Hobby year 2024 in retrospect and plans for 2025

 Another very active hobby year gone by

Song (ASOIAF) continues to dominate "what I play", even if it dropped by some 20 games palyes compared to 2023, it's still almost double compared to ALL OTHER games played.

So the balance of different games leveled just a bit in the total of 179 games played. That's more then 3 games a week - an active hobby year indeed.

My regular favourites remained on the top, besides Song: Saga activity is rising with some new players at the club, same goes for Bolt Action where we saw the launch of the new edition. Mythic Battles was played quite a bit as Ragnarok activated me and couple of other players too. First ever Star Wars Legion tournament was ran at the club too. I participated in two ADLG campaigns with my Persians so that kept this game on the agenda, even if I'm not the biggest fan of these detail and quite complex rules, it's the system that is active at the club, so that's what I gotta play as I want to field my 15mm Persians.

Here's the chart WITHOUT Song:

Some hobby highlights from 2024

January 

My godson got MCP starter as a Christmas present and

we played several games during the year

February

Mythic Battles Ragnarök was actively played at the club.

Leo scaled one of the boards to 48"X48"

Painted a Persian army in 15mm for ADLG -campaign

(a better presentation of the army will be published, 

see "Armies on parade" -project page for a link)

March

Finnish Nationals for Song 

April

Finnish Championships for Bolt Action

Almost winning our map based Song -campaign with Martin, 

playing as Baratheons. We lead the campaign for several 

rounds, but on the last round victory was snatched from our hands! 

May

Making a Dragonstone themed tactics board for Song 

Summer

Visited a war museum in Riga

And game stores in Tallinn (above) and Riga (below), very hard to find...

Painting an Ottoman army for Napoleonic games, including plenty

of 3D printed models...

and playing a game with Rebels & Patriots rule set:

September

Organised a Song tournament

Johannes, Jaska and Ile om the podium

Joining with 10 Finnish Song players and invading

the Swedish Nationals for Song. This time we didn't win, a Polish guy won.

First ever Star Wars Legion tournament was also organized at Nopat -club in September 

- great fun and new faces

Played a few games of TOW with my Beastmen army. Painted several minotaurs too...

but the game didn't really excite me that much... there are better games

October

In October I organized a Song tournament "Starter + unit + 1 NCU"...

and managed to win the ELO 1550+ part (there were actually 2 tournaments, the other was for players below 1550 ELO to facilitate for all our new and newish players)

Also visited Stockholm and the awesome Wasa-museum

Also visited Alphaspel there, where I had a game with Targaryens vs. a local player.

Brotherhood without Banners! A new faction was released for Song.

Instead of buying all new miniatures, I made the army from miniatures I already had (mainly by FireForge )

Heroes should be OG 

Since then I've mainly played Song with Brotherhood and so far I've only lost 1 game with them and that was a mirror...

November

Saga, one of my favourite games, got more active at the club again.

We even had a small tournament, which I managerd to win with Picts. Also painted a Romano British warband for Saga and some mercenaries

December

Me, Martin and Ilkka won the first ever Song Team Tournament in Lohja

New edition of Bolt Action was launched. I had my first games with my Polish army and my lance cavalry was the MVP!

We started another of our great map based campaign for SONG 

with 18 players joining. I was playing Brotherhood with Ilmo

(we eventually won!)

Plans for 2025

So what will my gaming / hobby year probably look like? There's no doubt, that Song will remain my number one game as there is already several tournaments scheduled for the first half, including:

• Invitationals in UK in March
• Finnish Nationals, that I'm organising with Pasi and Seppo & co., in April
• First ever Nordic GT in Västeros, in May, where I'm also part of the organizing committee

Won the first tournament of this year with House Martell

I think I'll mostly continue playing with Brotherhood and House Martell in competitive games.

BUT there's lots of interesting happening in gaming... new edition of Bolt Action and recently published Saga Age of Chivalry and the new edition of MESBG will also be high in my interest list. My good old Bretonnians get to see the fields of glory after a long long break...

Above: new forces - mounted crossbowmen for Saga

Below: my Bretonnian horde. Old Citadel Bretonnians are very historical and

fit the bill nicely

My first games of new MESBG have been with Rohan / Armies of the Dead.

Currently released armies for MESBG are very very thematic, which suits me fine!

This is a game I want to play in a fluffy mode!

The new plastic version of Eomer was the first miniature I painted 2025

I think 3D -printing will have a significantly growing role in my hobby spending,

I don't have a printer yet, but I own several STL files and luckily there are club mates, that offer

printing services on a reasonable price. 

3D printed Genoan crossbowmen for Saga

Competitive vs. casual

Well I'll certainly playing competitively a lot, but do really enjoy casual and thematic gaming as well. In January we started a Congo campaign with Martin. Congo returning to our agenda after 6 or seven years. First two games have been great fun!

I also wish, that I will be able to find some mates to play Napoleonic in 28mm. That I would really like to do, but it has been a challenge (15mm is mainly used at the club)

Key painting projects

• Finishing Brotherhood without Banners (heroes mainly)
• Some additions to Congo
• Scots for Saga... and several mercenary units
• Greyjoy army for Song
• Additions to several Bolt Action armies, as the new edition calls for different set up in army building

Greyjoys started