Another year of painting, building, gaming, and thinking about games gone by. Also some work here and there (for my full time job). Last year’s was ambitious and big in a ridiculous way. This year I slowed down considerably having painted less than 3/5 the number of models but playing a lot of games.Â
For those unfamiliar, the title is a callback to an article that I wrote recently on a topic that’s been rattling around my head for a while: Being “good enough.” Go and read that if you haven’t already; I’m not going to repeat any of it here but lays a good foundation for how I felt throughout the year.
Last year I painted some 500 miniatures (that’s counted per-base, not per-dude in the case of small scale Warmaster etc) and this year I hit 292. Not once did I think I would come close to that 500 mark again and a large reason I even got close to 300 this year is because of the Tomb Kings army I painted early on that consisted of a couple dozen very basic skeletons. I didn’t only do painting however because in the pie-chart that is my hobby it’s pretty equal parts in building, painting, theorising, writing, and playing. If I took any amount of time to actually work that out it definitely leans heavier on writing and playing followed by the rest. Also, I started a new full-time job this year after being laid off in December of 2023 and while it’s been good it has definitely demanded more of my time. Turns out we, the writers, have real lives outside of all of *this*. Shocking, I’m sure.
I track all of my finished minis and tabletop wargames on a simple Sheet shared with some online friends which alongside my incessant Instagram posting helps me remember what I actually did each month. It’s been a pretty wild ride and looking back while writing this I forgot which models actually came out this year, some of what I’d even painted. Below I’m talking a bit about what I did in each month but not sharing photos of every single model; if you want to see more just go to my instagram where I post nearly everything I finish as well as pictures from games and works in progress: https://www.instagram.com/bair_paints/
The games that I played this year include:
- Age of Sigmar (3rd, 4th, and Spearhead)
- Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings
- Warhammer The Old WorldÂ
- Blood Bowl
- Burrows and Badgers
- Middle Earth Strategy Battle
- Horus Heresy
- Titanicus
- Saga
- Star Wars Legion
- Armada (the Mantic one with fantasy boats, not the dead Star Wars game)
Combined that amounted to 138 individual games; I’m not entirely sure I counted them all as I went through, it’s easy I missed one or two that didn’t get tracked. Also, didn’t get the chance to play a few that I’d have liked to, but there’s only so much time! Next year I’m keen to get back on Warmaster and start playing Midgard.
January
Old World is out! And on the same weekend that I attended my first Brotherhood event at Firestorm Games in Cardiff; an Age of Sigmar teams tournament that was maybe the gaming highlight of the year. I know, crazy to start the year off with the highlight, but it was really that good and in large part because of the wonderful people I was with.
I’d been playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles 6th Edition the last couple of years, even wrote about it a bit, and was very excited for Old World. That makes it sound like I’m not still excited about it and that’s not entirely the case. When I was younger, like so many people, I really wanted certain armies but couldn’t afford to. Dwarfs were my first love and remain my favourite fantasy faction in any setting so I was very excited to get more gaming in with them but also to collect a Tomb Kings army. On day one of pre-orders I picked up all the books, cards, dice, and a hefty amount of plastic (that would arrive a couple weeks later) to play with both factions and start my undead horde.
For painting this month I finished up the few last models I needed to take to Brotherhood, models that I’ll be taking again to this year’s Brotherhood in just a couple weeks! Skragrott, a Gobbapalooza, and the incredibly-important Loonshrine. I cannot believe it’s been nearly a year since I painted these, it doesn’t feel that long ago I started this army! Because of the event, and preparing for it, I only played Age of Sigmar (9 times!) and one game of Old World right at the end of the month to try it.
February
Not my slowest month by a mile but the only new model I finished was a 3D printed Bone Giant for my forthcoming Tomb Kings army. What I did do was build all of those Tomb Kings as well as rebase the few hundred dwarfs from their old 20mm squares to the new-and-improve(?) 25mm bases. They do, actually, look much better on the larger bases creating a little space between them. Check out my throng, I’m really proud of it, it’s almost all metal! It’s a simple fact that the best Warhammer Fantasy dwarfs Games Workshop ever made were the metals during 6th and 7th edition. Those Longbeards especially and the best dwarf they ever created: That Dwarf Lord.
As you can imagine both were fairly large hobby undertakings hence the lack of painting. Also, again, real life. This was also when I started getting back into Blood Bowl which lead to getting involved with multiple leagues across the year.
March
The Tomb Kings rise! Across these few weeks I painted over 2500 points of Tomb Kings made up of 96 separate models. Easily the most prolific month I had, painting-wise. In April I finished the last few I “needed” for the collection. This is maybe the most fun I had painting all year long, too. I opted for a dry, dusty, look to the bones so avoided contrast and shades; drybrushing a few bone tones and off whites got me the desired effect and was super quick.
Yes that post was later but is the best army-pic I have. This photo is also a reason I enjoy games of Old World and old Warhammer Fantasy, it’s very aesthetically pleasing in a very nostalgic way in many circumstances.
This month, playing Old World, is when I really started to get to grips with the idea of being OK with just-being-OK at gaming. The painting side I knew I was cutting corners to get stuff on the table quick to a quality I’m happy with, have been doing that for years, like painting straight out of the pot and not using a palette. On the gaming side, however, I’ve typically been very competitively minded and with Old World I suddenly just…wasn’t and didn’t care to be. I’ve approached other games in the past with a more casual mindset like Burrows and Badgers which naturally lends itself to a certain whimsical style but Old World is so…much. It’s so clunky and crunchy as a rules set with so many aspects to break or exploit and I just really did not want to invest that kind of time into it. I wanted to build a cool collection of models, not what was simply the best mix of units, and I lost (and continue to lose) a lot of games because of that decision. Through that I have also figured out basically who I want to play this game with and that’s been a huge part of my approach to the game as well: making sure me and my gaming partner for the day have set appropriate expectations.
April
The last bits of Project Tomb Kings were completed and I attended an Age of Sigmar two-day event where I placed 2nd and even won best-painted mini with my Shroomancer from the Gobbaplaooza. That’s back in third edition when you had to know which model did what in the Gobbapalooza and oh boy I do not miss that. My first time winning a gaming award of any kind and second time winning a paint award, so I was very happy! A fantastic event at Ragnarok Hobbies and a big reminder to me, too, as to why I love going to events: the people. Playing games is great but getting to spend a weekend out with folks that love the same thing you do is even better.
That was my last game of third edition Age of Sigmar, too, wanting to take a break until fourth came out considering the amount of work leading up to its release for our coverage.
For the Tomb Kings I got around to conquering my fear of the tomb guard chariots and got them painted before moving onto some hefty metal in the form of an old Screaming Skull Catapult and Bone Giant. That catapult broke apart just by looking at it but I finally got it together in a way that I was able to transport it for games. Really pleased with the paint jobs on all of these, the Bone Giant especially. He just looks so happy!
May
Ah May, this was a turning point for me. In April I turned Old (30 years to be exact) which came with jokes about getting into groggy games. And then that stopped being a joke and I did actually start looking at historical wargames. Followed pretty swiftly by buying some Victrix. I didn’t get to do much hobby with them yet however since that was the end of the month, really just 5 models in May.
This was also the month that I’ve painted my favourite model of the year. I don’t mean that it’s my favourite model released this year, that would be an absurd thing to make me choose. Age of Sigmar’s Chaos army brought out a host of new minis, the best of which is easily the Wilderfiend. Typically when I get a model to review it’s within a limited time span and I just blitz through it in one or two sittings (if it’s a large model like Ionus Cryptborn) but with the Wilderfiend I knew I’d have 4-5 evenings after work to get it done and wanted to spend more time on it; see if I could do a little better than I normally would. I think I did! It even got featured on Warhammer Community, too!
Played a bunch of Old World, some of it at 500 points using Warbands Rules, Blood Bowl, MESBG, Titanicus, and even a game of Horus Heresy. What a full month!
For those Vikings I got started on? I managed to paint up the Gripping Beast Shieldmaiden Warlord and four Berzerkers. That Shieldmaiden I decided to make my warlord for a few reasons: because the model stands out and is kick ass but more importantly because of Saga’s unfortunate phrasing around your Warlord.
June
Here we go! Well and truly IN Saga Summer at this point and LOVING IT. Someone should have told me sooner that Historical Wargames are cool, actually, and can be very good. I wrote a lot already about getting into it so just go read that, it was published in July but the painting for it happened all during June so it goes here.
Really, all I did this month was paint Vikings and write about the new edition of Age of Sigmar including playing a few games of each (ok, more than a few games of AoS, but it was a lot to learn!). Very fortunately our newer writer Ne Cede Malis showed me the ropes of Saga and let me win a couple games.
Just look at all those Vikings, and all that colour! How cool! It’s even, just about, historically accurate too!
July
New Age of Sigmar is in FULL SWING at this point and man is it BIG. Writing this six months later I’m still a big fan of this edition of AoS. There’s some messy parts of it but as a whole it’s a great fun game to play. I might not be a fan of the Faction-Pack-to-Battletome pipeline but this isn’t the article to talk about it. The only thing I’m really a bit cold on is Manifestations being “free” to take in armies; they really should cost a (small) points cost per Lore to make them an actual choice of which to take.
This was a pretty busy month on the gaming-front as well as continued writing about AoS. I also played a lot of Blood Bowl and got my Gnome team painted.
Also as part of a speed paint challenge I painted a Warmaster scale (that’s 10mm) dwarf cannon and crew in just an hour. Fun!
August
Best Old World game of the year. Took my Dwarfs out with a recently acquired and painted second Anvil of Doom as well as a Thane with Handgun to try those sweet, sweet, new runes out. Oh boy was this good!
TWO Anvils of Doom, that Thane, Burlok, with a big brick of Warriors and Ironbreakers! Played against Reece’s Bretonnians, got lucky and rolled up the Mountain Pass scenario and just shot down unit after unit of knights; even made his pegasus knights flee the first turn! Bolt thrower missed every single shot but that was ok, everything else ruled. Double Anvil of Doom was loads of fun and definitely something I want to get back on the table. This all falls very much into the “being good-enough” category as well. I know that there are certain units I could buy for my dwarfs to make them better or competitive, but my collection sits at over 200 dwarfs painted and I really don’t want to be adding to that. I’m really glad that what I’ve got here can play games and I can have fun with that; it’s not going to win any tournaments but I won’t be attending any, either. I really do not think Old World lends itself well to competitive play.
Also more Vikings! Annie at Bad Squiddo Games was kind enough to send over a load of her female viking models and naturally I had to get them all painted as soon as possible. Check out the review for all of the pictures but I love how these minis mix in with my Victrix and Gripping Beast models so seamlessly on the table. This also meant that I had over 80 Vikings, way more than you’d ever use for Saga, but good thing a new rules set was coming…
I am very sure this is the same month that a few of us Goonhammerers met up for a day of playing Saga together and that was just fantastic. Something that I’m already wanting to get together for early next year.
Star Wars Legion saw a whole refresh (a new edition, really, though they don’t seem to want to call it that?) and got to try it out with my droids. Big fan of the new rules, it feels like a quicker skirmish game and I love that you can double up the size of some units too. I wish I’d had more time on this game this year, it’s still a favourite to play. Those new droids are looking great too, need to get back on it next year.
Lastly, I finally finally painted the first Dweghom models for my Conquest army. Between the Stoneforged coming out and having one of each Drake ready to for paint it was obvious to simply tackle the three big models immediately. Even got to play some games with them too!
Some shots from an event where I got to use all three big toys in a dumb list:
September
NO MODELS THIS MONTH. Wow. First time in over two years that I didn’t paint anything. I spent some time away in Eastern Europe with my wife and in-laws, visiting her family, which is always great. Then when we got home I played a lot of games.
I didn’t mention before but I joined in an Age of Sigmar Spearhead league where we played about a dozen rounds each and this was the second month into it. It was great fun and Spearhead really is such a fun format to play Warhammer, if you haven’t tried it then it’s worth your time.
Part of all that gaming was filling in at the Goonhammer Open as spare player for 40k, which is just about the only games of 40k I play every year. It’s good fun, 10th Ed 40k is good fun, and I wish I had more time to also play it. Between this and Space Marine 2 coming out however I did start a Tyranid army. Oops. So I got that built up.
October
More travelling! My dad turned 70 so my mom, two sisters, and I threw a surprise party for him. If you don’t know me I’m (legally) American and have lived in the UK for the last 11 years, with the majority of family still in Maryland. I’m skipping ahead a little since that’s the end of the month but it was a really great trip.
On the painting table I knocked out 30 more squigs, a squigboss, a set of aetherwrought manifestations, 12 (new) Rus hearthguard from Victrix, and a Rus warlord for Saga from the same kit. Got some mojo back! Squigs are just insanely good and cheap in AoS, still true after a small points increase, so these had to be done. I even highlighted every single one!
For the Rus I wrote a full review of the kit already so go ahead and check that out separately. The Warlord, however, I’m just especially proud of because I am awful with greenstuff and any kind of hobbying outside of gluing-model-together as is intended with the kit. Maybe some light kitbashing here and there. However, when I saw this kit and the badass bear pelt in it? That had to go on my Warlord but I had a very specific vision for his pose, too. I think it came together pretty seamlessly!
November
Ok so that’s pretty much all of my painting for the year now. I’ve done a bunch more building, collecting, gaming, and writing but no more finished minis.
One of the projects that I never thought I’d be picking up is World War 2 wargaming in an esoteric scale: 12mm from Victrix. Look, it’s not my fault they just make incredible plastics ok?? Like really check out that detail!
These will be getting use for scaled-down versions of games like Bolt Action and V for Victory; cheaper to get going and a half-sized board to make kitchen table gaming doable!
Spent a long weekend away with a bunch of friends playing Saga, Burrows and Badgers, a shitload of board/card games, and drinking lots of cider in the West Country. Something like this boils down to the same reason I love attending events: spending time with friends, having a laugh, and rolling dice. Have I become a Casual Wargamer? Probably the tipping point in my mindset of being Good Enough and being very ok with that now.
Maybe it helps that this time away in November is also my annual Beat-Corrode-At-40k, a game that I hadn’t played at all since the aforementioned Goonhammer Open. Except I took my unpainted, barely built, Tyranids which had seen two whole games before this. Much love Corrode. Just roll better? See you next November for a rematch, though hopefully sooner. He did beat the shit out of me in multiple hands of Magic the Gathering in different Commander sets (40k and Fallout) while we were teaching him how to play that.
December
I lied to you, I did actually paint three more models before the end of the year: bears. I also did a lot of hobbying, it just wasn’t painting. Not exactly, anyways.
Midgard, a scale and model agnostic game from Too Fat Lardies came out recently and I’ve been preparing my Vikings for it. That’s that game I mentioned earlier where I’d actually get to use them all. I haven’t managed to play any games of it yet but the rules set looks incredibly good and fun. I’ve been writing lists for all sorts of models and wanted to add some non-historical units to my Viking collection for it, hence the bears and a giant that will be coming along shortly! The hobby in question here was getting all these sabot bases ready, so that I could slot my models into the holes and push them around on trays. Half of them are “skirmish” trays and only have four models on them (you can see them on the left below) and used all that free space to add rocks and rivers. Hopefully I’ll be helping Muggins and whoever-else in the Historical team reviewing and writing about this system, so stay tuned?
And I mean come on, just look at that! How cool?! A great mix of Victrix, Bad Squiddo, and Gripping Beast models there between trays, including the Rus minis as well, and they all work so well together!
The last gaming event I manged to attend in 2024 was a two-day Age of Sigmar tournament where my Gloomspite Gitz got out one more time, using all those squigs I painted up a couple months back. This was run by local -legend Dom (even if he’s been neglecting his troggs recently) at Kingdom Wargames in north London; a bit of a trek each way despite also living in London and was perfectly timed when a massive storm hit the UK. Wonderful!
Really this was a great event and a fantastic way to round the year off. I managed a 3-2 score despite playing far too much of other game systems and my two losses were to players that just got back from competing at the World Championships. Hard to be mad at that and I believe really rounds out the Good Enough vibe. The whole crowd was super friendly and wonderful all the way through and is exactly what you want from an event. I really must try and get to more next year.
Rounding Out and Looking Ahead
I already have a list of a dozen different projects I’d like to finish off or get to next year, nearly all of which are currently sitting either built or on sprue. In just a couple weeks (or sooner depending when this gets posted) is the massive Brotherhood event in Cardiff, my second time attending and I am beyond excited for it. However it means I need to get a little more painting done to have a list I’m truly happy with…or maybe I just take a mangler squig instead, they’re fun and no one expects them. Maybe 2025 will go a step beyond being Good Enough and be about Just Having Fun instead of any semblance of competing?
Nah, I don’t think so. My brain isn’t wired that way.
A massive thank you to everyone that has put up with my posting and to all of the fantastic opponents across so many games I had this year. I did not have a single negative experience in any gaming space this whole year and it’s because each and every one of you for that. You all are the reason I love this hobby so much.
Bring on 2025!
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