Resolutions 2025: October 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 October 2025.  Let’s start with a reminder of where we got to last month: 

Resolutions Recap

Painting Resolutions

• Complete 3 active army projects (2/3)
• Finish two Malifaux crews (Completed: 3/2)
• Starting forces for 2 skirmish games (Completed: 2/2)
• Take part in at least 4 club painting contests (Completed: 6/4)
• Paint 200 miniatures (180/200)
• Paint more than I purchase (on track!)

Gaming Resolutions

• Play at least 30 different games this year (Completed: 35/30)
• Play miniature games at least 12 times (Completed: 12/12 games played)
• Play at least 5 games that I already own but have not yet played. (Completed: 5/5 games played)
• Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs (2/3)

Writing Resolutions

• Write 52 reviews (including Game of the Month reviews) (46/52 published)
• Publish a blog post per day (on track!)

Now, let’s take a look at what sort of progress was made in October.

October Roundup: Painting

Yeah, I didn’t paint anything this month. Between time and motivation, it’s just not happened.

Here were the totals from the end of September, which are still the totals as of today:

• Purchased: 82
• Painted: 180

I’m still working on some Gloomspite wolves. I’ve got a third Burrows & Badgers crew sitting here as well, and a bunch of ideas about how to try and round off some projects; though I imagine several of these will go into next year.

October Roundup: Gaming

With Commander and Lorcana featuring more heavily in my rotation at the moment, and a goal to get more miniature games played, I’ve reduced this year’s target to 30 games. Up to the beginning of October, I had played the following games this year:

1. Magic: the Gathering
2. Disney Lorcana
3. Warhammer: Age of Sigmar
4. Apiary
5. Architects of the West Kingdom
6. 7 Wonders
7. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
8. Raiders of the North Sea
9. Paranoia: The Uncooperative Board Game
10. Unstable Unicorns
11. Viscounts of the West Kingdom
12. Wayfarers of the South Tigris
13. Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy
14. Clank! In! Space!
15. Clank!
16. Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress
17. Tiny Towns
18. Isle of Skye
19. Risk
20. River Valley Glassworks
21. Shipwrights of the North Sea: Redux
22. Necromunda
23. Call of Cthulhu
24. Century: Golem Edition
25. How to Save a World
26. Scout
27. Dungeons & Dragons
28. Arcane Academy
29. Everdell
30. Deep Sea Adventure
31. A Fake Artist Goes to New York
32. Adeptus Titanicus
33. Doomlings
34. Mothership
35. Root

This month, I’ve added one more game to the list:

1. Carcassonne
2. The Expanse Roleplaying Game

This month, I’ve managed to get in a game of Age of Sigmar, lots of games of Commander, a few games of Carcassonne, and an initial session of The Expanse Roleplaying Game.

I said plenty about Carcassonne in the Game of the Month post. Let’s talk The Expanse. I love the books. I love the show. I was excited to play, and the initial session was a lot of fun. My hotshot pilot immediately messed up and gave us what can charitably be called a rough landing on a moon. Fantastic. The AGE system is one that I have played before, but a long time ago, when we did a one-shot of Dragon Age. It’s fine. It’s not my favourite system (it doesn’t use dice pools!), but I like it. I’m really looking forward to session 2 on Tuesday!

October Roundup: Writing

This month got off to a slow start review-wise, with just the Goon Master Games spotlight appearing early in the month, and the rest not appearing until near the end. In all, there were 5 reviews in October:

• STLs from Goon Master Games
• Clanbook Baali for Vampire: The Masquerade
• R.T. Ester’s debut novel, The Ganymedan
• A review of the MTG Commander precon deck, Abzan Armor
• October’s Game of the Month, Carcassonne

And here were my other wordier, more thoughtful posts for October:

• Part 2 of my post about Dr Strange and Mage: The Ascension
• Thoughts on the MTG card, Consecrated Sphinx
• Why not all RPGs need to be a campaign
• Thoughts on MTG’s Reserved List
• Mood over Mechanics in RPGs, part 1 and part 2
• Thoughts on the MTG card, Seedborn Muse

I’ve not got much lined up at the moment. I’ve got another VTM clanbook to review. The next Magic Monday post will be on The One Ring. I would like to get some stuff painted, too. I also need to start thinking about the top 25, and the first post is planned to go up on the 2nd of December. It’s a foregone conclusion at this point that I’ll make my reviews target this year. Actually, I’ll complete it tomorrow, when I publish a review of the book, Masters of Doom.

October Summary

Painting Resolutions

• Complete 3 active army projects (2/3)
• Finish two Malifaux crews (Completed: 3/2)
• Starting forces for 2 skirmish games (Completed: 2/2)
• Take part in at least 4 club painting contests (Completed: 6/4)
• Paint 200 miniatures (180/200)
• Paint more than I purchase (on track!)

Gaming Resolutions

• Play at least 30 different games this year (Completed: 37/30)
• Play miniature games at least 12 times (Completed: 13/12 games played)
• Play at least 5 games that I already own but have not yet played. (Completed: 5/5 games played)
• Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs (Completed: 3/3)

Writing Resolutions

• Write 52 reviews (including Game of the Month reviews) (51/52 published)
• Publish a blog post per day (on track!)

Catch you in November!