Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016

It's normally about this time of year that I start posting about grand, overblown pledges for my coming year in the hobby. Not this year though. I've learnt the hard way that real life has a habit of screwing over all my plans.

Because of this, in 2016 I'm going to keep it simple and make just three pledges:

1. Play more games

This is going to be the main one for me. 2015 has been quite a slow year for gaming, mostly due to the fact that I've spent most of this year unemployed, This coupled with having to move flat in August to an area where organising games is difficult, I really haven't done much gaming since July beyond the odd game of BFG or Betrayal at Calth.

With this in mind, my primary pledge in 2016 is to play more games. If I can aim to play 26 games across the year, I'll already be ahead on last year. I figure playing an average of one game every two weeks shouldn't be too strenuous.

A big part of achieving this will be to find myself a gaming group. In Peterborough, I attended an awesome club (Peterborough Wargames Club, check them out here). Thanks to PWC I tried a wide variety of games and they were primarily responsible for me branching out beyond GW in my gaming. Now I've moved to Norfolk though, I've found myself without a group to play with (the groups I played with when I lived here a few years ago have mostly disbanded) - a state of affairs I intend to correct!

I think my first step will be to get involved in the 30k Community in Norwich. I've visited them at Athena Games a couple of times, but haven't had a chance to actually play against them yet. It'll be good to actually be  able to face other 30k armies, as my Sons of Horus have mostly faced 40k armies in the past.

My other plan is to sort myself out with a gaming table for my flat, so I can actually play against the few gamers I know who live close enough to play games against at home. I'll be building a double-sided modular board to fit onto it, so I can play both Battlefleet Gothic and standard 40k/Fantasy/Skirmish games.

This brings me quite nicely onto my second pledge...


2. Clear my Backlog

At the moment I have a massive backlog of models to paint - a result of being a self-confessed hobby butterfly. I'm hoping to clear a good portion of this over the next couple of months. This means actually finishing projects for a change, instead of leaving them half-finished.

Right now I have the following which needs finishing:

• Sons of Horus (3000 points)
• Thousand Sons with White Scars allies (3000 points)
• Battlefleet Gothic Sons of Horus fleet (2000 points)
• Battlefleet Gothic Ork fleet (2000 points)
• Battlefleet Gothic Terrain
• Deathwatch/ Inquisition (1500 points)
• Malifaux Show Girls crew (basic crew box)
  

I think that's plenty to be getting on with for now. A big motivation for me is the idea of being able to display them in my living room now that I have my own place. My plan is to start nothing new until they're finished. My only hobby purchases will be parts I need to finish these projects. To keep me motivated even further, I make my third pledge...


3. Document it all!
Nothing keeps me more motivated than sharing what I'm doing with the hobby community. As well as blogging about my work on here, I'm also a member of Warseer, The First Expedition and Bolter & Chainsword, as well as countless hobby groups on Facebook.

Everything I build and paint will be shared online, to motivate me as well as to pick up tips and advice improve my hobby skills. I'll try and post on here at least once or twice a week, keeping track of my progress on my pledges. Hopefully all this will allow me to actually follow through on my pledges for once.


So there you go, my aims for 2016 set out and ready to go. My life is far more settled now than it's been in previous years, so I reckon I stand a good chance of actually sticking to my pledges this year. As ever, we'll have to see though.

What are your hobby goals for 2016?