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 August 2026. Let’s start with a reminder of where we got to last month:
Resolutions Recap
Painting Resolutions
- Complete 2 army projects
- Complete 3 smaller/skirmish projects (progress: 2/3)
- Complete 1 board of wargame/skirmish terrain
- Take part in at least 6 club painting contests (progress: 2/6)
- Paint 200 miniatures (progress: 71/200)
- Paint more than I purchase (not on track)
Gaming Resolutions
- Play at least 30 different games this year (progress: 25/30)
- Play miniature games at least 12 times (progress: 5/12)
- Play at least 5 games that I already own but have not yet played (progress: 4/5)
- Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs
Writing Resolutions
- Publish a blog post per day (on track)
- Write 52 reviews (Completed: 53/52)
Now, let’s take a look at what sort of progress was made in August.
August Roundup: Painting
For the first time a loooooong time, I’ve got a lot to share in this section. I’ve painted up a lot of RPG miniatures. We started the month with these meaty lads:
Ballin’.
Simple, but cool. That’s kind of the theme of the month, actually. Everything is really simple, but they all look decent. Well, mostly…
These chickens have a certain creepiness about them:
Imagine those things flying at you. Ugh, no.
Back to cute lil’ guys! Muffin Golems:
I mean, yeah, those teeth are pretty threatening, but I can’t get over how much the muffin cases look like pyjamas. Adorkable.
Let’s go back a little to the meatballs and give them a leader. Behold, the Flying Spaghetti Monster:
Truly, we are all touched by His Noodly Appendage. He was a total pain to paint, though.
These Gelatinous Puddings, even with a fair bit of gloss varnish to make them look shinier, were far easier:
I dunno if I like them or not, but they’re done!
Next up, let’s move on to the first of two dinosaurs, the Neapolisaurus:
This is probably my favourite miniature in this project. It turned out really, really well. Is it possibly misnamed, though? Technically. It’s no longer Neapolitan ice cream, since I added some mint choc chip. I don’t care. I like mint choc chip.
I also like Pink Wafers. That helped me decide on what to do with the second dinosaur, my Pink Waferceratops:
It looks fine. The other dino is better, though.
The one miniature in this project that I’m not really happy with is the Piebomination:
I just don’t think I did well with this dude. As an aside, he’s heavy. He’s just a huge lump of resin.
Finally, we’ve got the rest of this first batch of food miniatures, the Sundae Hounds:
I thought these would be a pain, and possibly a mess, but I actually really enjoyed them, and I’m happy with how they turned out. All of these food-themed STLs have come from Dragon Trapper’s Lodge. They also fulfil my resolution of completing smaller or skirmish projects. Fantastic.
I then moved on to finish some minis that had been sitting for some time. Here are The Operators, one of the crews from the starter set for Fallout Factions:
I’m not super happy with them. I didn’t really like the miniatures. They were boring and I don’t think I did well with them.
I much preferred The Pack, the other crew from the Fallout Factions box. These guys are way cooler:
Yeah, I’m much happier with these!
So, before the start of the month, our totals for the year were as follows:
- Purchased: 76
- Painted: 71
The deficit has been troubling! This month sees us fighting back, though! Here are the totals for this month:
- Purchased: 4
- Painted: 54
Okay, that’s progress! Fantastic! This brings my running totals for the year to date to:
- Purchased: 80
- Painted: 125
We’re back into the positive!
August Roundup: Gaming
The goal for this year, as with last year, is to play 30 different games. Here are the games played up to the start of this month:
- Magic: the Gathering (Commander)
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Viscounts of the West Kingdom
- Burrows & Badgers
- Apiary
- Age of Sigmar
- Sagrada
- Scout
- Escape the Dark Sector
- Isle of Skye
- Century: Golem Edition
- Escape from Tiddles Tower
- New York Zoo
- Endangered Orphans: House of Rath
- Arcane Academy
- Root
- Tiny Towns
- Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
- Black Ops: Tactical Espionage Wargaming
- Heat
- Quadropolis
- A Game of Thrones (2nd Ed.)
- Dixit
- Monster Eater
- Fire Nation Rising
This month, I am adding a few more games to the list:
- River Valley Glassworks
- Mutant: Year Zero
- Wyrmspan
- DC Comics Deckbuilding Game
I hadn’t run an RPG, other than for kids, for quite some time. It was therefore fantastic to get a one-shot of Mutant: Year Zero under the belt. I’ve not played MYZ since lockdown, and none of my players had played before. For one player, it was thir first roleplaying game, altogether.
It went well. The system is solid, and I knew it would be accessible for everyone. People got into the spirit of it, and we had some fun. The game took a strange turn at the end, but although it was a slightly extreme decision by the group, it wasn’t out of character based on their experiences. Yeah, I’d call the session a success.
I also tried Wyrmspan for the first time. It’s been on the shelf for a long time, having been picked up last year. It was good to finally get it to the table. I’ve been sent an expansion to review, so I thought I’d better get the core game looked at first. I’ve played a few games now, and a review will be forthcoming before I break out the expansion.
I was very pleased with how the game runs. It feels pacier than I expected, the aesthetic is fantastic, and there seem to be a lot of viable routes to victory. Good stuff!
Isle of Skye continues to be probably the most played game of the year. I play it most weeks at some point. The second most played game of the month is definitely River Valley Glassworks. It’s seen play with family and at club, and is easy to break out towards the end of the night when there’s not time for a longer game.
It’s just a nice game, and one that I’m happy to play again and again.
A goal for September will be to get another RPG to the table.
August Roundup: Writing
This month sees a couple of new reviews added to the tally:
- The STLs offered by Heroes Infinite
- August’s Game of the Month
With the large number of painted miniatures this month, most posts were sharing those completed minis. A few longer posts have been pushed back. We did post a few wordier posts, though:
- Thoughts on the Pioneer MTG format
- Just roll the dice, fam
- The Hatsune Miku deck goes print-to-demand
- The DM sucks the most
- Ideas for the Commander committee agenda
- My Eriette deck
- Thoughts on the MTG card, Humility
For the coming weeks, I’ve got a WiP Wednesday written for tomorrow, a couple of book reviews queued, and a banked post about levelling up in RPGs. Throwback Thursdays are scheduled up until the end of March, but otherwise the buffer has run right down.
August Summary
Painting Resolutions
- Complete 2 army projects
- Complete 3 smaller/skirmish projects (Completed: 3/3)
- Complete 1 board of wargame/skirmish terrain
Take part in at least 6 club painting contests (progress: 2/6)- This is being removed because club challenges have dried up this year
- Paint 200 miniatures (progress:125/200)
- Paint more than I purchase (back on track!)
Gaming Resolutions
- Play at least 30 different games this year (progress: 29/30)
- Play miniature games at least 12 times (progress: 5/12)
- Play at least 5 games that I already own but have not yet played (Completed: 5/5)
- Play at least 3 non-D&D RPGs (progress: 1/3)
Writing Resolutions
- Publish a blog post per day (on track)
- Write 52 reviews (Completed: 55/52)
Catch you at the end of September!