Resolutions 2025: November Roundup

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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 November 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: 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!)

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

November Roundup: Painting

Yeah, another month of nothing. Between time and motivation, it’s just, once again, not happened.

Here were the totals from the end of October (and September, actually), 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.

November 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 November, 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
  36. Carcassonne
  37. The Expanse Roleplaying Game

This month, I’ve added a few more games to the list:

  1. Red Rising
  2. Star Tycoon
  3. Everdell Silverfrost

This month, I’ve managed to get in quite a few board games, some RPGs, and plenty of Commander.

It was great to play some Isle of Skye again. I love that game. I didn’t win, though! I usually do really well, but I just wasn’t getting going with it this time. Still, as always, it was a lot of fun. I do play this one a lot in its digital edition, too.

Next up, we dipped into another game in which I tend to do well:

Two games of Shiprights of the North Sea and two wins! I do well in this game. It just makes sense to me. In the first game, I took my usual approach of going heavy on raiding. In the second, I changed things up and focused on commerce. I really enjoyed that change as it opened up huge amounts of extra resources. I’ll be trying that again!

Next up were a trio of new (to me) games.

Red Rising is a hand-building game that I’d had my eye on for a while. It was good to get to try it out. The game was initially a little overwhelming and confusing. I think that the number of different colours of cards is a bit much, and there are so many named characters with different interactions and different paths to take. It took me the first half of the game to really work out what was going on. Fortunately, I had a patient group who were happy to answer my many clarifying questions. By the time I knew what was happening, I realised I had accidentally put myself into a pretty good position. A few of turns of optimisation before the end saw me able to eke out a win.

I’d definitely play this game again, though I don’t think I need to own it.

The second new game was Star Tycoon. Like Red Rising, I’d been looking at this game for a while. I really liked it! It’s got a bit of Terraforming Mars to it, but is different enough that I’m not just going to always pick Terraforming Mars instead. I liked the resource management and how scoring worked. Yeah, this was a LOT of fun. It will definitely be in the top 50!

The third came in just under the wire. It was Everdell: Silverfrost.

I’m still a little burnt out on Everdell. This game adds an extra little layer of challenge and complexity to the core formula, but it’s ultimately very similar. I liked it. I’d play it again. Maybe just not right away.

November Roundup: Writing

6 reviews this month! I did a bit of reading mid-month, so there was a run of book reviews towards the end. I also got really hooked on the video game, Hades. Here are this month’s reviews:

There was another review that I’ve written, but it didn’t fit into November’s schedule, so it will get posted sometime in December. The book isn’t due out until April 2026, so there’s no huge rush on that front. I also reviewed a book on supporting trans kids in schools, but that got posted elsewhere.

Here were my other wordier, more thoughtful posts for November:

There are a few things in the review queue, but the biggest thing in December will be the Top 50 list.

I’m looking to publish these on Tuesdays. We’ve got a little structure going on at the moment, it seems. Mondays for Magic, Tuesdays will be Top 50, and Wednesdays for D&D Sucks and So Do You, which are currently scheduled through to mid-February. We’ve then got Thursdays for Throwback Thursday, and Fridays for 5 on Friday. That leaves the weekend for more freeform stuff.

November 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: 7/4)
  • Paint 200 miniatures (180/200)
  • Paint more than I purchase (on track!)

Gaming Resolutions

  • Play at least 30 different games this year (Completed: 40/30)
  • 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) (57/52 published)
  • Publish a blog post per day (on track!)

Catch you in December!

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