Hobby & Blog Resolutions for 2013

Following on from my review of 2012 I thought I'd share my plans for the coming year. Here then, are my hobby and blogging resolutions/plans for 2013.

Attend More Tournaments
Last year I went to Jolly Toys, Open War, Blog Wars 3 (I didn't play at BW4), Summer Skirmish and two GW doubles events. That's 4 singles and 2 doubles tournaments. I'd like to attend more this year as, especially with 6th edition still being fairly new, I think they're the best way of learning the rules and improving my army. Not saying that I don't have a decent grasp of the rules but even towards the end of 5th edition there were still things coming up at tournaments that I wasn't sure of (or had forgotten).

In this spirit I've been looking to see what tournaments are on offer for 2013. This led me to discover The Outpost in Sheffield. I was aware of its existence but didn't realise they held tournaments. Sadly the first one of the year is sold out but I'm hoping to attend one in February. Not only will this be a great opportunity to try out some army list ideas but also hopefully to meet some new, local, opponents who I may be able to get a game with on a semi-regular basis.

My first scheduled event for the year is Battle Brothers at WHW at the end of the month. This is GW's new version of their doubles event. The system seems a bit daft to me because instead of two separate equal points armies you now have one FOC between the two of you. This basically means people can write a nasty list and just play it with two people. Kind of defeats the point if you ask me but there's always a good variety of people at these things and we've never failed to enjoy them.

Blog Wars 5 & 6
As you may have already read, there's going to be a further two Blog Wars tournaments this year in June and October. Details are to follow but I'm planning on trialing a few new things again. This time around I'm looking into some sort of pre-tournament seeding system to try and avoid those horrific first round matchups than can really make or break the day for people. Anyway, we'll wait and see what I can come up with but I'll not try and go into detail at the moment.

Paint More Models
Now I'd like to say that I'm pledging to not buy anything new until I get everything else painted but with the DA codex arriving imminently we all know that isn't going to happen. What I would like though is that by this time next year I've got at least two of my four armies (DA, SW, DE, Tau) finished. By this I mean painting to a high standard and properly based. Either that or 1750pts of all four races finished. This is probably more likely as I can set myself deadlines in the run up to tournaments. For example I'd love to field my DE at BW5 in their fully painted glory but I've said that before....

Basing is certainly something I'd like to improve on. I've often toyed with the idea of resin bases but I don't think they're worth the extra cost per model when I can concoct something myself. That being said I lack the motivation to actually try making my own!

I think my main problem with painting is that I'm too keen to play with a new army. This means I tend to assemble them quickly, spray them black and then not paint them for months. I'd like to say my DA will be different but as soon as that codex hits I know I'll be gluing shit together like crazy!

Not my table.... yet!

Finish My Gaming Table & Scenery
Since moving house I've not got a much smaller space to game in. This might sound a bit backward but despite the house being bigger it doesn't have the attic that our old one did and hence I'm in a spare bedroom at the moment. I'm grateful to my wife for putting up with one room of the house given over to gaming but space is at a premium.

Therefore I need to get crafty with my table. My plan is to create something akin to these bad boys. Now I'm no master carpenter so I won't be quite to that standard but I'd like it to provide a similar range of functions. I've got some plans in mind which should make for an awesome table. I'll share these in a couple of weeks and keep you updated on my construction progress.

Hand in hand with this is my desire to get all of my scenery fully painted. Every time I play 40K I cringe as I break out the grey plastic buildings and craters. My Citadel Woods are painted but that's about it. I'm determined to get everything done this year, sooner rather than later. Scenery really doesn't take much effort to paint as it's largely spray then drybrush the f**k out of it. The trouble is persuading myself to paint scenery instead of units for my armies. Jamie has expressed an interest in helping me with the scenery project and we've brainstormed some ideas for the table too. Watch this space to see if I actually get anywhere with it.

Bloodbowl
As I mentioned in the last post, Matt and I would desperately like to play in some Bloodbowl tournaments. We're having a bit of a gaming day tomorrow which will involve a game or two of BB so I've been painting my dwarves all day. Sadly I haven't managed to get them finished but when I do I'll post some pictures up on here of course. As I've mentioned, neither of us can really commit to a league so I think we'll be restricted to weekend tournaments. It might also be possible to arrange some friendlies with some of our friends from 40K tournaments.

One idea that I'm interested in exploring is the idea of a Bloodbowl ladder. Those of you who play squash, badminton or even chess will be familiar with the idea but basically it involves a continuous league. Now, I'm not sure how normal BB leagues work but its my understanding that you meet fairly regularly for league games. With the ladder system people would simply challenge each other to a game in the hope of moving up the ladder. Obviously this will create issues in terms of ranking up if people aren't playing an equal number of games but hopefully it will remove the need to play a fixed intervals and also can be done with only a minimum of two people meeting for a game at a time. I might see if there's interest in Sheffield for one so again check back for more on this.

Other Specialist Games (Space Hulk, Dreadfleet, Horus, Necromunda, Malifaux)
I'm determined by the end of the year to finish Matt and my Space Hulk campaign with both of us having played the terminators. Similarly I'd like to play through the Dreadfleet and Horus books. I'm sure this is achievable and with Matt now having a daughter, it may be easier to get the odd evening of specialist games in rather than a day's 40K.

Necromunda and Malifaux are a different kettle of fish. Our Necromunda group hasn't met for a while and when we do I'm not sure whether it'll be that or Malifaux that we play. As I said, I haven't got a Malifaux gang (or whatever they're called) at the moment so that's very much a back burner kind of thing.

Blogging
Last but not least, the blog. As I said before, it's not exactly a Space Wolves blog anymore as the banner would have you believe. This is especially true since I'm starting an army of their rivals the Dark Angels. Therefore at some point in the coming weeks/months I'll be giving the blog a bit of a revamp. The name will stay the same (wish I'd picked something more generic now!) but I'd like to revisit the layout and make it a bit nicer on the eye.

I've currently got 150+ followers, something I'm pretty proud of as a solo blogger who doesn't do any SEO or gimmicky follower competitions to get readers. By the end of the year I'd like to see this rise to 200+. The way I'm going to try to achieve this is to post more often and try and include more hobby content as well as returning to the roots of the blog and posting more battle reports. This means I'm going to have to remember to take photos of both my painting and my battles which isn't something I'm particularly good at.

I'm not going to spend a fortune on a fancy camera and lighting set up to achieve decent images but rather a budget version that uses my existing camera to achieve comparable results. I'll post about this as I develop it (no photography pun intended) but hopefully it will be of some use to others out there who want to take better photos of their miniatures and battles.

Conclusion
Big plans for 2013 then. This wordy post can be pretty much summarised in TL:DR form as "play more, paint more and take photos while doing it". Hopefully as the painting progresses so will the photography and hence more interesting content for you guys.

I hope all 156 of you will stick with me for the year and that you'll be joined by at least 44 others! Thanks for reading my ramblings up to this point!