determine what I’ll do beyond that – we’ll see how the first two months and the Wargames Weekend go and work from there. I do think I’d like to work on the Seven Years War, and take a chunk out of the Armour TO-DO List.

I’d also like to work on my 20mm WW2 Canadian infantry and I’m getting pretty excited about the Dark Ages… but that’s probably because I’ve been working on taking stock of them over the last couple days.

I also need to build some new terrain – trees, bigger hills, more mountains, more buildings – especially for 20mm.

I still need to finish taking stock of a few things and that will help me finalize my Long Range Toy Plan – which, in turn, will help me figure out what manageable bits I will work on this year…

More to come!