Resolutions 2024: January Roundup

It’s one thing to set resolutions, and quite another to hold oneself to them. I intend to review my progress monthly toward each of the resolutions. Welcome, then, to our roundup for January 2024. Let’s start with a reminder of the resolutions:

Resolutions Recap

Painting

Paint at least 4 Warhammer armies of approx 2000 points
Paint an Underworlds Warband
Paint two Malifaux crews
Paint 2 starting forces each for 2 different skirmish games
Take part in at least 4 club painting contests
Paint 366 miniatures
Paint more than I purchase or print

Gaming

Play at least 40 different games this year
Play 6 games that I already own but have not yet played.
Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs

Writing

Publish a blog post per day
Publish 6 items on DriveThruRPG
Write 18 reviews (including Game of the Month reviews)

So, how did January go?

Painting

The first model of the year war, quite surprisingly, a Warhammer 40,000 one, or at least a proxy thereof. This fantastic proxy C’Tan model (previously featured in one of my alt C’Tan posts) was a quick and easy start to the year:

I was quite relieved that the red over the metallic base went well, given that I wasn’t delighted with the results of the purple effect on my Nightbringer proxy. I’m keen to do a few more C’Tan, with my Void Dragon likely being the next one. After that, I’m going to look at printing up some possible transcendent C’Tan shards.

Next up was a set of miniatures that had been sitting unfinished for quite a long time. These Putrid Blightkings were quite fun to paint, so I’m not quite sure why they took quite so long…

How I managed to amass a sizeable Maggotkin army without painting any Blightkings is beyond me. The situation has been remedied.

I then moved on to some Skaven! This started in the form of Skabbik’s Plaguepack, which is a warband for Warhammer Underworlds:

These model look great! They also let me try out my Pestilens colour scheme before committing to the whole army. It worked. I committed to the whole army.

This began with a classic Pestilens miniature, the old, metal Lord Skrolk, first published back in 1993:

He turned out alright, but I did forget how much I dislike working with metal. Don’t get me wrong, metal miniatures have a satisfying heft to them, but I just don’t like putting them together and painting them as I do resin and, best of all, plastic.

I then moved on to some troops for the army, with my first 40 Plague Monks (spread over batch 1 and batch 2), with another 20 to come.

The first batch turned out better than the second, but the second was quick, being done over a couple of evenings. I’m hoping that when I move onto the third batch, I can maintain that pace.

Having done some troops, it seemed only fair to do some more characters as a reward. A pair of Grey Seers were completed:

Again, it’s cool to see both the newer, plastic model and the old metal one. How far GW has come is really impressive, but the old model still holds up reasonably well.

So, then, in terms of totals, where are we? Well, I bought a bunch of models to finish off various projects, then a stack of Underworlds warbands from a friend.

Bought: 27 miniatures
Printed: 0 miniatures
Painted: 60 miniatures

I ran out of steam in the latter part of the month, truth be told. I need to get back onto the Skaven and base up and prime my last 20 Plague Monks. At that point, the end will be in sight. I’m kind of dreading painting the Plague Furnace. I’m about halfway done with a Verminlord, too.

I’m also working on my first Stargrave crew. I’m doing some sci-fi lizardmen from One Page Rules. The bases sizes are probably not what I’d want for Stargrave, with the Kroxigor-equivalents being on very big bases. Still, it’s all just for a bit of fun, so I’m going with it. I do have the Frostgrave plastics for a second crew, afterwards. I’ve printed up some nice bases to go with them, too.

Gaming

You know, I didn’t entirely felt like I played a lot of games this month until I actually sat down and counted. We lost a few club nights to snowy and windy weather, but I do feel that I’ve made the most of the time I had available.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stuart Disbury (@tavendale)

I’ve actually managed to play a fair amount, getting the list for the year off to a good start with 10 different games:

Century: Golem Edition
Architects of the West Kingdom
Sushi Go!
Warhammer Underworlds
Age of Sigmar: Soulbound
Traveller
Dungeons & Dragons
Santorini
King of Tokyo
Ticket to Ride (Nordic)

There are some perennial favourites in here, with both Century and Architects featuring in 2023’s Top Ten list. One that I enjoyed getting to the table is Warhammer Underworlds. It’s a game that I’ve blown hot and cold with, and I’m looking to get it more into the rotation; especially considering we’re looking at running a club event in the very near future. I’ve also finished up Skaven, Gitz, and Ogor warbands!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stuart Disbury (@tavendale)

Soulbound (January’s Game of the Month) continues to be fantastic, with my current campaign going really well. It’s also my game of the month for January! With this and Traveller under my belt, that’s me 2/3 of the way towards one of my resolutions!

What I didn’t get to play in January was Age of Sigmar. Disappointing. I’ve got a game set up for later this week though!

Writing

I’ve managed to maintain my goal of posting a blog post per day, and that’s great. I’m happy to be doing well on that front. As far as January goes, here are the highlights:

In terms of reviews, I’ve managed 3 this month, and all very different to one another. First, I reviewed some basing textures from Vallejo, then the sitcom, Father Ted (with a view to playing it), and finally our game of the month, Soulbound. Links to all are in the list above.

I’ve not looked at any DriveThruRPG stuff. I suppose another sitcom-themed Fiasco Playset is a possibility. I’ve got a few half-finished playsets. Some are actually pretty decent, but others turned out to be quite bland and won’t be finished. I previewed the cover for Brick in a previous post and it just turned out to be bad.