2016: A Year in Review

Happy new year all. Onto some reviewing of my 2016. In short pretty good. Started off pretty crappily, with warhammer stuff taking a slide for some other commitments. I got the walking club web site spruced up by early summer, by which time my hobby mojo was returning.

By the end of the year I was getting some solid hobby achievements that I am fairly proud of. By the numbers I think I managed to paint 105 figures, which sounds pretty good to me. I made some serious headway with my Iron Warriors which was a major headache from earlier years.

The Blog

The blogger stats stuff don't seem that great. but here is my top post stuff 

Well since I only posted 6 blog things in 2016 it isn't that surprising that the stats are dominated by that post from 2014. I think I linked this one to some discussion on a thread on reddit so i'm not surprised that this is still the most popular post. Something to think about anyway.

The Hobby

The Good

• Got stuck into my Iron Warriors. Two full squads, some characters and a Helbrute.
• Finished my Grysyns. Proper happy with them.
• Pretty happy I kept my spending under control.

The Bad

• Not enough games. Only played a couple

The Ugly

• Still not played Dystopian Wars. Will do one day.

The List

Here is a list I made the other year. Time to update it! Since I didn't do a review last year, this includes stuff from 2015 too. Bit of a cheat like.

Iron Warriors

• Paint Berserkers
• Paint Plague Marines
• Paint Chosen
• Paint Possessed
• Paint Havocs
• Paint Khan
• Paint Terminators
• Paint Terminator Lord
• Paint Spawn
• Paint Obliterators
• Paint Hellbrute
• Paint Land Raider

Imperial Guard

• Paint 5 Ratling Snipers
• Paint 4 Assassins
• Paint 3 Psykers
• Paint Special Weapons Squad
• Paint Heavy Weapons Dudes
• Paint Hostile Environment Squad
• Paint two standard bearers
• Paint two sergeants and medicmedic
• Paint 2 Commissars
• Paint Creed
• Paint tech priest and 2 servitors
• Paint Wyvern
• Paint Leman Russ
• Paint Chimera
• Paint Colossus

Orks

• Paint 3 Big Gunz
• Paint Stompa
• Paint 10 Meganobz
• Repaint 2nd ed dread
• Repaint all my 2nd ed Goffs and Grots (dear god why do I want to do that)
• Finish off 2 battlewagons
• Finish off loads of buggies
• Paint bunch of deffcoptas

Dystopian Wars

• Finish British Fleet
• Finish Japanese Fleet
• Finish Merchant ships
• Finish 3 oil rigs
• Finish 2 lighthouses
• Finish 2 islands

Overall 2016 was great. But then again I'm not a celebratory. Thanks for reading and here's to a good 2017.

2014: That was the Year that Was

Right. So I'm starting to write this on boxing day. I have a couple of hours to spare before more family visitations go down and since I can't quite be bothered doing anything too creative I thought I would draft together a year in review type thing...

The Blog

Not really familiar with the Google stats tools, but here goes:

• Total Posts: 50
• Total Views: 1958

Top Posts

So what can I make of all this? Well I'm pretty chuffed that I've managed an average of one post a week for a whole year, especially considering the summer break and nothingness. So thank you for reading this. Extra mega-thanks to my 4 followers. Hi 5s and brofists all round.

Looking at the top posts it appears that by far the one with the most hits is the paint station thingy that i put together in response to this post here over at cadian shock. I think that this shows the value of actually engaging with my fellow bloggers out there. I got to admit that I am more of a lurker than a commenter so i should probably do something about that. In fact this comment appear as my top traffic source. Can't really argue with those facts!

The Hobby

The Good

• I guess that it must the guard stuff. Finally making a dent in my haul of shame and turning then into a (nearly) reasonably completed army.
• Completing the Iron Warriors build phase. I even primed them!
• My assassins - really enjoyed building them.

The Bad

• Not even starting to paint my iron warriors. Very naughty of me.
• Only played a couple of games this year. Like maybe 2 tops? Going to try and get one in before the new year. We'll see.
• Not done any inquisition stuff. I have a bunch of ideas burning away for these but I'm trying to become more disciplined about my hobby.

The Ugly

• Orks not getting any attention. Hardly touched them this year. Really need to sort that out. They even had a new codex! I think it was this year that I primed my stompa and that is pretty much the only progress for these guys.
• Still not played Dystopian Wars. Will do one day.

Outside The Hobby

Stuff happens in real life too! Been at my job for a year and a bit now and i'm really enjoying it. On a personal level things have been developing too. I've started hiking loads this year and met some cool people doing so. 

On a down note I haven't been keeping up with various groups of friends as much as I would like. Visits to the Swan have dropped off, I mean who would have thought that doing healthy stuff, like hiking and running would mean that I find it harder to do the unhealthy liver punishing activities that are also fun. I've got friends spread all over the place (Bristol, York, London, Norwich, Auckland, USA) and I see some more than others and some not at all. Pretty sad really. I rarely see local people never mind those who live further afield.

This year I properly got into Powerwolf. They are truly excellent. Best gig was Battlebeast at Rockharz over the summer.

My favourite movie is either Guardians of the Galaxy or The Raid 2.Too close to call.

Best TV show is either Arrow or Flash, I love those two shows. Honourable mention to Extant which I thought was most excellent.

Thank you 2014

I have made new friiends, found new music, done some good hobby stuff. Overall this was a good year.