bigbossredskullz

Another year has passed and with it we will enter the fifth year of this blog. But first, a little retrospect!

As a foreword to this years review. Still not a big fan of “bragging about my own feats” but it is an interesting excercise doing these retrospective articles. I also really enjoy reading others “year in review” so I kinda feel obligated myself to contribute to these type of articles.

Overall there are three aspects that has influenced my hobby time and work this year and they kinda intertwine.

Time. Getting in actual time to do any hobbying is simply put getting more and more difficult. Family commitments and work (especially after starting to commute) is taking its toll. Often I’m too exhausted to get anything done even with time on my hands. So I’ve done the next best thing; reading books (including comics) and watching up on series.

It actually has been quite nice and overall I feel it has impacted my hobby work in a positive way with new and fresh sources of inspiration.

The series I’ve pictured are just some of the standouts I’ve seen or read this year. Quite dark stuff so (probably) no wonder why I make the stuff I do.

The INQ community. As I will get into later, the INQ campaigns I where a part of, and being a moderator on the Inquisitorum and the Underhive Facebook groups have been tremendously rewarding. Exchange of ideas, miniatures, art and generally being around positive people is a boon which I am grateful for every day.

I mean when it results in stuff like this it is both awesome and humbling 😊

Fatherhood (again). Now last year we had a girl, expanding on the all-boys troupe (3) we already had. This obviously intertwine with my issues with lack of time but it has also impacted me more profoundly than that when it comes to my hobby work and focus.

I’ve become very set in creating non-sexual, realistic female characters that fits in the INQ-verse. In these days, with the #metoo running rampant and exposing a terrible dark side of what females has to deal with in all layers of society, it should be obvious why this is important – especially from a male perspective.

My little hobby stance might not amount to much in that sense but it has been taken and I will continue doing it.

I hope you do too.

Archive

For previous articles here’s the 2014, 2015 and 2016 reviews. It is safe to say that things have evolved!

1) Board games

This year has been dominated by a lot of board games!

WHQ. We finally finished Silver Tower prior to Christmas.

Not that it was a rush (or a chore) but it was nice getting through it and get ready for Hammerhal. All in all I’d call WHQ one of my favs for the year. It motivated me into making a few cool minis and it is a great beer & pretzel game!

Blood Bowl. One of the very best board games out there, in league mode mind.

It was a good season with both new and old players but since I played goblins most of the year it was half a stinker too. Goblins will in rare moments be the funniest team out there but more often than not they are bloody frustrating to play with.

This ended on quite a whiny note but I’d reccommend Blood Bowl to everyone still though!

Shadespire.

I wasn’t sold on the game at all in the beginning but with solid miniature kits and a cheap entry it was easy enough eventually. After playing it this Christmas I must say that it was a good (maybe even great) game and very fun in multiplayer mode!

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So to try and conclude on board games. Great fun and one of my primary go-to systems these days as the low model count and easy rule systems I can manage it even with my limited hobby time.

Plus everything that goes well with beer & pretzels are great in my book!

2) INQ28

Board games are fine but it is in the INQ -verse my heart lies. So the year kicked off proper with my Blood Pact;

They where used in the Vortapt IV mini-campaign against Helge, Rebecca and Mikkel. It also sparked the creation of Age of Munda.

The next big INQ28 thing in 2017 was being invited to the Tor Megiddo event by Alexander and Helge.

Sadly I couldn’t go to the actual event but I gained many new friends and that was the best part anyways 😊

Nestorian Infestation Finally the year closed off with me and Helge getting the first game off. It was a long time coming but worth the wait!

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All of these where true highlights and in retrospect even more so ❤️

Massive thanks to all involved.

3) Chaotic Chaos I jump from project to project and I guess it can be tough keeping up at times. Trust me, that goes for me as well, but I’m an old dog in this and I won’t Change my way of approaching things just yet at least.

So having a chaotic approach makes chaos a good fit right? I think so at least 🙂

Volume II was a culmination of my tzeentch work where I got several of these fantastic sketches made by Nicolas based on my miniatures for it. Thank you for helping me wrap up this one in style Nicolas!

#makedeathguardgreatagain The Wier brothers sparked a discussion about the new DG miniatures that led to the MDGGA challenge. This was great fun and led further into expanding my Realm of Chaos project with a Nurgle faction.

Amid the Murk has barely started so stay tuned for more this year.

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So even though I’ve felt that I haven’t achieved that much this year when it comes to the hobby I realize that it couldn’t be further from the truth! See, evaluating stuff can be useful 😉

I think that sums up 2017 quite well so lets take a look into 2018 and what that (might) bring.

#hobbyresolution2018 Okay. I have a terrible track record of not sticking to my own plans so I’ll try to be moderate 😇

• Amid the Murk

The easy one first. I have lot left I want to do here as I aim to recreate this piece of artwork.

Moderate ambitions indeed 😂

• Reducing impulse buys

Lol right. Like proper;

L.O.L.

But still I think I need to cut down hard now as I buy way more than I use and that leads fortetting what I actually have. When I dont even make armies anymore it gets even sillier.

So yeah another (not so moderate aim for a plastic crack addict) goal I hope to achieve.

• Nestorian Infestation

After finally getting it started you will get to see a proper slow burner that will go for a long time. Now with Alexander Winberg (of Tor Megiddo fame among others) onboard this will just get better and better.

For my own part I’ll focus on the Genestealer cult as I have more than enough Ordo Xenos as it stands.

• Age of Munda

You can’t talk of Nestorian Infestation and not talk of AoM. I am gearing up for version 3 and trust me. It won’t get more advanced, on the contrary.. 😉

• WHQ Hammerhal

Silver Tower was fun but it wasn’t the WHQ of old, not even close (not a slight, just a fact). Hammerhal seems to be closer to the original and as I will take the role of GM I will make sure that it’ll be just that for those involved.

• Continue contributing to the INQ community

Being part of the community will continue to be very important for me. I also hope that when we move south it’ll be easier and cheaper getting around and being even more involved. Though I will still make miniatures that I send out, and contribute with what I can beyond that as well. I see a big shift here in the INQ scene as more and more people take this stance and it is a great time for us that likes this little dark and obscure corner of 40k.

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Wrapping this up I can conclude that 2017 was great and I hope that it is a sign of what’s to come in 2018.

How has your year been and what are your expectations for 2018?

-t