Hobby year 2021 in retrospect and plans for 2022

A good wargaming year

Looking back at 2021... we learned to cope with Covid-19 and with 2 vaccinations at least my hobby life was pretty normal, excluding large tournaments. Read on to learn about my wargaming and it's high lights.

Year 2021 month by month

These were the high lights and notable events of each month

January: our Nopat -club was closed due to Covid restrictions, so we played a lot at homes. I was playing and painting a lot of Marvel Crisis Protocol. I got to visit a Small Council Radio show talking about ASOIAF 2021 reveals.

February: Club was still closed. We completed the first phase of our 1812 Napoleonic campaign with Jaakko. My Instagram account for hobby stuff "Wanhaherrat" reached 900 followers. We unfortunately had to cancel the Winter War tournament for this year.

March: Our club re-opened - hurrah! Two map based campaigns started: ASOIAF with two player teams and Sengoku era campaign using both Test of Honor and Ronin rules

April: 2021 version of ASOIF was released! I painted a Soviet army and started playing the Stalingrad Campaign (Bolt Action).

May: I was elected to be the chairman of our awesome Nopat & Taktiikka Club here in Helsinki. Campaigns continued. I ran an ASOIAF tournament, using the new 2021 rules and armies

June: ASOIAF (we ended on the 2nd place) and 1812 campaigns (I won) were concluded. I had painted 190 miniatures so far during H1 of the year.

July: pretty quiet on the hobby front as Finland was on Summer vacation - except for the Cup -style tournament, that Atte organized, ended on 2nd place with my Nightswatch. Visited Åland on our family holiday and saw couple of historical castles / fortresses

August: Another ASOIAF Cup was played, couple of battle reports here. Activity and number of members at our club started to grow rapidly. Started painting my Baratheon army. ANKH - Gods of Egypt Kickstarter arrived and I re-started "Board gaming Sundays" at the Club.

September: another ASOIAF Cup (this time I won with my NW) and this year's 2nd ASOIAF Campaign was started, with whopping 16 players.

October: the actual Stalingrad campaign started and my Soviets marched from victory to victory! With family we finally got to travel abroad again. Medieval town of Rhodes was really impressive!

November: sad days as a long time friend and a wargaming fellow Ville died suddenly. Covid had kept him away from our club, but he is warmly remembered by all of us, whom got to enjoy his company and friendship. First time since Salute 2019 I managed to travel to a Wargames show - Warfare 2021 and then visited Gripping Beast - an awesome trip!

December: we organized Nopat & Taktiikka Club's X-mas party and an ASOIAF tournament as part of it. Rest of the month was playing the ongoing campaigns and wrapping up painting projects - reaching a decent number of 504 finished miniatures

Top 3 hobby things during 2021

1. Visiting Warfare and Gripping Beast: it was so nice to visit a Wargames show after a long break and visiting GB was very interesting
2. Map Based ASOIAF campaigns: this is by far my most favorite game and playing a map based campaign is my most favorite way of playing
3. 1812 Napoleonic campaign with Sharp Practice rules: Jaakko, my opponent, is such great fellow to play with and it was great fun painting the awesome Perry Miniatures Retreat frim Moscow miniatures.

What did I play?

I managed my new record in number of games played: whopping 139 games - that's 2,7 games evert week! My previous record is from 2020 - 135 games. The same logic continues: as Covid restricts other life activities (like group sports, going to movies and traveling), there is simply more time to play. What is notable is the fact, that during 2020 many of the games were played virtually with Tabletop Simulator, this year I believe all but one game were played in person.

Song of Ice and Fire - Tabletop Miniatures Game continues to dominate with 71 games - as it should, it's the best miniatures wargame I have ever played, and I've played 34 years! In the first months of the year, as our club was closed I played a lot of Marvel Crisis Protocol, which is THE new game of 2021 for me with 17 games played. A great game, with awesome miniatures, which I really enjoy playing as a casual game. Another game, that makes a strong appearance is Test of Honor, I didn't play it at all during 2020, but with our campaign and demo games it was now 6th in my ranking. This year I didn't play a single game of any GW games. This was not intentional, there simply was no campaigns I would have participated, nor MESBG tournaments I would have found the priority and time for.

Due to ASOIAF dominance, Fantasy was still clearly the largest genre, but it dropped from 71% to 54%. Super Heroes genre is a new entry and Medieval Japan rose from 1% to 7%. Ancient era rose from 1 to 4% due to the release of Saga - Age of Hannibal.

Painting

Compared to previous years I painted significantly less miniatures I had started earlier - only 37  (107 in 2020). I started following new armies:

• Carthagenians (for Saga)
• Soviets for Bolt Action Stalingrad
• Ikko Ikki rebels & Bandits to Test of Honor
• Separatists (aka droids) for Star Wars Legion
• Ottoman Empire for Anno 1666
• Baratheons for ASOIAF

During 2021 I painted more heroes (has not been tracked before), Monsters & Gods, terrain and significantly more "others", as I painted a lot of gaming pieces for the board games we played. Painting cavalry and bikes dropped from 15% to mere 3% - during 2020 I painted my Targaryen army, for example. See my painting reviews for H1 of 2021 here and H2 here

Plans for 2022

Over the years I've learned NOT to play too many different rule set, because then you can't grasp all those rules and the game flow won' t be good.

My focus games for 2022 shall be

1. ASOIAF - as it has been for the last 2 years

2. Saga

3. Star Wars Legion

4. Marvel Crisis Protocol

5. Bolt Action

So my monthly gaming plan is going to be something like this

Week 1. ASOIAF Game Night + one other game

Week 2. Marvel Crisis Protocol / Star Wars Legion / Bolt Action  (one or two of these during the week)

Week 3. ASOIAF Game Night + one other game

Week 4. Saga + one other game

Week 5. Board games (ANKH, Rising Sun, etc.)

I would like to try a few new games or games I haven't played for ages:

• Infamy, infamy! by Too Fat Lardies, there's already a game planned
• Blood Red Skies by Warlord Games
• Congo

Painting projects for 2022

• Completing my Baratheon army for ASOIAF
• Painting a Pict army for Saga, there is a Limes campaign starting
• Paint more Star Wars Legion and Marvel Crisis Protocol