[The Backlog Project was a January 2023 Otherverse Games and Hobbies community project. As such, you may happen across references to Otherverse and see its logos. The goal of the project was to dig into our respective piles of “shame”, select some yet-to-be started/unfinished projects, and see how much we could knock out in one months time.]
Reflection and 2022 Hobby Progress
Whether it’s collecting, building, painting, just looking at pictures, or some combination, I like miniatures. Shocker, I know. I’ve been around gaming of some type for over thirty-five years. It’s one of those things that I find to be a blessing and a curse, enjoyable and frustrating in somewhat equal measure at times. But no matter how many times I’ve told my wife that I’m done with gaming and am just selling everything, I’ll never really depart from it. It’s been one of those rare handful of constants in my life that I know I can always fall back on when things get off kilter.
2022 was no different than most years when it came to hobby, and in the end I built and painted a little bit of everything with never really feeling like I accomplished much. Painting for me feels a little like Grandma cooking: a smidgen of Warhammer, a dash of Heavy Gear, a smackerel of Team Yankee, and a pinch of third party models, both large and small, makes for a well-rounded experience. Although the number of models have increased and my bank account has fluctuated, at this point in the year I couldn’t honestly tell anyone fully what I’ve completed. But the larger question is: did I enjoy the time spent building and painting tiny plastic soldiers and models? I did very much so, and ultimately that’s what counts.
January, The Year 2023, and Beyond
For January, I have lots of targets of opportunity; a Gundam Ez8 model, a first edition Warcry box from last Christmas, or finishing my Escher gang that I’ll probably never use are a few that come to mind. But in the end I’m deciding on two things. First is to build and paint 8 Tier-1 Operators from Spectre Miniatures. Sure, it’s not terribly difficult but I’m also staring down the barrel of a new year/new army project around Alpha Legion. More on that at a later date. But for now focusing on the Operators ties into a bigger goal through the year.
The second thing I want to do this month is to relearn the rules for Spectre Operations. I purchased the rules this past summer and read them a few times, but never really committed them to memory. Ultimately I want to build/paint enough modern models and put together a handful of missions (campaign would be a stretch) within the Division universe. I’m a huge fan of Division 2 and am on my Xbox nearly every night cleaning up the streets of DC, running ops in New York, or trying to secure the Pentco nuclear plant. Spectre Operations gives me a great opportunity to bring several of my favorite things together: miniatures, Division, and narrative/focused gameplay.
I think in the end this will be an interesting little side project and I’m excited to start. I never really hold myself to deadlines when it comes to painting so it’ll be a good challenge to begin stretching those hobby muscles and prepare for bigger projects throughout the year. I might even surprise myself with doing more than expected. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Ryan
A New England transplant that originated from parts westward, Ryan is a bit of a nerd that knows a little bit about a lot of things, all while claiming to know nothing about anything. Seemingly part Khajit a logistician by trade, he’s the kind of guy that can get you virtually anything if there’s coin to be had a problem to solve. Ryan began to learn the scrounging arts while serving time in parts east as a Loggie and has been perfecting them steadily over several decades. He has a problem with continually purchasing models, paints, and terrain that he doesn’t really need but his wife doesn’t seem to mind.
