Hey true believers! Ever since high school, I've tracked my gaming like the federal fiscal calendar, so it makes sense to have September 30th cover my Year in Review.
The Blog
Ten years blogging as of this month. Almost 3,000 posts and we'll be hitting a half-million views (some actually legit!) sometime in 2020. It's been a fun hobby documenting my other hobbies.
The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
#1 New Post-Apoc Minis from Brigade Games
#2 Fall-In! 2018 AAR
#3 James Stanton for HMGS Board of Directors
#4 Cold Wars 2019 AAR
#5 Curse of Nevoz #3 - Fourteen Beers at Chili's
#6 Historicon 2019 Day-Trip
#7 The Keg Golem
#8 Of Armies and Hordes Released by Ganesha Games
#9 Curse of Nevoz #1 - Clean Up, Aisle Four!
#10 (Review) Chickapig
I'll usually take any traffic I can get, but the New Post-Apoc Minis from Brigade post and the one regarding Jim Stanton for HMGS Board of Directors seemed to pique the interest of certain Italian and Ukrainian bots, respectively. After suffering from outrageous production from posts regarding Wardlings and a Shadowrun Kickstarter last year, I felt it was appropriate to delete those posts.
Removing all the posts with alleged bot-hits, 2019 looks similar to 2018. No Easter game this year removed wargames from the top "8." And it pays to work off a popular free Call of Cthulhu scenario and another based off a Reddit chain to my "Curse of Nevoz" Canadian College Cthulhu campaign.
The demise of Google+ was quite noticeable to my overall and individual post views. It seems more than coincidental that after April, the average pageviews for the first week of a new posts seems to have dropped in half compared to the last few years. Again, it could have all been bot-inflated numbers exploiting Google+, but it makes one wonder.
Best Laid Plans that Didn't Pan Out:
Everything - The girl's basketball horizons expanded from the local community league (which I'm now vice-president of) to five different leagues and an equal number of camps. Outside of a badly injured wrist at an AAU tournament at the Jersey Shore, it's been a positive and fun experience, but it has significantly hampered any sort of family gaming projects. Tack on my second promotion at work in the last two years and normal lunch hour chillaxin' on the blogs has disappeared. Let's not even mention the pool we got installed. First world gamer problems indeed.
The Purge 2019 - A mini-book purge cleared up the shelves. Nothing that I was even close to playing.
Kids Painting - See basketball comments above, although they have managed to use my paints for some arts and crafts projects.
My Painting - I touched up a bunch of figures... and then... nothing. Working on the RPG actual plays has turned by workbench time into office time in front of the computer. The basement flooding didn't help either.
Reverisco - I was able to make a few interesting purchases this year. One was finally placing an order with tin-soldier.com (Reverisco). The sets are quite affordable, except that the scale of the figures wanders between 20mm and 28mm. That's a huge disparity.
Highlights of 2019:
The New Neighbors and the Return of Swahili!: We loved our old neighbors, we were sad when they were forced to move for work, and we had the slightest of trepidation with the new family and their younger kids. Except James, the father, plays Magic, is interested in podcasts and D&D, and family in general likes to play games. Probably didn't get as much out of it as I could this Summer, but I broke out my Magic cards against an adult, and dusted off my old copy of Swahili. Even with basketball season coming along, I foresee some winter days playing games with all ages between the houses.
Battle in a Box, Prematurely: The Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers (HAWKs) have a host of cool ideas, one of which was Battle in a Box. The idea of setting up a game that could be easily packed up and transported, and making a contest out of it was simply brilliant. I just couldn't get mine to run following the contest rules at Fall-In! Still, six players and a chance to play more Second Samoan Civil War was a hoot!
The Lost Dispatches That Will Not Die: When I started my Lost Dispatches of Feraso, I simply wanted a vehicle to document all the adventures I ran in high school in the very early 90's. Within the first ten posts it evolved into something else. I've been able to not only cobble together the adventures into a logical order, but expound upon those areas. I must admit that I'm re-writing some campaign history as I go.
Kickstarters:
The Power d4: Still slated for December 2019 fulfillment
Twelve Hundred Words: ARRIVED EARLY. It is was it is.
Cthulhu Wars: Cataclysm: June 2020
Bag of Bags: ARRIVED JUST THIS FRIDAY
Sandstorm Wars I & II: Dragging.... three months late!
Girl Underground: RECEIVED!
Life of the Party, Volume 3: Great product, THREE MONTHS EARLY.
Steve Jackson Pocket Box Games:
In the Dungeon of the Wizard Lord Keraptis: Nice product, good communication, quick shipping and.... I donated it to the local con's charity auction. Another whim item I don't see myself using.
Flying Circus: Somewhere within the ether. It's a year overdue for a pdf. I know I probably have some version of the pdf which was made available, but at this point, I don't really care.
Reaper Bones 4: Arrived with the normal Reaper massive Kickstarter delays. The few figures I got are spectacular, and I now own a pig cart!
The Kid's Painting:
Maja enjoyed painting at Jim Stanton's classes at Hobby U
My Own Painting:
A pittance, really. Touching up the Samoans, a Middle-Eastern building I've yet to use, and a random hill giant. This is why Reaper Bones V goes live tomorrow and I probably will pick up $40-50 worth of a la carte items.
Games:
5e D&D - Our DM Jeff ran into some personal problems and was forced to bail. I love GMing, but being a player was pretty liberating and relaxing. Just a week ago, Jeff made a triumphant (albiet three week) return, and I greatly appreciated Falgor the Mighty and Uthar literally wrestling cats. Okay, they were Tabaxi, same difference.
Adventures in Gulluvia: Once Lost Dispatches is finally finished (March 2020?), I already have 17 episodes of Adventures in Gulluvia in the can. BECMI D&D with a decent body count and better role-playing with 3d6 stats in order than most special systems I've seen.
Curse of Nevoz: Running a 90's Call of Cthulhu game set in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada was not on the top of any list, but it seems to be successful.
Risus: If all else fails, another Fleetwood Mac cover band can be used with Risus.
Pulp: Our Savage Showdown game is slowly evolving into Pulp Alley and the kids might like it that way.
Conventions:
Mepacon Fall 2018 - Cranky ViscountEric vs the Santa Parade
Fall-in! 2018 - "These halls remind me of scary scenes from Doctor Who"
Cold Wars 2019 - The Host is Dead, Long Live the Wyndham
Historicon 2019 - A very worthwile day-trip
Media: It world might belong to the geek now, but after seeing The Big Bang Theory (and Preacher) finally end. Seeing Shazam! on the big screen is a dream come true for this fan of the Big Red Cheese. Otherwise, this geek-glut of material has been so-so.
The second biggest geek scream of the year?
2019 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards!
Best Kickstarter: Life of the Party - Quick, easy, exactly what I wanted. Bag of Bags gets 2nd place.
Worst Kickstarter: Flying Circus - Estimated delivery: August 2018. I think I have a copy of the pdf (my reward level), but I don't know if it's the final word, and I really don't care at this point.
Best Game: Whiskey Tango Rattlesnake - a two player, one Keeper game of CoC using the character rules from Electric Hoe-Down of the Atomic Reptile Bikini Women in 3-D!!! Was the most enjoyable game I've had in a long time. I laughed.... a LOT.
Best RPG Purchase: 5e Ghosts of Saltmarsh still hate the hardcover campaigns, but it's a well put-together project.
Best Minis: Space Marines/IG - If something is going to jump-start the family painting, dirt cheap Imperial Guard and Space Marines might be it, even if I'm not a Games Workshop fan.
Best "Other" Purchase: Bloody White Baron by James Palmer. Enough of a reality-check for the true brutality of the Back of Beyond, but I'm also intrigued.
Next: My Plans for 2019-2020
The Blog
Ten years blogging as of this month. Almost 3,000 posts and we'll be hitting a half-million views (some actually legit!) sometime in 2020. It's been a fun hobby documenting my other hobbies.
The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
#1 New Post-Apoc Minis from Brigade Games
#2 Fall-In! 2018 AAR
#3 James Stanton for HMGS Board of Directors
#4 Cold Wars 2019 AAR
#5 Curse of Nevoz #3 - Fourteen Beers at Chili's
#6 Historicon 2019 Day-Trip
#7 The Keg Golem
#8 Of Armies and Hordes Released by Ganesha Games
#9 Curse of Nevoz #1 - Clean Up, Aisle Four!
#10 (Review) Chickapig
I'll usually take any traffic I can get, but the New Post-Apoc Minis from Brigade post and the one regarding Jim Stanton for HMGS Board of Directors seemed to pique the interest of certain Italian and Ukrainian bots, respectively. After suffering from outrageous production from posts regarding Wardlings and a Shadowrun Kickstarter last year, I felt it was appropriate to delete those posts.
Removing all the posts with alleged bot-hits, 2019 looks similar to 2018. No Easter game this year removed wargames from the top "8." And it pays to work off a popular free Call of Cthulhu scenario and another based off a Reddit chain to my "Curse of Nevoz" Canadian College Cthulhu campaign.
The demise of Google+ was quite noticeable to my overall and individual post views. It seems more than coincidental that after April, the average pageviews for the first week of a new posts seems to have dropped in half compared to the last few years. Again, it could have all been bot-inflated numbers exploiting Google+, but it makes one wonder.
Best Laid Plans that Didn't Pan Out:
Everything - The girl's basketball horizons expanded from the local community league (which I'm now vice-president of) to five different leagues and an equal number of camps. Outside of a badly injured wrist at an AAU tournament at the Jersey Shore, it's been a positive and fun experience, but it has significantly hampered any sort of family gaming projects. Tack on my second promotion at work in the last two years and normal lunch hour chillaxin' on the blogs has disappeared. Let's not even mention the pool we got installed. First world gamer problems indeed.
The Purge 2019 - A mini-book purge cleared up the shelves. Nothing that I was even close to playing.
Kids Painting - See basketball comments above, although they have managed to use my paints for some arts and crafts projects.
My Painting - I touched up a bunch of figures... and then... nothing. Working on the RPG actual plays has turned by workbench time into office time in front of the computer. The basement flooding didn't help either.
Reverisco - I was able to make a few interesting purchases this year. One was finally placing an order with tin-soldier.com (Reverisco). The sets are quite affordable, except that the scale of the figures wanders between 20mm and 28mm. That's a huge disparity.
Highlights of 2019:
The New Neighbors and the Return of Swahili!: We loved our old neighbors, we were sad when they were forced to move for work, and we had the slightest of trepidation with the new family and their younger kids. Except James, the father, plays Magic, is interested in podcasts and D&D, and family in general likes to play games. Probably didn't get as much out of it as I could this Summer, but I broke out my Magic cards against an adult, and dusted off my old copy of Swahili. Even with basketball season coming along, I foresee some winter days playing games with all ages between the houses.
 |
| When we do get the chance to chill out together our families keep things low-key |
The Lost Dispatches That Will Not Die: When I started my Lost Dispatches of Feraso, I simply wanted a vehicle to document all the adventures I ran in high school in the very early 90's. Within the first ten posts it evolved into something else. I've been able to not only cobble together the adventures into a logical order, but expound upon those areas. I must admit that I'm re-writing some campaign history as I go.
Kickstarters:
The Power d4: Still slated for December 2019 fulfillment
Twelve Hundred Words: ARRIVED EARLY. It is was it is.
Cthulhu Wars: Cataclysm: June 2020
Bag of Bags: ARRIVED JUST THIS FRIDAY
Sandstorm Wars I & II: Dragging.... three months late!
Girl Underground: RECEIVED!
Life of the Party, Volume 3: Great product, THREE MONTHS EARLY.
Steve Jackson Pocket Box Games:
In the Dungeon of the Wizard Lord Keraptis: Nice product, good communication, quick shipping and.... I donated it to the local con's charity auction. Another whim item I don't see myself using.
Flying Circus: Somewhere within the ether. It's a year overdue for a pdf. I know I probably have some version of the pdf which was made available, but at this point, I don't really care.
Reaper Bones 4: Arrived with the normal Reaper massive Kickstarter delays. The few figures I got are spectacular, and I now own a pig cart!
The Kid's Painting:
Maja enjoyed painting at Jim Stanton's classes at Hobby U
 |
| Maja's work on the left. |
My Own Painting:
A pittance, really. Touching up the Samoans, a Middle-Eastern building I've yet to use, and a random hill giant. This is why Reaper Bones V goes live tomorrow and I probably will pick up $40-50 worth of a la carte items.
Games:
5e D&D - Our DM Jeff ran into some personal problems and was forced to bail. I love GMing, but being a player was pretty liberating and relaxing. Just a week ago, Jeff made a triumphant (albiet three week) return, and I greatly appreciated Falgor the Mighty and Uthar literally wrestling cats. Okay, they were Tabaxi, same difference.
Adventures in Gulluvia: Once Lost Dispatches is finally finished (March 2020?), I already have 17 episodes of Adventures in Gulluvia in the can. BECMI D&D with a decent body count and better role-playing with 3d6 stats in order than most special systems I've seen.
Curse of Nevoz: Running a 90's Call of Cthulhu game set in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada was not on the top of any list, but it seems to be successful.
Risus: If all else fails, another Fleetwood Mac cover band can be used with Risus.
Pulp: Our Savage Showdown game is slowly evolving into Pulp Alley and the kids might like it that way.
Conventions:
Mepacon Fall 2018 - Cranky ViscountEric vs the Santa Parade
Fall-in! 2018 - "These halls remind me of scary scenes from Doctor Who"
Cold Wars 2019 - The Host is Dead, Long Live the Wyndham
Historicon 2019 - A very worthwile day-trip
Media: It world might belong to the geek now, but after seeing The Big Bang Theory (and Preacher) finally end. Seeing Shazam! on the big screen is a dream come true for this fan of the Big Red Cheese. Otherwise, this geek-glut of material has been so-so.
The second biggest geek scream of the year?
2019 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards!
Best Kickstarter: Life of the Party - Quick, easy, exactly what I wanted. Bag of Bags gets 2nd place.
Worst Kickstarter: Flying Circus - Estimated delivery: August 2018. I think I have a copy of the pdf (my reward level), but I don't know if it's the final word, and I really don't care at this point.
Best Game: Whiskey Tango Rattlesnake - a two player, one Keeper game of CoC using the character rules from Electric Hoe-Down of the Atomic Reptile Bikini Women in 3-D!!! Was the most enjoyable game I've had in a long time. I laughed.... a LOT.
Best RPG Purchase: 5e Ghosts of Saltmarsh still hate the hardcover campaigns, but it's a well put-together project.
Best Minis: Space Marines/IG - If something is going to jump-start the family painting, dirt cheap Imperial Guard and Space Marines might be it, even if I'm not a Games Workshop fan.
Honorable Mention, because their certainly not my minis, was Maja taking part in the Armies for Kids game, sponsored by the HAWKS. Even more stuff for her to paint.
Best "Other" Purchase: Bloody White Baron by James Palmer. Enough of a reality-check for the true brutality of the Back of Beyond, but I'm also intrigued.
Next: My Plans for 2019-2020
No comments:
Post a Comment