The Man with No Time

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 2018 was a bit disappointing as far as my personal goals for the year are concerned. After a slight improvement in 2017 (after years of fairly constant performance), 2018 saw me slide back below 50% completion. I want to get above that magical boundary again this year, and I see two possibly ways to do that. 1) Keep broadly the same goals and try a bit harder this year 2) Make some radical changes to the goals - delete some, make some easier, etc. I think I'll be taking a mixed approach - some goals will definitely go the way of the dodo, and may or may not be replaced, but on the whole I'm not too keen on making things easier for myself just to pad my stats. I like having goals that push me to continue doing the things I enjoy, but which can easily fall by the wayside because of work or laziness (for example my books target). I just have to face up to the fact that although in years past I could have completed many of the goals in multiple h...

2018 has been a strange year. I think I did reasonably well at changing up my list of goals to reflect the changes that happened in 2017, but there has definitely been some delayed reaction to those changes.  I'll say up front that I'm cautiously optimistic about my list of goals for the year, but I also know that there have been some big failures. Let's see how this goes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 2017 saw another improvement in the number of my personal goals that I achieved, but I'm still some way below where I would like to be. As I mentioned in my review of the year though, there were some big changes in my life in 2017 that weren't necessarily reflected in my success rate, and that will require some adjustments in how I set goals for myself moving forwards.

2017 has been an interesting year for me. There are a couple of big things that I achieved this year, but that didn't necessarily help with my stated goals. On the other hand, some of those stated goals now seem ridiculous, even though I tried to be more realistic this year!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas Eve, and looking forward to eating far too much tomorrow! I've taken some annual leave this festive period, so I've been off work for the last week and visiting my family. Fortunately, I had the foresight to bring a small portion of my hobby project pile with me, and have spend a productive hour here and there putting together some models. Most of the models that I've put together this holiday (though I found a few more hiding away since I took this picture) [Credit: David Brown] First up, Dropzone Commander . This is a game that I've had my eye on for years . I bought a Shaltari starter some time ago, but hadn't played a game with it until very recently. It gained a lot of popularity at the games club though, and now that Warmachine & Hordes have taken off a bit more I've been able to play a starter game, which I thoroughly enjoyed. As a result, I purchased a few extra bits from a clubmate, which...

It's been a long, long time since I made it to a Guardians of Tyr event. Over a year in fact. A few factors are responsible for this: the loss of the events in Milton Keynes this year means they're bimonthly, so if I'm busy there are fewer opportunities; a busier schedule for me combined with unfortunate timing of the events, and the Sunday dates. I keep my eye on the calendar, and always express interest, but inevitably something comes up and I can't make it. However, the latest event, which was last Sunday, I was actually able to attend! There have been some changes since I last went to Northampton for an event. They've moved to Deathclock (probably a plus), have moved from a slightly lower points value to the tournament standard (definitely a plus), and have standardised most of the events to be standard Steamroller (which I think is a shame, though the last event  is  a Who's the Boss tournament). Oh, and the both the new edition of Warmachine and the new...

Just a quick one today. Yesterday I had a productive day. Well, some would call it productive, others might disagree! I spent a large part of the afternoon working through the pile of unopened stuff in my games cupboard, building lots of models. First up was a little wind-up toy car that I was given for Christmas a couple of years ago. It's plasticard, and all the parts were push-out and push-fit. It looks cool I think, and runs quite well (though the front wheels are a little wobbly). Next up was a not-Mechano tank, received the same Christmas. This was quite fiddly to build, as the spanner to tighten the nuts and bolts was tricky to fit into some of the tighter corners. I also couldn't work out how to fit one of the pieces to the turret, the gun barrels work loose very easily, and the tracks weren't big enough to fit around all of the wheels without deforming the side pieces. But overall it looks quite good. Next up were some Warmachine and Hordes models....

Today sees the confluence of two unusual events - an actual blog post (!), and some models that I've painted (!!). Yes, that's right, I've actually managed to get some painting in. Actually, these models were all painted some time ago. But I've been lazy at updating the blog and am only just getting around to putting pictures up. All of them were painted as part of the "Paint the Target" series run by GdayBloke over at the excellent Lost Hemisphere blog (check it out). The first model to show off today is for my Circle Orboros army. It's actually an old metal Confrontation model that I use as a proxy Stonekeeper Unit Attachment for my scratch-built shifting stones. His more feral look goes well with the set of stones that I built from slate pieces, while the bulkier set of stones will get a standard Stonekeeper model. Proxy Blackclad Stonekeeper UA for my Circle Orboros army (Credit: David Brown) The second set of models are from my Co...

Last weekend, in what is rapidly becoming an annual tradition for me, I travelled to SmogCon. This was my third year in a row attending what is the UK's biggest Warmachine convention, and the only proper USA-style convention in the country (to my knowledge). Fortunately for me, this year the organisers had moved it to Birmingham, so I was able to save both money and time by making the short train ride to Birmingham International instead of driving to London, and by only staying for two nights instead of three. I really enjoyed both of my previous visits to SmogCon, and this year was even better in some ways. The venue, though perhaps less fancy, was in my opinion much better. There were more tables, and all of the miniature gaming space was in a single ballroom, with the boardgames area in a room just off to the side, so everything was easily accessible. Food service was much improved too apparently, though as usual I took my own. In fact the whole event seemed to be bigger a...

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! It's part three of my traditional end of year set of posts. I've done my review of 2016, and had a look at how well I did with my goals (lets not call them resolutions) for the year. This time around I'll be setting a new set of goals for the coming year. After several years of poor success, 2016 saw an upturn in my completion rate for these goals. There was still a certain amount of over-ambition going on though I feel, so I'll be reining in some of the particularly unsuccessful categories a little in an effort to gain some more.

Every year I set myself a set of goals for my work and hobbies. Things that I want to achieve, ideals for the amount of hobby time I'll set aside for each pastime, etc. Traditionally I've not had much success, whether from lack of time or excess of ambition, but 2016 has seen more success than the previous couple of years. Let's take a look at how well I did.

What a year! I don't think I'm alone in being glad to see the back of 2016. It's been a pretty rubbish year on many fronts; several high profile deaths, and a lot of controversial politics on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, a lot of what was wrong with this year is only the beginning of what will almost certainly end up being long-term changes to the wider world. The New Year won't be a magical cure-all, but probably just the harbinger of even more unsettled times. But enough moping around. Let's do the traditional year's-end review for the blog, starting with a look back at the year just passed. (Credit: http://thanksgiving2016day.blogspot.co.uk/)

On 29th June, Privateer Press released the new editions of Warmachine and Hordes, my current miniatures game of choice. This was not a complete surprise. Chatter in the community for a few years had been "I hope they change this for Mk 3", or "list the changes you want to see in the next edition", or "when is the new version coming out?", but Privateer themselves had been tight lipped on the subject, making no statements either way regarding an update. Then, at the end of April, they announced that the new editions were coming. With new starter boxes, a new app, a new points system, and new hardback rulebooks. The excitement in the community was palpable. Banner art for the new edition of Warmachine and Hordes, showing new leaders for Khador and Trollbloods.  (Credit: allnewwar.com, Privateer Press. No commercial use intended) I'm not going to go into a detailed review of what's changed between editions; the release was over a month...

"There is a curse.  They say: may you live in interesting times."  - Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times  Watching the news, both televisual and online, on Friday morning, the quote above popped into my head. Never has it seemed more appropriate.

It's been a bit longer than I intended, but I'm finally getting around to putting up my SmogCon photodump. I'm not going to put the full album up here, just to save space; as usual I took an awful lot of photos!  I've separated the photos out into a few different categories for ease of viewing. If you're interested, the complete set of photos (in chronological order) can be viewed on my  Flickr account . Painting Competition Spell Draft Iron Arena Board Games & IKRPG General