Hobby Year 2019 in retrospect and prospects for 2020

Year of the Song and Fantasy

That's the only way to put it, really. When I think of 2019, it is really dictated by a new game, The Song of Ice and Fire Tabletop Miniatures Game. I played lots of other games too, but this was a clear number one on my agenda, on any metric. Read on to learn how my hobby year 2019 was!

Top 3

These are the games I played during 2019. Count totals in 105 and that’s approximately two games a week, which I think is quite a lot (and I’m still happily married!) considering all the painting time too. What is drastically different from recent years (besides the increase of about 25%) is the focus; in recent years I’ve played some 25 different rule sets, but in 2019 it’s only 15 and 67 / 105 (61%) come from only three rule sets!

The amount comes from playing on several tournaments with 3-4 games per day and participating in two MESBG Battle Companies campaigns, where we play two games a night with small warbands.

I’ve been mostly playing Historical Wargames the last 10 years, but 2019 was a year of FANTASY (Song, MESBG, Blood Rage and Harry Potter), with historical games getting only xx% of my gaming.

Painting

Almost 700 miniatures finished (679, 2018: 623)! 600 from scratch. As I always paint what ever I'm going tp play next, it comes as no surprise, that biggest themes in my painting were:

• Three armies to Song: Starks, Nights Watch and The Others

Nights Watch

• Dwarf army for Saga Age of Magic
• Two armies for Bolt Action: Polish and US Airborne

• Egyptians and Greeks for Mortal Gods (and other games)

More about painting here

Blogging 

It seems that painting and gaming more has taken time from blogging... well I take that deal any day ;-)

Still there has been a steady flow of readers with some 40 000 page views this year.

Most popular blog posts in 2019 were

• First go with Saga Age of Magic
• Song Battle Report
• Bolt Action Ostfront Campaign
• Salute 2019 Demo Game Battle of Däneholm
• First Go with Mortal Gods

Highlights of 2019

So a very active hobby year indeed, these were the highlights:

• Trip to UK and Salute

• Traditional Nopat Club Summer Trip

• New Club House for the Nopat Club

• Excellent campaigns
• Back to tournament playing

Prospects for 2020

So will 2020 be much different? Probably not, I expect my top 3 games to remain the same. Otherwise, I’ll  possibly playing more Star Wars Legion and Black Powder era games, but it really depends on what tournaments and campaign are organized.

On the painting side I'm setting two goals to myself (to continue the drive for finished models):

• For each new unit / miniature painted, I will finish a unit / miniature started before 2020
• Once a month I will paint something cool, a one miniature, that is not directly linked to "my next game"

New Projects 2020

Currently I have two projects ongoing / prepared:

• Star Wars Legion: Battle of Hoth
• Map based campaign for Song

I'm certain that these shall be my new painting projects for 2020:

• Saga Age of Magic Undead 
• ASOIAF: Targaryens (starter set should soon be here)
• Anno Domini 1666 -miniatures (When the kickstarter is delivered)

Possible New Projects

• Painting WW2 German Africa Corps for Bolt Action
• Coming back to Black Powder era games, probably The Russo-Swedish war of 1808-09

Let's see what the new year brings...