2014: A Year In Review

Well, it's that time of the year again. Time to look back and reflect on highlights of the year, then realize the hopelessness of New Years Resolutions, and finally make hollow promises for the following year.

Well, what can I say about 2014? Well it was a quiet one on the blog, with my lowest post count for a full year. Why's that? Well, a combination of a much more active toddler, the reintroduction of a good computer in the household (finally able to finish Fallout New Vegas!), X-Wing, and some other life-things have come together to form a pretty epic hobby slump. So, without much being built on the hobby bench, there's not a lot for me to report here. I have, however, been building a lot of terrain, but more on that in the New Year!

So what did I get done this year? Let's have a look...

Well FoW-wise I played a lot of games (around 27), ran a Firestorm Market Garden campaign and mega battle, and painted a lot for my ill-fated (spoilers!) Citizen Soldiers 2014 resolution. In the end, not bad, but I still feel that it was a slow year for my FoW hobby. But I'd be dishonest if I said I've not been having fun whenever a FOW opportunity presented itself! The Market Garden campaign out at TCOW was a blast, and I look forward to doing more stuff with those excellent dudes! I also got in a fantastic game with my brother to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Panzerschreck 14 was another great highlight as well! Finally, I've been making up and refurbishing a lot of terrain for WWII and Vietnam battlefields. I've also got a pile of Great War terrain pieces ready to go out-of-the-box, but I need to get an army or two done first!

However, I have been playing TONS of X-Wing. I mean for legit craploads. About mid-year we all sort of started talking about playing, some of us rekindling our enthusiasm, others getting into it for the first time. It was a bit of a snowball effect and suddenly we were totally in. It seemed like every lunch break between then and Christmas break has involved a game or three of X-Wing. I've been meaning to blog about it, but I like to have photos to go along with my posts and since my old phone is a bit on the crap side of photo-taking quality, I've not really had anything to work with. Hopefully I can get that sorted, because we've been having a very good time.

With the above mentioned issues in mind, X-Wing fills a pretty easy niche in my ever shrinking hobby schedule with no painting or preparation needed, X-Wing Builder, simple and fast mechanics, and a sort of CCG throw-back to scratch a nostalgia itch.

So what's on tap for 2015? Well, I've got plans, but if 2014 has taught me anything, it's probably better to have ones with small scope and are easy to blog about. I'm going to devote more time to X-Wing articles as well as some FOW terrain tutorials and discussions.

Finally, an important result of 2014's hobby season is that I've become keenly aware that I've gotten off the beaten track and lost my way a bit to what I have come to call "My Hobby", in other words, the things I love about the hobby of wargaming in general. To that end, expect to see a series of articles about me getting back to the beginning again and rediscovering aspects of hobby-ing that make what I call "Our Hobby", simply brilliant.

All that, and hopefully more in 2015. See you there!