Hey everybody,
Already, we’re at the end of July! Quite incredible. This month seems to have flown by, while previous months do seem to have dragged. It’s been quite productive though, all the same, helped by a week off mid-month, of course! Unfortunately, I think I’ve pretty much used up all of my leave now, so have just one week left to look forward to, along with some odd days! Ah well. I suppose it makes these things that much better when they do eventually roll around! I managed to survive the fiery doom that was the heatwave, which was just horrible in my part of the UK – it turned out to be far too humid most of the time, with two days of just searing heat thrown in. I’m still trying to eat healthily, and I’m pleased to report that this month I’ve lost 5lb, so I’m feeling pretty good about that! Hopefully I can keep going with it, now that I think I’ve really begun to have that sort of lifestyle change and all.
July has seen a massive uptick in work on my Sisters of Battle, who have shifted from very much a neglected project stuffed up in the attic, to the object of my hobby devotion as we launch into the second half of 2022! We’ve been here with the Tau already though, and that burnt out fairly quickly, so I’m trying to pace myself. I don’t want to be making too many grand plans, but so far it looks really good! I’ve managed to paint up a unit of Sisters, a unit of Seraphim, and two characters. I don’t think it comes to a lot, points-wise, but with all of the other stuff that I have built, I’m still able to field over 1000 points, which is the level I’m kinda looking at for my first game with them, hopefully next week!
I haven’t played any 40k since April, so after a few months off, I’m hoping that I can get back into the swing of things with gusto!
I’m really pleased with the progress that I’ve been making with painting stuff this year, though. I don’t think I’ve actually bought that much stuff, but instead have been able to focus on painting what I already have. In fact, let’s do some maths… maths can be fun, right?
As you can see from my beautiful penmanship, I’ve painted up quite a lot of stuff this year! By my count, it’s 75 models (not including the Tau drones), so not too shabby. On first glance, that list looks quite good because the ‘painted’ outweighs the ‘bought’, but there are two army boxes in there, and two Kill Team boxes, each with two armies and terrain. So when you look at it in terms of comparable kits that I have bought vs painted, it’s a slightly different picture!
13 painted vs 7 bought sounds great – but 13 painted vs 19 bought is a little more disappointing. However, doing that has been really quite motivating for me, as it has made me realise that I am actually painting a lot of my backlog, at last! It’s also good to see that, while I’ve been buying some big stuff, I haven’t really bought a lot of stuff this year, adding to the backlog. So if nothing else, I think it’s been a really useful exercise to do this! I’m really hopeful that I can just continue to work at my backlog, and I have plenty of models to keep me happy for the rest of the year. Sure, there’s the upcoming Kill Team box of course, but I think I might call it a day after that one has released, too. I’m finding it exhausting to keep up with all of these big box releases – I’ve already mentioned how I don’t plan to pick up the new Warcry box, and I think there is a definite sense of fatigue here with just how much stuff they are putting out over in Nottingham. My most recent purchase was the Sisters of Battle Palatine, because I realised I didn’t really have a legal army to field (I have Celestine, and the Triumph, but in terms of practical models for the force…) so I think I might just keep my purchasing to any relevant kits that I think might be a useful addition to any of my many, many armies.
Speaking of which…
I had an idea, last weekend, to get a single model from each of my current armies to see just what I have on my plate, and I was quite impressed actually! Ten army projects isn’t a massive amount, is it? Is it?! Please don’t tell me it’s too many!
Of course, I wouldn’t say that many of these are actually “finished”, as I have plenty of models still to paint for every force represented in the post there. There are only a couple of these where I would say I am swimming in models though – the Necrons for sure, the Drukhari, and probably the Genestealer Cults. Other forces are confined to a single storage box, and I have done some work already to thin out the AdMech. Tau, Grey Knights and Sisters have only really had models bought for them for the army, whereas others were armies where I just kept buying things without any plan.
I think I probably need to look at the Drukhari and Necrons that I have, and see if I can get rid of any models from these, as the Drukhari in particular seem to be very much out of control. I keep looking at all of the Wych Cult stuff that I have, but in all honesty don’t know if I’ll need as much of it. I suppose that might be a task for another time, anyway.
In general, I think it would be useful to have some kind of miniatures audit, and really get on top of what I have hanging about, and try to be a bit more ruthless with myself. I definitely need to sort out the loft in general, as there is a lot of stuff just generally slung up there, so I think this is going to be quite the task. But once that has been done, I would like to hope that I could have more control over what is going on in my life where the tiny plastic people are concerned!
In terms of games, not a great deal has been happening this month. I played some Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle with my wife the other day, and that was good, though we were playing with the Fantastic Beasts box and we’ve basically lost a lot! I’m hoping to get her into other games in the coming months – I’ve floated the idea of A Touch of Evil, and Eldritch Horror, so hopefully she’ll be open to suggestion and we can investigate the evil doings there! I’m very conscious of the fact that I have seemingly abandoned my play through with the Arkham Horror LCG as well at the minute, having still not gotten back to The Forgotten Age for a number of weeks now. I also have Lord of the Rings still on the go, as I want to get my teeth back into that with the Vengeance of Mordor cycle, but I have recently been thinking about shelving that again for the time being. I suppose I find it difficult to balance the scarce amount of spare time that I have, between having two real-life small people to care for, as well as all the other adult stuff that needs doing, and trying to fit in the hobby stuff with also gaming can be a bit of a chore. Especially, as in recent weeks, when I just feel the need to have a complete break and do nothing.
As the year plods on, I think I would like to plan to have some more game nights, whether that is gaming solo or with my wife, and I’d also like to try to play more 40k, as it’s been almost 4 months since I got any of these plastic people to the table! I am definitely spending more time on some kind of hobby treadmill, just trying to paint model after model, and I think the balance definitely needs to come back, with actual games forming a part of my hobby time as well. This, I suppose, is the down side to having so much hobby variety – nothing ever really feels like it’s done. Going through only a few of the armies to find a nice model for that earlier photo, I noticed a lot of Necrons that are “finished” but which need more work doing to them, and I think my Dark Eldar could also be shown a bit more love and attention. I would love to be at the point where I’m playing with an army, and I feel like just picking up a box of something, and then paint that box, before going back to playing the majority of the time. As it is, so far in 2022 I have played three games of 40k, and one game of Necromunda, but of the 200-odd days of the year there have been, I would say the vast majority of them have seen me building or painting some model or other. Again, looking at it like this is really motivating to actually game more!
I think August might see another hobby inventory taking place, anyway, and I can hopefully figure out what I’m doing with all my stuff!
Hopefully there will be more games and less procrastination though!!
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