2016 in Review and Looking Forward to 2017
Hello everyone, and happy New Year! It's been a bit since my last post, the holidays are always a busy time traveling for me, so I have less time to play with my toys. Now that things have died down a bit, I thought I'd talk about how my hobby went over the last year, and where I see it going in 2017.
Infinity
This year saw the vast majority of my gaming time be invested into Infinity. I've been working hard painting my Onyx in preparation for the Las Vegas Open and Adepticon. I probably went a bit overboard (shocking, I know) in the game early on and have downsized my Ariadna to only be the USAriadna sectorial, while I still have the full gamut of Combined. In 2017 I expect to continue painting The Combined as they are my primary faction, and maybe start painting my second, which would be USAriadna. I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't tempted by ISS, and I've even started a small army of them, though I don't have any expectations to rush them to the table.
Age of Sigmar
The General's Handbook brought me back full force into the fantasy genre. Long-time readers may remember that I played Warhammer Fantasy almost exclusively for quite some time, and I'm incredibly excited to get back into it. I've taught a few of the local players, including the guys over at Heroic Intervention, and it seems that we have a new meta developing. I've assembled a 2000 point army of Ironjawz to complement my Beastclaw Raiders and Gutbusters. Since I've already painted a bit of my ogres already, I'd really like to get a solid core of them painted this year so that I can take them to some tournaments, or even run some.
Blood Bowl
Possibly the best miniatures game that GW has ever produced, thanks to rules by the amazing Jervis Johnson, it seems that Blood Bowl is back in full swing. A massive amount of players locally have jumped on the opportunity to get back into this classic game, and I'm definitely on the band wagon. I already have a set of the previous edition pewter humans, complete with all positionals and ogre, so you can expect to see me painting them in 2017. I would also like to add either a bruiser team or a stunty team to my collection, which basically means either Dwarfs or Halflings... knowing me, likely both.
Heavy Gear Blitz
I've assembled my entire Northern Guard army from the Kickstarter and have even added a few other toys. I'd like to gets started painting them, but since there aren't many players around here (yet!) it's less of a priority than getting my AoS, Infinity, and Blood Bowl teams painted. The models are absolutely gorgeous though and I'm very satisfied with this Kickstarter, more so than just about any other miniatures Kickstarter I've backed.
Warhammer 40k
Unfortunately, 40k has been moved to the very back of my priority queue. This year I sold off all of my Chaos Marines and Khorne Daemonkin, clearing out a massive amount of storage space, but also taking a mental load off my back, as it was an impossibly huge project for the amount of time I have to dedicate to a game that I hardly play. I still love the miniatures and setting, and I'll probably continue converting the odd Inquisition model here and there, but I don't see myself getting back into the game at any meaningful level in the near future. Titanicus is looking very tempting however, as I absolutely love Imperial Knights and other titans, but only time will tell. If the game is only Imperial vs Chaos, it may not be a big enough draw to establish a player base to make it a realistic game for me.
The rumors so far also point to minor changes for 8th edition 40k rules, which doesn't add to my excitement any, but fortunately that means I have more bandwidth to spend on the other games I still enjoy.
Other Games
I still have more games on the shelf, though as you can see, my attention is already divided pretty heavily...
Beyond the Gates of Antares is a game that I'm still very excited about and interested in, the rules aren't terribly complex and I absolutely love the more Star Trek, sci-fi feel of the races, rather than the science fantasy aesthetic of Warhammer 40k. I've actually found a few players of BtGoA in the local area through my app, RUMBL, which is also going through some massive changes in the next few months, but I'll save that for later.
Guild Ball is probably next up on the chopping block. That's not to say that it isn't a fantastic game, but with the limited time I have, I'm not sure I can give this game enough attention to play. It is a very complicated game, much like Warmachine, and being able to play the game well means knowing exactly how each model plays, both my own and my opponent's. This level of interaction makes it very challenging to keep on top of, if I'm not playing it at least weekly.