Well... I did not get a lot of gaming or hobby stuff done this year... Not as much as I have in previous years... I feel like this has become a bit of a trend... and that makes me a bit sad.
There were reasons for a lot of that. The state of the basement and the renovation that dragged on through most of the spring... and summer... AND fall...?!
I'll try to keep this short and not dwell on things. It wasn't all doom and gloom. I'll try to focus on what I DID manage to do and then move right along to the next post; Game Plan 2024.
HIGHLIGHTS
Maybe let's start on a positive note with a few of the HIGHLIGHTS from 2023.
Hands down, the top highlight of the year was being able to meet up with my old friend Christian for a day while Amanda and I were out in Toronto. Christian is one of my absolute favourite humans on this planet. He was up at a ridiculous hour to catch a GO Train in from Barrie. We met up and wandered about downtown Toronto catching up, checked out Meeplemart and The Beguiling and spent most of the day playing games at Snakes and Lattees on College. We went for supper wandered around some more and got Christian back to Union Station to catch his train home in the evening. You can read more about it in September Games.
The next big highlight was the Back of Beyond Campaign I ran from January to April!? It had some problems... but I got me motivated to play over TWENTY games of One Hour Wargames! They ended up all being solo games... but that was okay...
Finally, if I had a third highlight, I guess it would be finally sitting down and reading the rules for Five Parsecs From Home and trying that out. It's been really fun so far. Looking forward to exploring this more in 2024 - and trying out the Fantasy vversion Five Leagues from the Borderlands!
GAME PLAN 2023
Looking back at the Quarterly Game Plans...
They weren't really much of plans... I knew there wasn't likely to be much going on this year. I tried to keep the plans (if you can call them that) open and tried not to tie myself down to any grand plans that were destined to fail... TRIED not to...
Here are the numbers of what I DID get up to this year...
GAMES
In the end I managed to play 116 games this year. Marginally more than what I played last year... (96 games) and but way down from the previous year (212 games). The difference is that nearly a quarter of the games I played this year were SOLO games. So I was playing games WITH people less, and that still makes me a bit sad.
Here are the games I played this year, according to Board Game Geek:
- One-hour Wargames x20
- Codenames x11
- Wingspan x9
- Splendor x8
- Wingspan Asia x7
- Five Parsecs From Home: Solo Adventure Wargaming x7
- Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Adventure x4
- Loonacy x4
- Agricola x3
- Century: Golem Edition x3
- Kingdom Builder x3
- Set x3
- Terraforming Mars x3
- Abyss x2
- Azul x2
- Codenames: Pictures x2
- Lords of Waterdeep x2
- Tinderblox x2
- Warhammer 40,000 (Tenth Edition) x2
- 1754: Conquest – The French and Indian War x1
- Beyond the Sun x1
- Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game x1
- Boss Monster 2: The Next Level x1
- Carcassonne x1
- Castles of Mad King Ludwig x1
- Charioteer x1
- Compounded x1
- Cryptid x1
- Cyclades x1
- Hellboy: The Roleplaying Game x1
- Imhotep x1
- Just Desserts x1
- Shakespeare x1
- Tyler Sigman's Crows x1
- Tyrants of the Underdark x1
- Vinci x1
- Warhammer Underworlds: NightVault x1
- Xenos Rampant x1
Not even close to doing a 10x10 Challenge... But, y'know, over 100, so... not bad.
Most played was One Hour Wargames - twenty of them - unfortunately all played solo... which was okay, I guess...
Next was Codenames, but that hardly counts - we knocked out all eleven games in ONE EVENING!!
Lots of games of Wingspan and Wingspan: Asia... earlier in the year before the renovation really got going.
I got really excited about the IDEA of role-playing games again - and bought three totally new ones (Hellboy, Bladerunner, and the new version of Twilight: 2000) as well as a few expansions for Wrath & Glory. I only got around to playing two, Hellboy and Blade Runner, for a single session of each, never getting past making characters.... Maybe NEXT year!?
MINIATURES
Also, an all time low - at least for as long as I've been keeping track.
I managed to paint 70 x 28mm minis..... That's a few more of the 28mm miniatures than were painted last year... but last year I also painted a PILE of micro/epic scale stuff... So I'd say I ended up painting a bit LESS than last year.
Part of this was due to the renovation upheaval... maybe now that I have a semi-permanent painting station set up - and a ridiculously luxurious and HUGE one, at that - along with plans to play in an upcoming tournament - I should hopefully get a few more done in the next year... (more on that in Game Plan 2024 Q1 - coming up shortly)
Unfortunately I also managed to AQUIRE more that I ended up painting - 147 x 28mm miniatures - and MORE than I did last year!? Most of that was from five (FIVE!!) Kill Team boxed sets... which I haven't even managed to play ONCE this whole year!? (So embarrassing... Maybe I'll get some of that terrain finished up, though, and use it in Five Parsecs From Home!?)
Here is a breakdown of those acquisitions and painted minis!
PAINTED
28mm Foot
Q1
- 3x Ninja All-Stars
- 2x Rat Ogors
- 2x Chibi Dwarves
- 1x Yagyu Jubei
28mm Mounted/Smaller Beasties
PURCHASED (or otherwise acquired - gifts, trades, etc.)
28mm Foot
- 11x Adeptus Arbites – Exaction Squad Kill Team
- 10x Drukhari – Hand of The Archon Kill Team
- 10x Kasrkin (Kill Team: Shadovault)
- 8x Necrons (Kill Team: Shadovault)
- 10x Hearthkyn Salvagers (Kill Team: Gallowfall)
- 10x Fellgor Ravagers (Kill Team: Gallowfall)
- 1x Skaven Master Moulder
- 2x Skaven Ratling Gun Crew
- 3x Skaven Gutter Runners
- 5x Sisters of Silence (Kill Team: Ashes of Faith)
- 5x Tempestus Scions (Kill Team: Ashes of Faith)
- 7x Inquisititorial Agents (Kill Team: Ashes of Faith)
- 5x Chaos Mutants (Kill Team: Ashes of Faith)
- 3x Chaos torments (Kill Team: Ashes of Faith)
- 5x Dark Commune (Kill Team: Ashes of Faith)
- 10x Chaos Cultists (Kill Team: Ashes of Faith)
- 3x Skaven Rat Ogors
- 6x Cyberpunk RED - Generation Red
- 3x Kromlech Space Dwarf Snipers
- 1x Darksword Miniatures Turtle Warrior
- 2x Ninja All-Stars
- 14x Clan Tanchyo (Ninja All-Stars)
So... I bought twice as much as I managed to paint... at least it's not like some years where I bought hundreds - or even THOUSANDS - more miniatures than I managed to paint!?!? (it's happened!). This was only 70 more miniatures... If I had a good year or painting and not buying more stuff. I could bring knock that off fairly easily.
What was YOUR gaming/hobby Highlight of 2023?
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Weird, my gaming highlight was catching a train to meet and game with an old buddy of mine from Saskatchistan, what are the chances?
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