Wednesday, January 3, 2018

2017 in Review

From the perspective of this blog you might get the impression 2017 was a rather slow year. While that wouldn't be entirely incorrect, it would be at least a little misleading. I didn't get the biggest pile of work done, but I wrote about a much smaller proportion of it than usual, so the quantity was, perhaps, not so startlingly low as one might think. So in the annual act of summary, here's what actually happened . . .

2017 started off slowly, but in a fairly large way with a solid few set pieces and some good adventuring.

The MB-1210 Starshuttle.

The Shrike Light Fighter

And the Carnival House

All of which made appearances in the first story arc of the year. That's about all the scenery I managed to finish all year, but I got a start on some other things and painted a few 28 mm miniatures. To wit:

Cowboys on Commission made 1 and 2.

Mr. Bishop was 3.

4 and 5 were an octopus and his handler.

6, 7, and 8 were something of an odd lot.

9 through 19 fleshed out a small army unit.
(Ignoring the more conventional field piece and the two people on the far right.)

20 and 21 were hardened veterans.

22 was a croc I call "Killface."

23 and 24 were two more ogre brothers.
(The pail blonde fellow and the gent in the breastplate.)

25, 26, 27, and 28 started a second Hexapodal Messianic congregation.

29 and 30 were a warrior missionary and a bone-fide Messiah.

31 and 32 were guards, both human and mechanical.

33 though 37 were repaints of  Marines from the legendary 32nd Legion.

and 38 was a rainbow ganger for a miniature exchange.

. . . . .

I did get a few other things started, but let's consign them to 2018. Here's how it relates to my goals of last year.

A. Please do try to get a little more done in 1/2400.

Nope. Not happening.

B. Some non-human civilians would be mighty nice.

Sort of? Do armed demi-bugs count? Or a cheerful demi-bug schoolteacher? They're only part human. And maybe a couple of weekend warrior ogres. They're mostly civilians now. Let's call this a qualified success.

C. Moab needs "entertainment." And maybe more religion.

I suppose the carnival house counts for entertainment. It doesn't completely scratch the itch, but it's a clear start. A partial success.

D. Ships. Multiple now, and not just one. For the Lace Rock kinder and others. You have materials. Ues them.

I got two done and started not one, but two others. The Gang's ship is still on the ways, but we'll count that another qualified success.

E. Additional Space Port facilities.

Not really, no.

F. Some more dense urban stuff might be a nice change.

Mm, no, not really. Not unless you count the brothel. It's supposed to be "Venetian" in its inspiration, and I suppose that counts as a dense, if small city. We'll give this another half hearted sure.

G. A rock. The gang really does need their hidey-hole.

I've done a little more thinking on this one, but it's been pushed off another year.

So that's four partial successes and a little "Whoops! Where did the year go?" Four out of seven isn't too bad by my own standards. Hopefully 2018 will be a little better, but . . . it wasn't a terrible year. 38 miniatures, a couple of spaceships, and a modest building.

And I did get more gaming done than showed up here as well. I suppose I got in several local games, a solo or two, some Space Hulk (that counts, right?), and not one, but two conventions: Cornhammer and Oldhammer in the Jerz, which was the primary US Oldhammer event this year, I do believe. That might have even been as many as ten events pushing lead around tables with friends. For me, that's a pretty substantial year. Helps to move back to civilization, I suppose.

So where to next year?

Well . . .

A. Let's get those other two ships finished off, at the very least.
B. It would be nice if all my spaceports didn't look quite so similar, so more spaceport buildings.
C. A temple and a bar for the city.
D. A hideout for the gang.
E. The interior of a Gubernatorial palace, I think. Oddly. More on that later.
F. Some desert road tiles. More on that later as well.

Thanks for coming along.

And Happy New Year!




Sincerely,
The Composer


13 comments:

  1. Many beautiful stories and figures in 2017, a productive and excellent year! And Happy New Year!

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    1. Thank you Phil! It was a fun year. I think my biggest failing was simply that I needed to write a little more about it and kept getting distracted. In part by playing games! :D

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  2. That is a good body of work. My favorite is the Transrim Starshuttle. Thanks for doing the cross blog Project Iowa, that was a great time.
    Good Luck in 2018!

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    1. Project Iowa was an enormous bit of fun. That might well be my favorite story arc in my own little world, anyway. I hope we can do something like it again sometime.

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  3. Definitely a solid collection of cool figs and paint jobs. I'm quite intrigued by the "octopus".....rather looks like an enslaver to me. Is it scratch built?

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    1. The "octopus" is indeed an enslaver. Not scratch built. It was a private commission from Diego of Space Raiders fame. There are a few of them out there. Not a huge run, but not scratch built. Anyway . . .

      Thank you! It's not an unpleasant bunch to look back on.

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  4. Nice output for the year. I like the figures you did, I also have many of them. I apparently completely forgot about my goals for 2017, so good on you for getting any of them done.

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    1. Thank you! You're right, of course. I think we all have a fair amount of overlap in our collections. I see something on your blog, or you see something on Cheetor's, or any one of us sees it on the Forums or Facebook . . . suddenly we've all got the same stuff. :D

      Anyway, thank you sir. It's not quite on a par with some of the truly prolific folks out there, but what I did I'm happy with. And that's no small thing. I didn't break any records this year, but I also didn't break any records this year. Cuts both ways. ;-)

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    2. I was wondering if I should change my blog name to 'derivative wargaming' as I find myself 'borrowing' (stealing/honoring) many other peoples ideas.

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  5. Great stuff I often come by your blog very inspiring I recently brought some spacelords after seeing them here and other places. I was just wondering if the shrike fighter is an A-wing model?

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    1. Thank you! Indeed, the Shrike is a very lightly modified A-Wing. I suppose I might have modified it more extensively, but it felt just elfy enough that I didn't find it necessary to do much more than rationalize the weapons loadout and add some pods.

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