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 Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
#6 What in the Sweet Name of Fantasy Wargames (Heroquest)
#7 Cold Wars Event Registration Has Been Opened!
#8 (Painting) Archaeology in the Zombie Apocalypse
#9 (Kickstarter) Planet 28
#10 (Risus) The Search for Pumpkin Spice
#7 Cold Wars Event Registration Has Been Opened!
#8 (Painting) Archaeology in the Zombie Apocalypse
#9 (Kickstarter) Planet 28
#10 (Risus) The Search for Pumpkin Spice
Two of the top ten (***) were victims of the focus of certain bots from Italy and the Ukraine, but they also had their own traction before the inflated views hit, so I hold them in there place after I killed the posts and re-published them.
My usual Kickstarter format for Tales from the Loop drew far more traffic than I originally thought. Through 9/29, it's the 13th most viewed post all-time for my blog.
Other posts that cracked my Top 30 All-Time Views List were the obituary for "Uncle Duke" Seifried (#24) and after a lot of viral traction, My Canadian Cthulhu "Fourteen Beers at Chili's" actually cracked the top 10 at #9!
The posts that dropped off my Top 30 All-Time List weren't anything special, except for a now-nostalgic look at playing Burning Plastic on Steve's bar, and literally using Beer and Pretzels for terrain.
COVID Keeps Familes Together - My new duties at work, plus our basketball extravaganzas every night gave us little time to play, but worse yet, there was little motivation to play. Plus we couldn't even enjoy our gamer neighbors during quarantine.
Looking back, we had just enough distractions not to break out a game at any given moment. Damn you Netflix and Disney+ !
I can also somehow get to blame COVID that I only played 22 different games at least once this past year (Average is usually 25-27 per year).
Gallstones for a Vacation Away from Family!
To complicate months of work from home and quarantines, I came down with a gall stone shutting down my pancreas, sending my blood sugar through the roof and my body into a horribly squishy mess. Things are better now, slowly progressing off insulin and onto medication. My pancreas absolutely despises giant muffins (as expected), but can handle most restaurant meals and even a reasonable piece of pizza or two. It's also allowed me to spend some an hour every other night in the basement, cleaning cat litter, lifting a few weights, and painting some figures. Outside of a squad of four rescue kittens finding the bench to be a perfect place for them to practice the feline art of knocking things off tables, it's been a productive time, and I feel confident with the direction I'm going for next year, both gaming-wise and physically.
Triumphs!
The Saga Completed - Almost.
Lost Dispatches of Feraso will finally finish out the beginning of November with Episode #100. With some holiday pauses, this project started over TWO YEARS ago, and has fleshed out some of the sections of my homebrew world that I haven't touched since high school. Thanks to that, we'll have a new project on next year's goals when that posts tomorrow.
Strike it down, and it becomes more powerful than you could ever imagine.
For the first three months we were doing great, with seven sessions, and I filled in one Gulluvia session and two Risus. After Christmas our Monday Day Online Gaming sessions just evaporated. I wasn't quite sure what was going on. E-mails weren't getting answered, I'd log onto our Skype/Roll20 group and only one other player would jump on. It was getting to the point that I at least dropped a major hint on Facebook and Twitter that I was looking for new players to continue the sessions, if not a different game altogether.
One new person responded: The Gnome King himself, Jim Stanton. On a completely unrelated note, our GM rose from the dead the same week and appeared online, stating the mostly obvious: He was tired of GMing and would be happy to show up as a player. I ran them through two Risus games, Bigg Melons in the Time of COVID and The Great Hall of COVIDiots, for some light-hearted pandemic fun, and to make sure everybody meshed with Jim.
With that a success, I moved onto the my usual "What does everybody want to play?" poll, and for the first time since I broke up my Hackmaster group in 2004, it came back unanimous:
Star War d6 (West End Games) - It has been a rousing success thus far.
Risus: The COVID themed games were big hits, but the Spice Girls espionage-esque games seemed to be an odd niche that... just.... works. I'm a little worried that our Christmas in July game was more an homage to Kim Cattrall. And yet it worked, and somehow became the most popular post of my #RPGaDay2020 project.
Mouslings Live! It took forever, but we did get three Mousling games set up using Savage Worlds/Showdown. Great little scenarios that got to showcase a lot of the painting I got done the first half of the year.
Catastrophes
Face to Face - Thank you COVID. We're suffering from a different type of Masks of Nylarathotep. And speaking of CoC, this was the first time in years we didn't at least assemble for one Call of Cthulhu game.
No play, No Test: COVID had me treading water for a looong time, but you would think I could get something together for the Legions of Steel playtest, or at least trying out the rules for Planet 28.
Maja Millie - Retired Archaeologist?: The Pulp game suffered the same fate as many others. Just not enough motivation, or time when the kids are around.
Gnome Wars - Only a little fluff work, like Canadian Bermuda. Only significant painting was by Maja at the Fall-In! The Nauvoo Legion project is indeed my new version of the German Schutztruppe.
Kickstarter Status
KS: Flying Circus RPG - It finally delivered, 20 months late, and despite some interesting concepts, I find much of it ho-hum.
KS: Legions of Steel Classic Minis - ARRIVED
KS: Planet 28 - ARRIVED
KS: Pulp Figures Dangerous Dames - ARRIVED
KS: Reaper Bones V - It's Reaper. It's such a big project that regulars know to enjoy the long experience.
KS: 7 Space Dwarfs - ARRIVED
KS: Space Dwarf Bikers - ARRIVED
KS: Sci-Fi Dwarves (Macrocosm) - Pending October 2020
KS: Sci-Fi Dwarf Miners (BattleValor) - ARRIVED
KS: Wars of Ozz - Pledge manager up - December 2020
KS: Cthulhu and Pulp Characters - ARRIVED
KS: Sandstorm Wars - Holy crap, it arrived!
KS: Twilight: 2000 - June 2021
KS: Steve Jackson Coasters for the Party - June 2021
KS: Cthulhu Wars: CATaclysm - Overdue four months. The one true joke that I pledged real money to and it funded. Now I get some dull updates over the delays thanks to COVID, China, and other issues. The cats should be fun to paint.
General Muckery:
My usual Kickstarter format for Tales from the Loop drew far more traffic than I originally thought. Through 9/29, it's the 13th most viewed post all-time for my blog.
Other posts that cracked my Top 30 All-Time Views List were the obituary for "Uncle Duke" Seifried (#24) and after a lot of viral traction, My Canadian Cthulhu "Fourteen Beers at Chili's" actually cracked the top 10 at #9!
The posts that dropped off my Top 30 All-Time List weren't anything special, except for a now-nostalgic look at playing Burning Plastic on Steve's bar, and literally using Beer and Pretzels for terrain.
COVID Keeps Familes Together - My new duties at work, plus our basketball extravaganzas every night gave us little time to play, but worse yet, there was little motivation to play. Plus we couldn't even enjoy our gamer neighbors during quarantine.
Looking back, we had just enough distractions not to break out a game at any given moment. Damn you Netflix and Disney+ !
I can also somehow get to blame COVID that I only played 22 different games at least once this past year (Average is usually 25-27 per year).
Gallstones for a Vacation Away from Family!
To complicate months of work from home and quarantines, I came down with a gall stone shutting down my pancreas, sending my blood sugar through the roof and my body into a horribly squishy mess. Things are better now, slowly progressing off insulin and onto medication. My pancreas absolutely despises giant muffins (as expected), but can handle most restaurant meals and even a reasonable piece of pizza or two. It's also allowed me to spend some an hour every other night in the basement, cleaning cat litter, lifting a few weights, and painting some figures. Outside of a squad of four rescue kittens finding the bench to be a perfect place for them to practice the feline art of knocking things off tables, it's been a productive time, and I feel confident with the direction I'm going for next year, both gaming-wise and physically.
Triumphs!
The Saga Completed - Almost.
Lost Dispatches of Feraso will finally finish out the beginning of November with Episode #100. With some holiday pauses, this project started over TWO YEARS ago, and has fleshed out some of the sections of my homebrew world that I haven't touched since high school. Thanks to that, we'll have a new project on next year's goals when that posts tomorrow.
Strike it down, and it becomes more powerful than you could ever imagine.
For the first three months we were doing great, with seven sessions, and I filled in one Gulluvia session and two Risus. After Christmas our Monday Day Online Gaming sessions just evaporated. I wasn't quite sure what was going on. E-mails weren't getting answered, I'd log onto our Skype/Roll20 group and only one other player would jump on. It was getting to the point that I at least dropped a major hint on Facebook and Twitter that I was looking for new players to continue the sessions, if not a different game altogether.
One new person responded: The Gnome King himself, Jim Stanton. On a completely unrelated note, our GM rose from the dead the same week and appeared online, stating the mostly obvious: He was tired of GMing and would be happy to show up as a player. I ran them through two Risus games, Bigg Melons in the Time of COVID and The Great Hall of COVIDiots, for some light-hearted pandemic fun, and to make sure everybody meshed with Jim.
With that a success, I moved onto the my usual "What does everybody want to play?" poll, and for the first time since I broke up my Hackmaster group in 2004, it came back unanimous:
Star War d6 (West End Games) - It has been a rousing success thus far.
Risus: The COVID themed games were big hits, but the Spice Girls espionage-esque games seemed to be an odd niche that... just.... works. I'm a little worried that our Christmas in July game was more an homage to Kim Cattrall. And yet it worked, and somehow became the most popular post of my #RPGaDay2020 project.
Mouslings Live! It took forever, but we did get three Mousling games set up using Savage Worlds/Showdown. Great little scenarios that got to showcase a lot of the painting I got done the first half of the year.
Face to Face - Thank you COVID. We're suffering from a different type of Masks of Nylarathotep. And speaking of CoC, this was the first time in years we didn't at least assemble for one Call of Cthulhu game.
No play, No Test: COVID had me treading water for a looong time, but you would think I could get something together for the Legions of Steel playtest, or at least trying out the rules for Planet 28.
Maja Millie - Retired Archaeologist?: The Pulp game suffered the same fate as many others. Just not enough motivation, or time when the kids are around.
Gnome Wars - Only a little fluff work, like Canadian Bermuda. Only significant painting was by Maja at the Fall-In! The Nauvoo Legion project is indeed my new version of the German Schutztruppe.
KS: Flying Circus RPG - It finally delivered, 20 months late, and despite some interesting concepts, I find much of it ho-hum.
KS: Legions of Steel Classic Minis - ARRIVED
KS: Planet 28 - ARRIVED
KS: Pulp Figures Dangerous Dames - ARRIVED
KS: Reaper Bones V - It's Reaper. It's such a big project that regulars know to enjoy the long experience.
KS: 7 Space Dwarfs - ARRIVED
KS: Space Dwarf Bikers - ARRIVED
KS: Sci-Fi Dwarves (Macrocosm) - Pending October 2020
KS: Sci-Fi Dwarf Miners (BattleValor) - ARRIVED
KS: Wars of Ozz - Pledge manager up - December 2020
KS: Cthulhu and Pulp Characters - ARRIVED
KS: Sandstorm Wars - Holy crap, it arrived!
KS: Twilight: 2000 - June 2021
KS: Steve Jackson Coasters for the Party - June 2021
KS: Cthulhu Wars: CATaclysm - Overdue four months. The one true joke that I pledged real money to and it funded. Now I get some dull updates over the delays thanks to COVID, China, and other issues. The cats should be fun to paint.
General Muckery:
Conventions
Fall-In! 2019 - Forgot how Byzantine the Valley Forge Casino and Convention Center was....Lots of walking on our daytrip, the joust, and painting.
Cold Wars 2020 - Pandemic Edition - With COVID (and CW being the weekend they shut down all pro sports... and the state) Wargming in Education was a bust, so I was a bit happy not to take Yellowstone out of the mothballs... yet.
Still getting my feet wet with the virtual conventions, Mepacon and CyberWars in particular. Fun was had by all, we just need more folks to attend. Still doesn't beat face-to-face gaming, but we need to take what we can for a while longer.
Fall-In! 2019 - Forgot how Byzantine the Valley Forge Casino and Convention Center was....Lots of walking on our daytrip, the joust, and painting.
Cold Wars 2020 - Pandemic Edition - With COVID (and CW being the weekend they shut down all pro sports... and the state) Wargming in Education was a bust, so I was a bit happy not to take Yellowstone out of the mothballs... yet.
Still getting my feet wet with the virtual conventions, Mepacon and CyberWars in particular. Fun was had by all, we just need more folks to attend. Still doesn't beat face-to-face gaming, but we need to take what we can for a while longer.
Media: Baby Yoda (the Rest of the Mandalorian was top-notch as well.) Can't wait till Season 2.
Painting: If last year was a drought, this year at least kept the grass green.
I think this meme sums everything up quite succinctly.
Painting 51 figures isn't record setting, but it is far more than the average whiner on social media who either wishes they had time or talent. The latter requires the first, and at the end of the day, the only person that is responsible for my time, is me.
It took me a bit to realize that the first and last figures I finished this year came from the same Gydran Miniatures Kickstarter.
Kid's Painting - The Ring of Fire
2020 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards!
Best Kickstarter: BattleValor Games' Sci-Fi Dwarf Miner Warriors beat out Macrocosm, Pulp Figures, and Brigade Games' awesome campaigns thanks to tremendous value and ridiculous turnaround time.
Worst Kickstarter: Sandstorm Wars - It was finally delivered, but from the moment I pledged to the campaign, I regretted I didn't jump on the Macrocosm Kickstarter before they sold the molds to these guys. There are a few figures that will get to the head of the line for one of next year's projects, but I'm not happy with the experience.
Best Game: Bo'Non'as and Oopsa - The Legend Continues. It's a proud moment when my players embrace and play the roles of two minor NPCs, and continue to inquire about the next time we'll leave the Star Wars d6 regular campaign and return to the forests of the Kurabanda. A definite moment of growth from my players.
Best RPG Purchase: Star Wars d6 30th Anniversary Slipcase. Jump-started my Star Wars d6 online game, even though I reference the 2nd Edition rulebook I already owned.
Best Minis: 7 Space Dwarves - A great year for quality minis, but these figures are so awesome I'm still ok that I over pledged and forgot to include add-ons during the Pledge Manager. I did add those to my Space Dwarf Bikers pledge during their next campaign.
Best Other Purchase: An LED Desk Lamp for the Painting Bench.
Next: My Plans for 2020-2021
Painting: If last year was a drought, this year at least kept the grass green.
I think this meme sums everything up quite succinctly.
 |
| Arl, Beaverian Brute |
 |
| My Red Phase.... |
 |
| Easter Island Heads |
 |
| The mushrooms are new, not the mouslings. |
 |
| An Unexpected Encounter |
 |
| Kim Jong Un |
 |
| Archaeology in the Zombie Apocalypse |
 |
| Apocalypse Santa and his crew, ready for Zombie Action! |
 |
| Gnomish Space Marine VTOL Support, with ground crew |
 |
| General Folger Sandstrom, Commander, Gnomish Space Marines |
It took me a bit to realize that the first and last figures I finished this year came from the same Gydran Miniatures Kickstarter.
Kid's Painting - The Ring of Fire
2020 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards!
Best Kickstarter: BattleValor Games' Sci-Fi Dwarf Miner Warriors beat out Macrocosm, Pulp Figures, and Brigade Games' awesome campaigns thanks to tremendous value and ridiculous turnaround time.
Worst Kickstarter: Sandstorm Wars - It was finally delivered, but from the moment I pledged to the campaign, I regretted I didn't jump on the Macrocosm Kickstarter before they sold the molds to these guys. There are a few figures that will get to the head of the line for one of next year's projects, but I'm not happy with the experience.
Best Game: Bo'Non'as and Oopsa - The Legend Continues. It's a proud moment when my players embrace and play the roles of two minor NPCs, and continue to inquire about the next time we'll leave the Star Wars d6 regular campaign and return to the forests of the Kurabanda. A definite moment of growth from my players.
Best RPG Purchase: Star Wars d6 30th Anniversary Slipcase. Jump-started my Star Wars d6 online game, even though I reference the 2nd Edition rulebook I already owned.
Best Minis: 7 Space Dwarves - A great year for quality minis, but these figures are so awesome I'm still ok that I over pledged and forgot to include add-ons during the Pledge Manager. I did add those to my Space Dwarf Bikers pledge during their next campaign.
Best Other Purchase: An LED Desk Lamp for the Painting Bench.
Next: My Plans for 2020-2021
No comments:
Post a Comment