Hobby Resolutions 2025

Welcome to 2025!

As the bleary Hogmanay hangover subsides, we are left to look to the plentiful potential of the year ahead. How do we focus our energy in specific directions to achieve some useful and interesting goals?

Enter the resolutions.

Last year was a successful year, gamingwise. It was successful in terms of writing, as well. Hobby was a bit hit or miss. This year’s resolutions will be at a similar scale to last year’s in some ways, going further in some areas, and cutting back in others. I don’t see the value in just blindly increasing the resolutions every year to the point that they just aren’t achievable.

As with last year, we’re looking at splitting them into painting, playing, and writing categories.

Painting

Whilst my painting targets fell away this year, I still painted a lot of nice stuff, and got through 288, which is about 288 more than I was managing 5 or 6 years back. The thing is, I don’t have any big horde armies planned that I really want to finish, so I’m not going to commit to 365 miniatures this year. It’s just not where the vibe is and I don’t think my hands could take it. 200 seems reasonable.

In terms of what I want to paint, I’d like to finish things. I’d like to close off projects, rather than start a bunch of new ones. As such, I’m going to try to finish three projects that have sat languishing on my shelves. These could include finishing my Necron C’Tan list, a proper Flesh-Eater Courts list, some 40K Daemons, or those pesky Soulblight Gravelords. There are also Skaven, as well as other bits and bobs, such as expanding my two Old World armies to 2,000 points. Lots of options, of which I would like to complete three.

Malifaux was a goal for last year that was not met. I actually came damn close to completing one warband, with only a single miniature still needing done. So one of those two crews should be very easy. The other will require some actual work, I expect!

I’d like to partake in at least 4 club painting contests again. I’ve not done especially well in them in 2024, but I like to take part and show my support. The first of these requires no work, as we are to submit our favourite miniature(s) from 2024. That’ll be Thursday, that’s due.

I’m also going to keep my goal of painting more than I purchase, to really chip away at the ol’ grey mountain. I’ve decided, following feedback from last year, not to worry about printing in my totals, as I don’t print excessively anyway, except when it comes to my Old World armies.

So, that leaves us with some slightly toned-back painting goals for this year:

Complete 3 active army projects
Finish two Malifaux crews
Starting forces for 2 skirmish games
Take part in at least 4 club painting contests
Paint 200 miniatures
Paint more than I purchase

Gaming

I’m actually really happy with my gaming goals from last year. I set myself the target of playing 40 games, and I did. Here’s the full list:

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
Twilight Struggle
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar
Ark Nova
Arcane Academy
Robot Quest Arena
UNO
Root
Apiary
Dixit
In the Hall of the Mountain King
Quadropolis
1960: The Making of the President
Everdell
Age of Fantasy
Call of Cthulhu
Raiders of the North Sea
Scout
Warhammer 40,000
Kluster
Rummy
Lorcana
Flotsam Fight
Twilight Struggle Red Sea: Conflict in the Horn of Africa
Magic: the Gathering (Commander)
Eclipse
Arcs
Nucleum
Villainous
Isle of Skye
Explorers of Navoria
Doomlings
Kingdom Builder
Love Letter
River Valley Glassworks

Among these, were 6 that had sat on my shelves, unplayed and unloved. It’s good to get these to the table, and I will keep these for next year, aiming for 5 games from my shelf of shame to make it to the table. Given how much I’m playing Commander, and the other comments I am about to make, I am dialling back slightly to aim for at least different 30 games.

I’ve had a great time with RPGs this year as well, with great games of D&D, Traveller, Soulbound, and Call of Cthulhu. I want to play more this year, so let’s keep that goal.

All in all, the gaming goals have not changed all that much, except there is one thing I want to add. MtG/Commander has been a big plus in the second half of this year, but in addition to being a good game, it’s also one that encourages my laziness. I’ve opted out of miniature games pretty much entirely because it is so much easier to just rock up to game night with a box of cards, rather than an army, and dice, and terrain, and books, and… Yeah. Let’s try to get back into miniature games. I imagine most of these will be AoS, but I’d also be up Malifaux, Frostgrave, or whatever:

Play at least 30 different games this year
Play miniature games at least 12 times
Play at least 5 games that I already own but have not yet played.
Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs

Writing

The blog’s been ticking along pretty well, I suppose. Today is day 846 of not having missed a day of posting. I don’t get a lot of traffic in the grand scheme of things, but growth is growth. This year’s total is a little over 80,000, and I appreciate the increase over last year. Here’s a track of our traffic over the years:

It’s been a very slow build, but that’s okay. I’ve never really promoted the blog, so with that in mind, it’s pretty good going. I used to pay for Project Wonderful ads on an older site, before I started this one, and got good results from those. I really liked how their system worked, too. Sadly, Project Wonderful is no longer with us.

I had ads on for a couple of years, but made nothing from them. In 2021, I switched to affiliate links and they started to actually get used in around 2023. I average around £100 per month on those, which I really, really appreciate. As of September, I’ve been putting that money in a separate account and protecting it for hobby stuff, which has been nice, and takes some of the guilt out of some hobby purchases.

Now, the type of content that the blog features has also changed significantly over time. Here’s a nice summary:

You’ll notice a really significant drop in word count per post over the past few years. I was confused about this at first, because I’m doing lots of reviews, and 5 on Fridays tends to be a little over 1,000 words. What’s bringing it down are painting posts. These tend to be a few dozen words at most and totally drag down the average. I’m okay with this. I suppose that at 1,700+ words, this post will help with that!

The lower post counts in 2020 and 2021 also mean that Throwback Thursdays are going to catch up a little for a while, but then stretch back out as we get to 2022 onwards, where posts become more frequent.

Most of the traffic continues to come from evergreen posts that peak on Google searches. Here are the top 10 posts by traffic over the past year:

Shards of the Space Gods: Alternative C’Tan Miniatures (2020)
Shards of the Space Gods: Alternative C’Tan Miniatures: Part 2 (2021)
Review: World of Warcraft 5E (2019)
Building Chaos Knights for WH40K: Where to Find Each Knight Variant (2024)
Rank ‘Em: the Clans of Vampire: the Masquerade (2022)
Warhammer Armies: The Best of 6th ed. (2022)
Review: Dropout.tv (Streaming Service) (2022)
Shards of the Space Gods: Alternative C’Tan Miniatures, Part 3 (2024)
A Completely Serious and Balanced Review: Munchkin (2023)
Review: Vallejo Earth Texture and Thick Mud (2024)

I included the year of publication for each. It’s interesting how many were from 2022, when that’s also the only year that saw our traffic go down. I guess folk were catching up on what they missed!

Here are the top 10 posts that were published in 2024:

Now, it should be said that the bottom of that list dips as low as just a couple hundred views. 40K content continues to be my most popular stuff, even though I’m not actually that big a fan of the game.

In terms of the type of content being written, I’m honestly conflicted. I’ve done a lot of bundle posts this year. Are they really of value? I’m highlighting only those that I genuinely find interesting, but they’re pretty low-effort posts. That said, I couldn’t do a review or opinion piece every day, and I like the rhythm of daily posts…

So, then, shall we set some targets for this year? I’m thinking we keep the goal for a post a day, and increase the minimum number of reviews to 52, averaging one a week and putting me broadly on par with this year. I’m happy to continue to do a mix of hobby and media reviews. I’m not going to aim to produce anything for DTRPG, though if I do, that will be a nice bonus.

So, then, here’s what we have: