Already Missing My Goal (As Expected)
At the turn of the year, I wrote an article about how my hobby went in 2023. Within that article, after gnashing my teeth about not getting enough models painted while buying too many, leading to a general feeling of failure, I posed a question. Can I set a goal that is realistic and attainable? But, do I even need goals for my hobby?
As I write this article, I am on vacation, a stay-cation as you will. I have spent a lot of time in my hobby room. My gaming PC is in there, and I have put some time into my Steam Library, trying to fight my way back to being a gamer of the video variety. There are several novels that I am in the middle of, but, since finishing the Horus Heresy, I am finding it hard to settle on something new to read. Speaking of books, I am trying to watch Shogun on Hulu, based one of my favorite books of all time, but, I am struggling to find the attention span for it; don’t get me wrong, the first episode was glorious and I expected to watch everything that was available while on vacation, but, I have not. Why? Why are my other hobbies falling by the wayside still?
I just don’t have the mental bandwidth for everything. Between running a Pathfinder campaign every other week or so, and trying to get a few games in, I just don’t have enough time for everything, nor enough energy to divvy out.
This right here, coupled with my near-mythical ability to purchase miniatures at an alarming rate, is why I need to set goals for myself. If left unchecked, I will continue to buy more models than I can possibly paint, maybe ever. These goals need to keep me on track, while also allowing for my reduced painting schedule due to planning and running a tabletop roleplaying game for my wife and a few friends.
Too bad I feel like I am failing already.
The Quarter So Far
There were a few ways I tried to update my previous online website hobby blog in the past. Weekly updates were the goal for a while, but that seemed cumbersome. Monthly updates had more meat to them, but also took time to do. These were not the defining factor that made my last project feel like a job, but they certainly contributed.
I want to do Hobby Updates of some kind though, otherwise, one of the primary reasons for the website as a whole is lost. Along with fun articles and a gallery to show off our models, MF6s is primarily an online repository of our Hobby. That’s the point. So, for now, on top of articles dedicated to completed projects, I intend to do a quarterly update on the progress of my yearly goal. So, here we go.
January: The year started out strong. I got two projects completed right out of the gate. The Flesh-Eater Courts Launch box was completed within the first few weeks of the year, and it got its own article where I talked about it at length. On top of the box set, I also cleared the Endless Spells and a Terrorgheist. Projects Complete in 2024: 1.
Feeling good with the positive progress, I launched immediately into those damned Grey Knights that have been on the list for literal years. The last Dreadknight, a Banisher that Robert gave me for Christmas in what now seems like the distant past, and the new Castellan Crowe model were finally removed from my Shame.
Projects Complete in 2024: 2.
While painting, I watched a battle report of an all-tank Imperial Guard army. I think it’s no secret that I am an Imperium fan-boy: I have something like a dozen space marine armies of varying scales, from a few models to a few thousand points, but I have always wanted a Guard army. I just don’t wanna paint hundreds of infantry right now. So, the plan has always been to leave them for last. I have Custodes, Knights and Admech already painted up. There are Sisters of Battle still in box, but, Imperial Guard were going to have to wait.
But the Batrep intrigued me: I always knew I could make an all-tank army. I didn’t think it was a viable option for play though, so I never gave it any thought. While I was perusing eBay, I shot a text to Ian. That guy has more tanks than he knows what to do with, so I figured I would ask if he had any he would be willing to part with to help get me started. In hindsight, I should have left that stone unturned. He did have tanks for me. Many actually. Too many.
Now I have a tank army, and it cost me no money. What it is, has, and will continue to cost me, is blood and sweat, er, or I guess time and energy anyway. He’s got me by the balls now, I am helping him paint his Steel Legion army. And by army, I mean, far more tanks than anyone can realistically field in a game. So, there goes a few weekend evenings this winter and spring. We hope to get the whole project complete this summer. I am sure there will be an article about the project when we’re done.
On top of the tanks, which was a crazy payment in advance already, he handed me literal dozens of Death Korps models. Before the made-to-order Steel Legion models appeared on the Games Workshop site, he was planning to adjust the DKoK models to look like Steel Legion. He found himself with a metric fuck-ton of unneeded models, and chose to lessen his Shame while simultaneously giving me a gift of Forge World models. And a bit of a hard on if I am being honest. Most importantly, his extra gift of Krieg models included Tank Commanders. Look who has a Death Korps of Krieg tank army now.
How do I reconcile “gifts” with my goal of painting more than I purchased this year? No money was exchanged, although one could say the currency being used was my free time. Regardless, I did not buy them per se. And for that matter, what about 3D printed miniatures? I have a ton of STL files and a resin printer. Surely I could inundate myself with miniatures for the low cost of a few jugs of resin, and while I would have more painting to do the fiduciary cost would be quite reasonable. After hashing it out with my wife, we decided that only actual purchases would count towards my goal for the year. The gifted, traded or printed models would be added to my Shame total, but not hurt my goal for the year.
So, with that, I painted 30 models in January, and added 47 to my backlog. Of those, I only paid for one, the new stupid looking Adeptus Mechanicus sniper douchebag on the fuckin stilts.
February: Like the chunk of rock that killed the dinosaurs, February hit. By which I mean the Old World Tomb King Launch Box and the Deathwing Assault box.
The Tomb Kings would ship late, and while waiting for my box set to arrive, I ran to my local FLGS and arrived 5 minutes after open; They had already sold out of some stuff, but I managed to grab a Necrosphinx, Necropolis Knights and some Tomb Guard to augment my soon-to-arrive box set. When the made-to-order Tomb King characters popped up on the website, I ordered those, and they arrived much quicker than anticipated.
This was all in a week’s time. I also gave some extra Space Marine Reivers and termagants to someone in my gaming group with no expectation of getting something in return. David can’t handle the way we do things in our group. We give. Mostly food when we play, but we give with no expectation. No, David, you don’t get to give me a few bucks for pizza. I pay, unless someone fights me for it, so you get the same fighting chance. One day while he was over, we gave him an underworlds warband, dice and boards to play with. It nearly fuckin broke him and we all enjoyed watching it happen. He was a bit twitchy, uncomfortable as he was to accept it as a gift and said he would get me back. I laughed. It would eventually happen though.
Also, Kera and I decided that my years project is as much about reducing Shame as it is painting miniatures, so, my gift of miniatures counted as negative models bought. Score.
The week after, the Deathwing Box landed. I had hoped, unrealistically, that the Old World stuff would be built by the time it arrived. Of course it wasn’t. My first love is Deathwing Terminators, and with much hesitation and pain in my soul, I set aside the Dark Angels terminators to keep working on Tomb Kings. Directly to the Shame you go, Deathwing. I will (hopefully) have time for you next month. Spoilers. I didn’t.
While I had only got one model in January, saying that I ordered only one would be a lie I guess: as if by drop pod insertion, a pile of Emeperor’s Children models had arrived, Including Eidoon and some Kakophani. I had it in my mind that I wanted to “finish” my EC ally detachment when I got to work on it, so of course I talked myself into ordering some models. That’s not even the last of the Emperors Children models I would get this quarter, merely the first wave.
Well Shit. There goes my plans for the year already. Well, yes and no. Before I set out on this “Paint 50% more than you buy you asshole” plan, I knew that the Tomb Kings and Dark Angel Deathwing Assault box were both coming out early in the year and I would not miss out on those. The whole idea of the goal is to enjoy my hobby with a little more structure, but, in the end, there is no fuckin way I wasn’t ganna buy those Deathwing, and Ryan had been itching to get back to playing bricks of models in fantasy, so the Tomb Kings were ganna happen as well. Ultimately, the plan was to get my ass caught up after they came out.
Oops. I bought Ushoran and the other new models when they launched, too. What can I say, I have the rest of the army painted up. At least I got a unit of Skeleton Archers and three chariots done. Also, I completed a Tomb King that I have owned since the original release.
So, after taking out the twenty-six models I gave David, I bought 135 minis. Ugh. The simple act of typing that feels stressful, but 93 were in the Launch box of Tomb Kings alone. It took me most of the month to build, so I only painted 21 Tomb Kings, consisting mostly of fast cavalry, total in February. Not looking good, is it?
March: And then I found Legion Imperialis Kits at the store I no longer frequent. I stopped going to the Comic Store when it closed and moved into a creepy warehouse, supposedly to sell shit out of his warehouse online: pretty sure he hasn’t done that yet and it’s been nearly two years. The owner took good care of me in the past, and I spent a lot of money there. He could even get me online only from GW, that’s how much shit he got in the past. But, times have been tough on him, the spot is far less convenient and largely shoehorned into an un-shoppable little room, so, I don’t really go there anymore. But, he had been holding White Dwarf magazines for some six months or so, and so I decided one day when I got out of work early, but my wife did not, that I would swing by, shoot the shit and get some paint. I shit you not, he had Imperialis marine kits that I couldn’t even spend excessive amounts on eBay for. So, I bought them, but fuck I didn’t really wanna shove that up the colon of my shame pile. But, up there it went.
And then a certain serpent tailed, winged four armed primarch with a gorgeous fucking model landed at my doorstep. Why I bought it, I can’t tell you: I still haven’t painted the other Fulgrim primarch model, although it is at least primed and airbrushed pinky-purple. Also, a plasma Moritat arrived for my Word Bearers. I wanna run warpfire on him and light a motherfucker up with his daemon fire pistols with no chance of hurting himself. The idea makes me giggle.
Dammit if I wasn’t hard at work painting Tomb Kings. I got a unit of Archers and Spearmen finished and Ryan, eager as all fuck to play, came over to help me assemble the rest of the miserable skeletons. Then I got to painting them, but not before I drunk-ordered Spear Throwing Giants for the Song of Ice and Fire game I haven’t played in over a year, but, but, they are giants: how can I not? The rest of the new Dark Angel models came in and so I had Asmodai and a unit of useless but cool looking Inner Circle Companions, and for once, after years of trying, I managed to get Liberty Prime for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. When the fucker finally arrived, in all his immense glory, the fucker came with two left arms. Dammit, back to the box you go: it only took me two years of waiting to get him, including in-stock emails the whole time.
Boo.
I went on vacation towards the end of March; during that week David found a Necrosphinx and paid me back for the pile of minis I had given him by force, which would help my ancient Egyptian monster mash army I was trying (unsuccessfully) to build, despite there being no stock on the webstore for Ushabti, Scorpions and Giants. Boo again.
Over vacation I got a chance to play a bunch of games. Kera and I played Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. David and I played Warhammer 40k and Horus Heresy with Andrew. Ryan and I played my first game of The Old World; The army wasn’t fully painted yet, but I decided a learning game was allowed. As of late I have been more involved with the hobby side of things than the gaming side and it was great to spend a lot of my time off from work playing.
There was also a lot of painting being done. Not as much as some previous March vacations, two years ago I painted all of the Marvel minis and scenery I owned to be ready for a game with Robert and last year I painted a ton of Ultramarines for a Heresy event in April.
Regardless, with the available time, I finished up the other units of spear and bow wielding skeletons. Having determined my method and recipe with the last set of skeleton units, these were completed considerably faster, or at least more efficiently.
A lot of time was put into the undead croco-dragon thingy, but the finishing touches on it are the last bits of effort needed to finish the Launch Box.
Projects Complete in 2024: 3.
Along with the stuff I got earlier, Kera and I also splurged on some Fallout: Wasteland Warfare minis and the 2nd Supernatural expansion for Zombicide while on vacation, and I found myself with 62 new models in March. I removed 73 from my shame, almost entirely due to finishing the Old World Tomb Kings box set. Typing these numbers, I wish I hadn’t found those imperialis models, or I would be very close to my goal for the month.
Oh well. Maybe in April…
First Quarter Results
As anyone that has followed my hobby progress That total puts me completely opposite of my plan, at purchasing about 50% more models than I have painted. I always knew I would be starting off on the wrong side of the line and fighting an upwards battle to reach my goal: I had nothing to do with the timing of the Old World release.
I did get well over a hundred models painted in the first three months. Not bad, considering that a vast majority of those had to be assembled and primed first. Most important of all, I finished three projects: two lingering armies and one new project sized box. That felt good.
Over the next three months, I hope to get the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare box (and a handful of mutants and monsters for us to fight) complete for Kera and I. I also expect to get the Deathwing Assault box built and painted, and paint some Tyranids to complete another 40k army. I also think it’s time that I get the tank army I was gifted painted and ready to show off, well, except for the troop transports. I will save those for when I paint the infantry likely some time in the distant future.
See you here in a few months so you can continue to be entertained by my continued failure to attain my own personally set goals…
Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man