Hobby Resolutions for 2016

As usual, let's start by looking back through my progress towards last year's resolutions:

• Keep up the tournament attendance - well, as I said in the last post, I've barely been to any tournaments this year outside of Blog Wars. I still want this to be part of my hobby but I'm undecided how big a part it'll play
• Paint the bloody scenery - I made a decent stab at it but as per usual I got distracted. Jamie continues to wind me up about it but I'm determined to make more progress this coming year.
• Clear out the crap - I had I bit of a sort out but not much of it went on eBay. I'm going to need to be ruthless and get rid of quite a bit of stuff if I'm going to have space for everything.
• Paint up forces from each army - not even close. My Tau got some love and I started an Imperial Knight but very little else got done this year. I can't actually believe I'm sitting here at the end of December (this post is scheduled for Jan 1st) with so little done in an entire year.
• Be more selective about blog posts - well, the quantity has certainly dropped but I'm not sure we've seen a corresponding rise in quality. I still want to have more hobby related posts, the IK magnetisation post was an example of the kind of thing I'd rather be posting about instead of the codex reviews that this blog has become famous for.

Tournaments

As I've said a few times now. I've got mixed emotions about the tournament scene at the moment. I'd still like to head back to a GW doubles event to see what they're like now and with the Outpost waking back up again after their move I'm hoping to head there for more soon. I think an aim of half a dozen for the year is reasonable.

Double Trouble is a new event for me so I'm going to be ploughing a lot of time into making it the best tournament I've ever run. Please support it like you've done with Blog Wars over the years and I hope we'll be sitting here in mid-June talking about how well it worked and what a great time everyone had.

Scenery

I've REALLY got to get the winter scenery done. To this end I'm going to make a formal to do list so I can structure my time and get things finished. Once that's out of the way I'll be trying to get my desert board done incorporating the new Tau scenery in some way. I'm certainly not sat here saying I've got no unpainted scenery in my collection but I'd love to say that this time next year and with two very different sets I'd have enough variety to keep my games fresh and put that side of the hobby to one side for a good long while.

Clear Out The Crap

This is a big priority this year for various reasons. If I end up deciding to get rid of my gaming room in favour of a study then I'll have less storage space so I'll need to rationalise my collection significantly. My DA army has been boxed up for a while now and I haven't had a burning desire to unpack it for a game in about a year even with a new book released. That suggests to me that I'm not likely to in the near future either. They need to go then so eBay it is.

I've also got quite a few kits that I bought when they were released and haven't even unwrapped. They'll be going on eBay too. That income will go to consolidating the armies I already own so that I've got everything I need to field a variety of armies. I'm determined there'll be no new armies this year though.

Painting Progress

This is always the big sticking point for me. I'm desperate to get as much as possible finished but I just can't motivate myself to finish projects. As I mentioned in the last post, I think the key here is to break things down into mini goals so I feel like I'm actually ticking things off the list. I think the first thing will be getting my first Imperial Knight completely finished as that'll give me a big psychological boost I reckon.

Tau are my current army of interest at the moment. I need to convert that into some hobby progress for them though. I've just built up my Stormsurge so perhaps if I make that the first ever Tau model I actually finish I'll get a similar boost and want to get everything else to the same standard.

Barring distractions (I'm not naive enough to think there won't be any). I'd love to get my Imperial Knight army finished this year with my Tau a significant way along. To keep the variety up though I'll try and add in some Space Wolves and bits and pieces of small projects like the Calth miniatures.

Blogging
I don't really have any objectives for blogging this year. My aim is for this blog to be a chronicle of my hobby progress rather than an obstacle to it. By only running a single event this year I hope I can get away from feeling like I've got to post something to keep ticket sales buoyant. I'm not enjoying blogging as much as I used to and I can't help but feeling like I'm talking the talk more than walking the walk most of the time. Less talk more action I reckon. When I do post I hope it'll be pictures of hobby work with the odd caption rather than massive rambles like I normally spew out.

Summary
Bringing it all together in order of priority then:

1. Double Trouble - it's a new event so it has to be my top priority to make it a success.
2. Get the scenery done - snowy stuff first followed by Tau in the desert.
3. Clear out the crap - plenty of eBay auctions on the horizon hopefully and more space!
4. Paint all my knights - a fully magnetised, weathered IK army would be lovely. 
5. Tau/SW - some actual finished units is the plan
6. Blogging - hobby posts to keep me motivated
7. Tournaments - the odd one here and there to motivate my painting progress

The drive is towards painted models this year, be they scenery or units. With the exception of Double Trouble, everything I do will be to keep my motivation levels high and get stuff done!