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 February 2024. Let’s start with a reminder of the resolutions and where we got to in January:
Resolutions Recap
Painting
- Paint at least 4 Warhammer armies of approx 2000 points (Jan status: 0/4)
- Paint an Underworlds Warband (Jan status: Complete! 1/1)
- Paint two Malifaux crews (Jan status: 0/2)
- Paint 2 starting forces each for 2 different skirmish games (Jan status: 0/4)
- Take part in at least 4 club painting contests (Jan status: 1/4)
- Paint 366 miniatures (Jan status: 60/366)
- Paint more than I purchase or print (Jan status: on track!)
Gaming
- Play at least 40 different games this year (Jan status: 10/40)
- Play 6 games that I already own but have not yet played. (Jan status: 0/6)
- Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs (Jan status: 2/3)
Writing
- Publish a blog post per day (Jan status: on track!)
- Publish 6 items on DriveThruRPG (Jan status: 0/6)
- Write 18 reviews (including Game of the Month reviews) (Jan status: 3/18)
So, how did February go?
Painting
Much like January, I started off the month with my only 40K model of the month. Much like January, this was a C’Tan. This time, a Shard of the Void Dragon:
He turned out well. I was really happy with him, and I had a lot of fun with him. if I continue with this trend, I’m just a few months from a 6 C’Tan army! Nah, I already know that March’s first model will not be a C’Tan. If I’d given it a bit more thought, it might have been.
I then did another big miniature in the form of a Verminlord Corrupter for my Skaven army:
It felt good to get this model finished. I was a bit worried that this was going to be my only Skaven miniature for this month, until I managed to squeeze some more in at the end.
I then took a detour away from the world(s) of Warhammer, and painted up some miniatures for Stargrave. I have some of the Stargrave plastics, which I’ll get to, but I also had these OPR Saurian Starhost models that I printed last year:
These were fun! And it was great to finally clear them from the slate. The schemes were pretty simple, but I was going for big, blocky colours. Mission accomplished, I suppose!
Next up was a return to my youth! The Old World! Yes, the community around that game is incredibly toxic, but I do like the idea of a rank and flank game. Then Woehammer issued a challenge…
Oh, dear.
First up, I did the first miniature for an Empire army. I went with my favourite Empire character, a Warrior Priest:
I’m pretty happy with him! I want to field a crusadey-themed Empire army. I’ll start off with some typical infantry, but then I want a nice, big block of Flagellants.
I then returned to the mortal realms to complete this lovely, colourful endless spell:
This was fun! It was a bit too bright at first, but a quick light-blue drybrush really brought the colours down to a good level.
I stuck with endless spells and completed a pair of Skaven spells:
They look fine. I can’t say I’m super-delighted with them, but they fit the theme of the army. Yeah, they’re fine.
having finished some endless spells, I then bored myself to tears painting a trio of Gnawholes for the Skaven army:
Not fun. I really grudged every minute of painting these. Terrible. They look alright. Job done, y’know?
My final model of the month was another one for The Old World. This time, the first model in a Chaos Dwarf army, a Prophet-Sorcerer:
I don’t feel like I really had a plan with this model and just kind of waded through it. We’ll see how this roll out to the rest of the army when I get to it.
So, then, in terms of totals, where are we? Well, I bought a pair of dankhold Troggoths and I printed 4 TOW characters. Right at the end of the month, I also printed another 3 Mancrushers to add to my Sons of Behemat. My totals for this month are, therefore:
Bought: 2 miniatures
Printed: 7 miniatures
Painted: 30 miniatures
This means that my totals for the year so far are:
Purchased: 29 minis
Printed: 7 minis
Painted: 90 minis
I am a little disappointed in my progress this month. I should have finished the Skaven. This month, I intend to do another 20 Plague Monks and Thanquol. I hope to do more of the Skaven, but that would be decent progress. I also intend to do 40 more miniatures for my TOW armies. That does mean printing 40 miniatures for those armies, though.
We’ll see how it goes!
Gaming
It has been a fantastic month of gaming. I’ve had an absolute blast. I’ve added 7 games to the list I have played this year, three of which were new games to me. All of the new game, I have loved. The first of these was Ark Nova:
Ark Nova was fantastic. I loved it. It’s like a cross between Terraforming Mars and New York Zoo, and I am totally up for it! I made a decent showing for my first game, coming second out of four. My biggest complaint is the amount of space it takes up, which feels… a lot.
I also got to play Robot Quest Arena, which is a fantastic deckbuilder, and Apiary. Apiary is amazing. I’d be surprised if it doesn’t find its way into my top 10 this year. It’s also a reassuring return to form, at least to me, for Stonemaier Games. I’ve just not clicked with a lot of their stuff over the past few years, so it’s great to see them putting out something truly special again. I’ll have more to say on Apiary in the months to come, I expect.
Here were the games I had played before the start of February:
- 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
And here are the games added to the list in February:
- Warhammer: Age of Sigmar
- Ark Nova
- Arcane Academy
- Robot Quest Arena
- UNO
- Root
- Apiary
King of Tokyo is February’s Game of the Month. It is far from the best game I’ve played this month, but I’ve played it a lot with kids over the past couple of months and had a good time. It’s the game that’s probably got to the table most, and it’s certainly managed to excite the young audience!
I also finally got to play Age of Sigmar again! It’s ridiculous that I never played it in January, so I’m delighted that I’ve remedied this terrible situation.
Writing
I’ve managed to maintain my goal of posting a blog post per day. I’m happy to be doing well on that front. As far as February goes, here are the highlights:
- Book Review: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi
- Book Review: The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi
- Book Review: The Bezzle by Cory Doctorow
- Thinking about starting some armies for The Old World
- Using derelict places as RPG inspiration
- Game of the Month: King of Tokyo
I’ve started to move into trying to do more book reviews. I’m not reading enough, and this might help to motivate me. I did some quick re-reads of the two Scalzi books and then read something new in the form of Doctorow’s new novel, The Bezzle. I’ve got some more book lined up for reviews over the coming months. I appreciate that it’s not really the theme of the blog per se, but it’s where my interests are going and I’m happy to follow that thread.
Still no progress on any DTRPG material…
February Summary
Painting
- Paint at least 4 Warhammer armies of approx 2000 points (Feb status: 0/4)
- Paint an Underworlds Warband (Feb status: Complete! 1/1)
- Paint two Malifaux crews (Feb status: 0/2)
- Paint 2 starting forces each for 2 different skirmish games (Feb status: 1/4)
- Take part in at least 4 club painting contests (Feb status: 1/4)
- Paint 366 miniatures (Feb status: 90/366)
- Paint more than I purchase or print (Feb status: on track!)
Gaming
- Play at least 40 different games this year (Feb status: 17/40)
- Play 6 games that I already own but had not yet played. (Feb status: 0/6)
- Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs (Feb status: 2/3)
Writing
- Publish a blog post per day (Feb status: on track!)
- Publish 6 items on DriveThruRPG (Feb status: 0/6)
- Write 18 reviews (including Game of the Month reviews) (Feb status: 7/18)
And that was February. See you in March!
No Rerolls 
Ark Nova has been my go-to board game for about 18 months, and I’m still enjoying it!
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Yeah, I’m keen to play it again. I think it got a bit overshadowed for me by how much I LOVED Apiary.
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