For an inveterate omnigamer, I was actually pretty focused last year:
I spent the winter building, painting, and playing Horus Heresy, leading up to an excellent Adepticon.
For most of the spring I focused on some 40k 2nd edition-styled Ultramarines in anticipation of 10th edition. It was a fun project! Unfortunately, 10th felt hollow on arrival and isn’t much better now. I might use those models for some Oldhammer down the line, but 40k’s half-assery left me sour on the whole GW catalog.
I spent the summer and fall painting and learning classic BattleTech, which is a joyous warren of rabbit holes (Lore! Paint schemes! Thirty years of rules!). I played—and did unexpectedly well!—in a BattleTech tournament that was an absolute blast, and started some longform BattleTech pieces that I’m planning to post in the new year.
This winter, I started digging into my Mantic-flavored pile of shame, building and painting Forge Fathers (pictured above) for Firefight and Abyssal Dwarves for Kings of War.
I was sort of serially monogamous with games, and it was nice—I spent time in communities that I really enjoyed and identified the semi-competitive-to-narrative niche that I vibe with as I slouch into aged grognardery.
This year, I want to do a better job of being part of gaming communities—sticking around over time, getting to know new people. The fellowship is one of the things that appeals to me most about tabletop gaming, but it’s tough when you’re dad-aged and irregularly available, and even tougher if you keep hopping from game to game.
Every year, I’m surprised by where my whims take me, but in 2024 I hope to focus on:
You stick around in the hobby long enough, this is where you wind up, right? Like how everything turns into crabs.
I’ve been stockpiling Early Imperial Romans for a while, and partly I want to make some progress on my shamepile, but more than that I’ve felt the pull getting stronger and stronger. It’s an area where I could theoretically even throw some dice with my dad (God help me, I’m painting some Bolt Action Brits, and enjoying the list-building, and learning more about WWII).
I’m planning to spend a lot more time on historicals at Adepticon (assuming I’m able to attend), and I’d really like to get to know more of the local community. There are a bunch of Ancients rulesets I’d like to try (Infamy Infamy, Strength & Honor, Hail Caesar) and I hope to work through my Rome & Gaul project sufficiently to run a game. I’m also feeling the pull of Napoleonics at multiple scales—I’ve tried and enjoyed Et sans resultat, and I’m interested in Black Powder (Epic or otherwise), Valour & Fortitude, and Soldiers of Napoleon, among others.
Mantic really don’t get enough credit—their rulesets are fantastic, and their newer plastic models have a wonderful retro-modern quality that makes them uniquely pleasurable to build and paint. I really dig both the Firefight rules and the Forge Fathers model range, and I want to spend more time on Mantic stuff this year. Firefight is my top priority game for Adepticon (again assuming I can attend). Longer term, I hope to complete the Abyssal Dwarf army that I’ve had on the go for an embarrassing amount of time and play some Kings of War locally.
Man, BattleTech is such a delight; I expect this will be my go-to casual game. (Casual in terms of vibes, rather than rules weight.) I already have several Lances painted up and some narrative games on tap—looking forward to working on some more terrain and to the Mercenaries Kickstarter coming in (with a lot of fun vehicles in tow).
These are probably the outer limits of a reasonably scoped hobby plan, but…
…of course, an omnigamer tends to get seized by whims, and it’s fun to try and predict which whims will do the seizing.
While I remain exhausted with GW—and the exhaustion clearly saved me from wasting time and money on Legions Imperialis—I am Old World-curious. The rules look promising, the design team is solid and seemed to have time to get it right, and I have most of an Empire army in a suitable state of semi-progress. Elsewhere in Specialist Games, I have a Blood Angels army that I’d still like to finish. Outside of modern/supported GW, my unpainted Warmaster models have been grabbing my eye, and I’d like to give Conquest a go at some point. I’m in a real rank-and-flank mood.
Prediction-wise, the slightly hotter takes are perhaps the games I think I won’t get into:
Age of Sigmar 4th ed - I’ll cheerfully acknowledge if I’m wrong (or hang my head in shame if I’m right but the hype gets me), but I expect they’ll fuck it up. 3rd edition is very good. There is simply no need for a new edition right now, and messing with a good thing because you need to grow shareholder value is not a design philosophy. After 10th edition 40k, I’ll be looking at this with maximum skepticism.
40k 10th ed - I’m not planning to sell all of my 40k stuff, but I’m selling a lot of my 40k stuff. Might play some Rogue Trader or 2nd ed, though!
I was going to enumerate more games and companies I’m not jiving with, but on second thought, here’s a hobby goal: I want to spend time writing about games that bring me joy—the painting, the strategy, the history and lore…especially when it’s all grounded in thoughtful, beautiful games designed and orchestrated by passionate people. The joys and the people are, after all, the point.