New Years Hobby Resolutions

There are traditionally two things that are done at New Year - look back at the year just gone, and look ahead to the year to come. The Bad Dice Awards post was my attempt at looking back, and this one should take care of the looking forward side of things. I have seen a few people post their hobby related New Years Resolutions on Twitter, and I usually try and set myself a few goals for the coming year too. This year though, I intend to put it in writing on here, so I can look back next year to see how spectacularly I failed to meet them!

Resolution 1: The Pledge

I've not actually seen the origin of this anywhere, but it appears on all sorts of forum signatures and I think that I've got the gist of it! It appears that The Pledge involves keeping track of all the models that you paint during the year, and also how many that you buy. The aim is to keep then number of painted models above the number of bought models. As I have a vast horde of unpainted plastic, my first resolution is to take The Pledge for 2014.

I will aim to paint more models than I buy this year.

Resolution 2: Tournaments

Tournaments are a big part of why I play Warhammer. They are great social occasions more than anything else, and there are a lot of people on the tournament scene that I count as friends. I rarely see them outside of these few weekends a year, and this is a shame. The 5 or 6 games of Warhammer that also come as part of the tournament are almost secondary to this! However, these weekends are proving a lot harder to get to now. The venue that was within an hour of where I live closed down in May last year, and since then most of the big events seem to be in the North West Gaming Centre in Stockport. I have nothing against this venue, but being in Stockport it is more than 2 hours away from where I live and requires an overnight stay on the Saturday night. These are costly, and working in a school means I have to make my way up Saturday morning for most events too. My resolution though is not to let all this stop me.

I will try and attend at least 6 two day tournaments this year, wherever they may be held!

Resolution 3: Gaming

Last year saw me end what had become an almost 3 year stint of playing Ogre Kingdoms at events. I played them at the tail end of 7th edition Warhammer, when I returned to the hobby after a break, and I played them throughout the first few years of 8th edition as well. I played them with the old book (widely regarded as one of the least competitive, mainly due to its age) and when the new book was released I continued to play them, trying out almost every option available. The problem with this was that whatever list I used, the playstyle was very similar and I eventually became bored with them. Since then, I tried to use my Lizardmen army in a few events, and found them rewarding but tiring to play. I also painted up a new Vampire Counts army and debuted them at the Blood and Glory event in September. This gives me three armies that I like playing with, each with their own particular style of play. I intend to switch between them to not let myself get bored with one particular army.

I will not use the same army in two tournaments, unless I have used at least 2 different armies between those events.

(For example, if I play VC at my first event of the year, I would have to use my Lizardmen and Ogres at the next two I go to before I can use my VC again.)

Resolution 4: Raze and Ruin

In October I ran my first Warhammer tournament where I was the principle organizer. It was a lot of fun, and has been documented elsewhere on the internet (specifically the Bad Dice podcast and on The Warhammer Forum). I really enjoyed running this, and to go along with my 2nd point I think that the Midlands could do with another big 2 day event. I already have some ideas to try and improve on the first event, and I hope to be able to really put it on the map as one of the events people want to go to. The first thing to do though is to clear up the organizational problems that were evident this year, and to try and announce the date and other such details a lot earlier! Attendance is always going to be the only way to judge whether an event is a success, so for this resolution I'm going to put a target number on that!

I will try and ensure that Raze and Ruin 2014 has at least 40 people attending.

Resolution 5: Blogging

5 is a good number. Things seem to work well in fives, and you constantly see lists of things that have 5 points on them. I fee l that this blog post should be no different, and thus I am sort of copping out with this resolution in making it about the blog! However, even in the few posts I have made so far I am quite enjoying writing down my thoughts, so I feel justified in putting a resolution towards continuing this. I am notoriously bad at keeping things like this up to date, for instance see my Club 200 log on TWF! However, I hope that having something like this as a place to write (where I don't have to keep to a particular theme!) will encourage me to do so.

I will try and update this blog at least every two weeks.

That's it! There are lost of other things I'd like to do this year though. For instance, I'd quite like to do well at an event, maybe bring home a trophy or two, maybe improve my painting ability as well. However, these are not going as resolutions as I feel that they would either be over ambitious or difficult to track! I do invite all you reading though to comment below with your own New Years Hobby Resolutions, be they big or small, and share with at least one other person what you plan for the year.

Happy New Year to you all!!!