I've always tracked my gaming progress like the US Federal fiscal calendar (October through September). Don't ask why, it's always been like that, I'm not going to change now.
Over the course, I happened upon my review of my 2015-16 gaming year. Full of hope, plans, and failed projects. It was Maja's first overnight con, my first full weekend con (Mepcaon), we had three gaming stores, and lots of people read my posts on conventions and pulp gaming.
Ten years later, Maja likes to run games at HMGS conventions, all the stores shuttered (one has evolved to Sword in the Stone at the mall), and people still like my convention posts, my pulp posts, and my painting posts don't send people screaming.
The Blog in General:
The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
- The Historicon Mega-Game is Back! (Gnome Wars)
- Historicon 2026 AAR (Conventions)
- The Complete Strategist is Closing? (Retail)
- Zombie Planet Comics and Games, Albany (Reviews)
- The Event List for Historicon 2026 (Conventions)
- FlipSide Gaming, Clifton Park (Reviews)
- Hawaiian Gnome Playtest Rules (Gnome Wars)
- Flights 2 Game Store and Hobbies (Reviews)
- #RPGaDay Day 27 - Hunger (#RPGaDay)
- #Star Wars Day - Mos Eisley Cantina Adventure Set (Painting)
- Savage #4.2 - The Craft Fair of Chaos (Pulp)
I'm definitely spoiling my review of the goals I set for this year, but my trip to visit the girls in Albany got a lot of positive response, and a lot of organic page views. Gnome Wars and Painting tend to bring folks in repeatedly. The reviews, local and abroad, have helped replaced my normal traffic from the HMGS Conventions I missed this year.
#RPGaDay2026: The annual RPG community event was lackluster, and that could be more on this participant than anything else. The only true positive of the one word prompts is that I spent an evening with the Monday night online crew and brainstormed over the dozen or so that had left me puzzled... or underwhelmed with ideas.
#CharacterCreationChallenge: Overall a fun project that nets me about the same number of views as my wargaming stuff. A LOT of positive engagement over at Bluesky, but most of the views still come from limited Facebook use and lukewarm Twitter posting. Threads is either not recording at all, or hot garbage.
The most popular post for the month, Captain Guy N Pygmalion for Gamma World.
#ZineQuest: For the last four years, I have love the concept of promoting zines on Kickstarter. In that time frame, my posts for the month went from lowest productivity for the years (20-25) to 45-60 for the month. This year, though, between the solid split between Kickstarter #ZineQuest and BackerKit's #ZineTopia, plus the underwhelming types of zines compared to my taste, I only highlighted a handful of zines, and signed up for zero. I was easily more pre-occupied with...
#RPGCampaignTour: A 28-day challenge for February to answer prompts about your RPG campaign. Simple, fun, and a good way to review 130 episodes of Gamma World. Twenty-six of the prompts were answered, with me using AI to figure out topics I more preferred to write about. I chalk it up as a success.
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| Perhaps my favorite AI-generated artwork, Lady Vespara from the #CharacterCreationChallenge |
#Project 350: For my neverending tracking of blog draft posts behind the scenes, and posts scheduled for the future, I end the gaming year at 472 (314 blog draft and 158 scheduled post), definitely up from 453 (281/172) this time last year. It's largely consistent, the big increase in drafts chalked up to my pre-gaming for January's #CharacterCreationChallenge. I'll admit that I've finished and schedule the post for four concepts I statted out, but I've plugged away about 25 placeholders for the event, everything from a name (ex: Rip Shenanigans), a concept (Christmas Tree farmers), or a whole crew of Delta crew characters with unique situations. I still need to play more games to reduce my standing list of concepts that I need to put into action.
TRIUMPHS:
Mahalo to Our Hawaiian Gnome Overlords! - I received the Hawaiian Gnomes from Brigade Games in July 2025, and by December 2025, they were painted up, a near speed record for me!
The playtest rules are out, and in a Great War focused Gnome Wars setting, melee troops need good balance, but also tactical skill to be successful.
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| The Hawaiian Gnomes |
Mepacon 49! - Skipping Fall-In! allowed me a full weekend at Mepacon. I love the new location, the attendees bring a lot of energy, and we had a quorum of the old group at dinner Sunday night!
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| A buncha old-timers playing Battletech |
The Pulp Game Returneth! We officially started Pulp Alley's Tomb of the Serpent and it's... fair. Knowing what the girls normally expect from pulp-style games, it's a little underwhelming, but we're going to slowly work our way through, when we have the time.
Mepacon 50! I made it to both cons within the years, and celebrated the con's big 5-0 by running a nostalgia-fueled series of events. Talislanta and My Little Pony didn't fare to well, but I got plenty of players for the return of Burning Plastic and my Cthulhu Comes to Springfield TOON Games.
Historicon 2026 - With a full crew, we commandeered the Commonwealth Foyer for a series of games properly showcasing the Hawaiian Gnomes, as well as some sweet outrigger canoes by Diabolical Terrain.
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| The Hawaiians learned they were a melee army... |
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| Volcano! |
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| It only took well over a dozen years to get these gals painted up. |
CATASTROPHES:
No Fall-In, No Gnome Wars, No Cold Wars, No Gnome Wars: Funds and schedules didn't work out. Unfortunately the rest of the Stout Gnomes were also quite sparse.
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| Dog Wizard (Sculpted by Mike Lung) |
The Death of Game Trade: The death of Diamond Comics distributors and the subsequent spin-off of Alliance Game Distributors to Universal Distribution forced my faithful Game Trade Magazine into obsolescence after the ignominy of being stuck behind an overpriced paywall at DriveThruRPG. No free access to gaming solicitations any moron would want customers looking at and driving FLGS business is ridiculous. I've reverted to looking at ADC Game Distributors Meeple Monthly, which has been passable for something I've done for years prior to GTM's 300+ issue monthly run. My verdict: Meeple Monthly is such a horribly crafted magazine, it would make the colored paper and stapled solicitations of 30 years ago laugh at them.
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| Ronaldus Iaworski, Holy Gnoman |
The Death of the Complete Strategist (King of Prussia): The announcement of the closing of the Complete Strategist in KoP came out of left field. I wasn't able to get down there, but part of the greater OG gamer contingent did. It could be argued that it was well past its former glories, but I repeatedly wanted to make visits down there, even after my kids stopped playing local AAU right down the street.
GENERAL MUCKERY:
The Death of Meticulousness - Overuse of AI, so much so, I actually gave up most functionality for lent. That barely worked. I did find it amusing that I'm nearing a 1,000 day streak on Nightcafe, yet Gemini has been producing my weird Gamma World art on the first or second attempt, at a much higher quality.
A Review of My Plans from last October
- My Back-Up Game, D.A.M.N.I.T. - Even with the successful and completed Kickstarter for the Savage Worlds version (Space Beards!), I didn't get to implement.
- Pulp (Savage Showdown) - 4.2, 4.3. 4.4, 4.5
- Death Planet Iota Ongoing - Games continue to be played. I'm trying to use the characters on a spreadsheet to keep track of faction. The high point, of course was the Mos Eisley comes to Death Planet Iota game.
- Mousling Fantasy - The Brutal Quest dive wasn't what I really wanted, and per my daughters, a return to Savage Worlds/Showdown is what is needed for next year.
- Painting - Cleared all available gnomes, worked on sci-fi, embellished with fantasy/pulp when needed. I could always paint more, but I'm satisfied.
- Reviews - Gold Star! I was satisfied with the number of reviews halfway through the year, and even after I started my new job, they seemed to keep coming in. It's been fun visiting new game stores, and giving my old man opinions on the handful of items I purchase... and they usually produce good initial and perpetual views.
- RPG - Gamma World is the slow and perpetual monster that doesn't appear to be going anywhere, although we've had moments where players were revisiting the Roll20 page to prep for next weekend when combat went dark. No direction on what people want after the campaign.
- Mini-Purge - We are at capacity ... but nothing purged quite yet.
- Wargaming at Steve's - Outside a game of Thunder Road, nada, although all his youth baseball stories with his kids definitely made Monday night sessions amusing.
- Burning Trogs Redux - Ha! The eternal dream still lies dormant, but the 25th Anniversary Edition of Hackmaster stokes a few memories.
- Cthulhu New York, Ia! Ia! - Ha!
- The Wikis - Ha!
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| Star Wars (WEG) Rebel Commandos |
Kickstarter Status:
BK: Toon 2nd Edition - 2027
KS: d6 System, 2nd Edition - February 2025 - Beta PDF ARRIVED
KS: Gone Foragin' - PDF ARRIVED
KS: Gone Scarin' - PDF ARRIVED
KS: Hackmaster 25th Anniversary - August 2027
KS: Monsters and Hunters by Macrocosm - ARRIVED
KS: Space Beards - PDF ARRIVED
KS: Space Dwarves - November 2027
KS: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness RPG - ARRIVED
Painting - 117 this year, after a monster 182 last year... looking at the pictures, I forgot that I painted many of these in the last 12 months!
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| The first few of the Hawaiians... |
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| More cultists from Pulp Figures |
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| Even more cultists from Pulp Figures |
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| These two random Prussians drew a lot of page views |
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| Not the Gnomes, just the Reaper road cones... |
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| Brigade Games Goblins |
2025-26 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards
Worst Kickstarter: TMNT - Compared to Palladium's Robotech, it's a dream come true, but $25 for shipping one book in-country? I think I understood how my simple order got to the tail end of US Shipments, but I tend to avoid campaigns with 8 month delays... so it still winces.
Best Game: 39th Annual Cat Wrangle
Best RPG Purchase: Mutant Crawl Classics - a big chunky book for the shelf, and a host of gonzo charts for Gamma World. Best $10 con purchase in a loooong time.
Best Minis: Island Gnomes! ... and an appropriate runner-up with the Diabolical outriggers
Best Other Purchase: Not my purchases, but my money. I'm pretty systematic with my convention going: same vendors, same eating establishments, and Maja has always tagged along willingly, but with Mepacon 50, I can admit that she's the target demographic for a lot of the craft and peripheral vendors that attend our local con, and god help both of our wallets.
Next: My Plans for 2026-27
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