Back in January last year, I set some goals for 2016:

1.a Not to buy any miniatures (ebay or otherwise) apart from kickstarters unless said miniatures are funded by my own ebay sales…

1.b and  not go overboard on any kickstarter if this is not stuff I would buy at full price. Which admittedly does mean very few kickstarters, me being a cheapskate and all.

2. Paint alot of minis every month!

Year’ target for painted minis: 366 -one for each day of the year!

3. Actually complete at least one game set and one army during the year.

So how did it go?

1.a  What did I buy?

I bought two of the new GW start collecting sets, the Malignants and Adeptus Mechanicum.I bought the Deathsomething Genestealer game box and Silver Tower. I bought Gorechosen. I bought the Tanks game and several expansions. I bought a few second hand lots of minis from LAF sellers. and  the Rhinotaur, the last mini for Circle of Chaos that I did not add on in the KS arrived just before New Years. Lucikly Curtis Fell of Ramshackle games was graciuosly willing to order one cast and send it to me. I even ordered some paints and bases direct from Reaper in the US (that shipping is usually a deal breaker!) and added a couple of minis to that order as well. Also I bought two or three squads of minis off ebay, moslty unbuilt GW plastic.

Apart from this I did several trades on the LAF, so I certainly have more interesting minis now than I expected to have.

Sales: I sold alot, mostly through LAF. Enough to fund the above plus change. So that’s a win.

1.b And then came the Kickstarters…

I actually did manage to limit my spending on KS for a long time, but damn! Too many temptations in the latter half of the year!

The only Mantic one I joined was Star Saga (damn you Mantic for including the Nameless!) Even though I have been happy with most of what Mantic has delivered in the past, and have not really experienced any of the problems I read about with Mantic. There comes a point where I found I had enough meh minis, the new Dreadball teams did not catch my fancy. And I am avoiding looking too closely at Kingdom Death like the plague.

In the future there will be big boxes from Massive Darkness, Forbidden Fortress, Deep Madness and Mythic Battles together with several smaller ones like Cult of the Kraken Lord and Burrows and Badgers 3. From 2015 or earlier I am still waiting for Shadows of Brimstone wave 2, Bones 3, Lobotomy, Cthulhu Wars 2, and probably some more I have forgotten all about. And Bones 4 is soon to launch on KS.

Several large shipments found their way to my door in 2016, including the Shadows of Brimstone wave 1,5, Dropfleet Commander, the remainder of DUST, Conan, The Others, two waves of Zombiecide Black Plague, and several smaller ones like the Circle of Chaos and Heroines in Sensible Shoes.

So I count this as a partially failed goal. I have sold off several boxes worth of minis, but gained even more it would seem…

2.Paint a lot of minis every month:

I did surpass the painting goal for 2016, even though I spent alot of my free time on other things. In all I painted 385 minis, and most of them at a tolerably well tabletop+ level.

So thats a win.

3. Actually complete at least one game set and one army this year.

Well, I completed both Shadows of Brimstone base game sets, and also Dungeon Saga base game set. Target met and surpassed.

Army? Not so much. Here I pay the price for my lack of vision..lots of units, a couple of warbands and many, many random single minis done, but no cohesive army to speak of.

I have several waiting to be built and painted though, and my brother has been talking lately about getting into Age of Sigmar, so there might be a reason to actually build an army this year.

Partial success there as well.

All in all, not a bad year.

So what about 2017?

This year my big project will be to proceed with and complete the refurbishment of the basement, where I at last will have my little mancave and a permanent residence for my minis. I expect this will be taking most of my time come the summer months.

But paintingwise I think I still will try for the same target as 2016, namely an average of one painted mini per day for a total of 365 at years end. This should be doable. I mean, if I had the time and inclination to paint even more than I do, I should easily be able to do twice that number at the speeds I have been cranking them out this year. It mostly comes down to time spent, and of course, how many of the minis are similarily painted so I can batch paint. Batch painting being the secret to doing lots and lots in a relatively short time.

Game sets, armies or such? Nah, won’t bother with goals there, I acknowledge my own flightyness. I am after all doing this for my own enjoyment not for any one else.

Much like this blog, which is mostly written for me to keep my thoughts in order and help me keep track of things.

oh, and I recently got access to a 3d printer. There will be terrain in the future! and Tanks! Lots and lots of it!

And to anyone that actually has bothered to read this: May you have a happy new year!