It has been a year (well a year tomorrow but I'm too busy to post tomorrow night.) since I started waxing lyrical about lead and plastic soldiers, dice, board games, terrain (I love the smell of fresh laser cut mdf in the morning.) and even the odd recipe. I wasn't sure I would be able to keep it up but looking at the stats I have managed an average of just over two blog posts a month. Not bad.
What have I learned in the process? What have I done? Well, just some of the highlights....
People around the world have read my blog, people in Moldova are interested in what I waffle on about. Hello Moldova!
There are other bloggers out there that waffle about toy soldiers too. Some of whom I have met in person as well.
I have attended a couple of shows, UK Games Expo was my first visit, other shows I'm an old hat at.
I have written for Wargames Illustrated, yes it's book reviews for their website, but it's still legitimate. I'm calling it a win.
I've not nearly painted enough, although writing this blog has encouraged me to get some painting done. I'll be the first to say I'm not an amazing painter and some of my models are painted just to a tabletop standard and don't photograph all that well, so they don't end up on the blog but I'm okay with that. Some I am proud of and I have learnt a bit about photographing models.
Recently I have been mostly painting livestock. It's been a running joke with one of my fellow gamers that every time we go to a show he buys me some random animals. (I'm not sure how or why it started but tradition is tradition.) So when the DM of my D&D group requested if anyone had random 28mm scale animals I declared I certainly did and a frenzy of animal painting began. Geese, sheep, badgers, bunny rabbits, pigs, partridges and cows are not the kind of thing I thought I would be painting back when I first bought my first Space Marine paint set.
So what will the next year bring? Well, I've still got plenty on my painting table from show purchases. Some Frostgrave soldiers still in the box, some dungeon scatter terrain from Bad Squiddo, a copy of Blood Red Skies to open and peruse, a whole Prussian Napoleonic army still to even start! So, plenty to keep this old grumpy wargamer out of mischief.
On the horizon the Illustrious Wargaming Opponent has agreed to assist me in a demonstration game at Colours 2020 (if they'll have us) so that is a target I have set us to work towards. Giving myself a deadline for a project means I'm more likely to get something done so tasks that need doing for that include:
Writing some wargame rules
Painting some models
Building a tables worth of terrain
Writing some background flavour text for the whole shebang.
Nothing like setting a challenge. It's in black and white now though, so we have to do it, my Wargaming Opponent has agreed to assist as long as I do all the public talking and let him just skulk in the background. That's fine with me, I just need him along for his extensive model collection and ability to build awesome looking terrain out of yoghurt pots and sticky back plastic.
And finally.
In case anyone is still paying attention, I just want to state that Playing With Lead is going to slow down just a little bit. I'm still going to blog but just not as regularly. I always knew that I wouldn't have as much to blog about after a while as some of the things I have talked about are things that have simmered in my head for a while before I started and now I'm only going to have things to blog about when they happen. Obviously just like everyone else, I don't spend all my day wargaming, painting and role-playing, but Playing with Lead isn't going to stop. I also have some other projects on the go that will take up some more of my spare time. But I will still be photographing anything I finish on my painting table and hopefully soon the Illustrious Opponent and I are going to squeeze in a game of Blood Red Skies, so I can report back on how that plays. (He will be reading this blog and finding this out for the first time, but it's Okay I know he can't resist coming over if I promise to do roast lamb.)
I've not nearly painted enough, although writing this blog has encouraged me to get some painting done. I'll be the first to say I'm not an amazing painter and some of my models are painted just to a tabletop standard and don't photograph all that well, so they don't end up on the blog but I'm okay with that. Some I am proud of and I have learnt a bit about photographing models.
Recently I have been mostly painting livestock. It's been a running joke with one of my fellow gamers that every time we go to a show he buys me some random animals. (I'm not sure how or why it started but tradition is tradition.) So when the DM of my D&D group requested if anyone had random 28mm scale animals I declared I certainly did and a frenzy of animal painting began. Geese, sheep, badgers, bunny rabbits, pigs, partridges and cows are not the kind of thing I thought I would be painting back when I first bought my first Space Marine paint set.
So what will the next year bring? Well, I've still got plenty on my painting table from show purchases. Some Frostgrave soldiers still in the box, some dungeon scatter terrain from Bad Squiddo, a copy of Blood Red Skies to open and peruse, a whole Prussian Napoleonic army still to even start! So, plenty to keep this old grumpy wargamer out of mischief.
On the horizon the Illustrious Wargaming Opponent has agreed to assist me in a demonstration game at Colours 2020 (if they'll have us) so that is a target I have set us to work towards. Giving myself a deadline for a project means I'm more likely to get something done so tasks that need doing for that include:
Writing some wargame rules
Painting some models
Building a tables worth of terrain
Writing some background flavour text for the whole shebang.
Nothing like setting a challenge. It's in black and white now though, so we have to do it, my Wargaming Opponent has agreed to assist as long as I do all the public talking and let him just skulk in the background. That's fine with me, I just need him along for his extensive model collection and ability to build awesome looking terrain out of yoghurt pots and sticky back plastic.
And finally.
In case anyone is still paying attention, I just want to state that Playing With Lead is going to slow down just a little bit. I'm still going to blog but just not as regularly. I always knew that I wouldn't have as much to blog about after a while as some of the things I have talked about are things that have simmered in my head for a while before I started and now I'm only going to have things to blog about when they happen. Obviously just like everyone else, I don't spend all my day wargaming, painting and role-playing, but Playing with Lead isn't going to stop. I also have some other projects on the go that will take up some more of my spare time. But I will still be photographing anything I finish on my painting table and hopefully soon the Illustrious Opponent and I are going to squeeze in a game of Blood Red Skies, so I can report back on how that plays. (He will be reading this blog and finding this out for the first time, but it's Okay I know he can't resist coming over if I promise to do roast lamb.)
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