Currently, my hobby area is a complete mess. There are piles of assembled and undercoated models waiting for painting as well as several sets waiting to be finished. There are several sets still in box and sprues lying everywhere. Printed buildings, some undercoated, some bare plastic, are littering the shelves and floors. All three printers are sitting quiet, waiting for a new project to launch. In multiple boxes scattered around the house, partially painted armies stand waiting for the sudden rush before some future event to get them ready. And perhaps most concerningly, my own custom wargaming setting, along with a few other written projects some of which are almost ready to move to the next stage, but just haven’t quite got there.

To put it mildly, this year hasn’t been that great for me. I mentioned last year feeling empty by the end of it and that feeling has got worse, worse in a way that (if I’m honest) I’ve been slowly going down all the way back to 2019. Lots of stuff that I’ve been excited about in both my professional life and my hobby life is just not hitting the same with motivation in the toilet to do anything productive or even ducking out of social events such as going to play games because I just don’t have the energy for it. These symptoms point towards a certain mental health condition – not one I feel confident self-diagnosing, but it does feel like something needs to be changed to help myself feel better and healthier, and return to the level of focus I used to have. This year has felt like it’s been a year of decay and a year like this can not happen again.

That said, it’s not all bad – I did actually manage to get a few things done this year:

January saw the end of one thing, but there was also a massive escalation in what I could do with my hobby. My Neptune 4 Pro finally got online and started churning out items all ready for the tabletop, such as the Hexengarde buildings. It also saw me giving Warcry a try with a few of my friends. It hasn’t stuck as much as maybe I would have liked, but it was still a fun diversion.

February saw The Great Swan game run over at York (the scenario I set up using What a Tanker) as well as a first dive into What a Cowboy in its operator form. It was also the month I started playing around with increasing the scale of all my figures, digging in first with some prototypes for the Shyluz infantry using Combat Octopus’s parts.

March saw a few more games of What An Operator, getting some dice rolling on the table. It also saw some more fun with FDM printer, including my first board where all the structures were printed by me (in the form of the Russian houses from Patrick Miniatures). I also started playing around with Bobmack3d Hind, starting to look into emerging resin and FDM printing.

April had me learning to use Blender, taking something (as simple as it is) from an initial plan to something physical in my hand. It was also the start of The Old World project as I took a trip up to Darlington to begin rolling dice and move trays of figures around. I also started the refresh of my collection, scaling up the latest Spectre releases to 110% to match with more recent releases such as BPRE.

May saw another step in the Old World journey, as I started rebasing my collection and then took them out to the battlefield against the Creative Regular Opponent. There was also a minor blip – the Saturn went down for a month or two and I only got it back up and running in May after replacing the lamp unit.

In June I managed to evolve my building plan with the first version of a multi-segment build (letting you play with half-height walls, full walls or fully enclosed buildings) that I need to get back to. I also started a campaign of Undaunted with my Corporate Regular Opponent, before painting up some of Black Site Studio’s figures from Breacher.

July was very much a hobby in-progress month – It saw me printing a lot of the Modern Miniatures vehicles, beginning the process of selling off my MDF collection and finally bringing my block of 30 chaos warriors up to full size.

August was mostly a summer break, but the hobby train didn’t stop. I added the entire collection of Old World books to my collection, and I got a chance to play my first full game against the Dastardly Regular Opponent. I also started printing a Necromunda board, something I’ve wanted for years.

September saw my hobby space get a few upgrades with peg boards on the walls to save me using stacks of MDF for all my paint and tools, I got started on my Spyrer gang but most importantly – we ran a full day of Old World, getting in a good set of games and bringing the group together.

October saw the start of a downturn in productivity, with no games played and only two figures painted. However, I did start printing out some terrain elements, with the rough idea for games in the future.

November was similar with very little finished. But I did manage to get out and play games with the Dastardly Regular Opponent, as well as getting a few things printed out such as the Rangers from Combat Octopus and the two small houses from Patrick Miniatures.

December is still ongoing but as you can probably see from lack of weekly updates, it has not been the best. But despite this, I still love wargaming. I spend so much time thinking and writing about it, planning models, preparing prints, and beginning painting but then nothing crosses the finishing line. What has to happen now is a refocusing on why I hobby and how I want to spend my time, all in favour of getting it across the line and written about. The focus for me has always been about the playing side and it’s to that I must return. I’m already thinking about how I can put this into action, with a few key areas I’m already looking at improving:

1. Reduce Collection.
2. Prepare for Tabletop Action.
3. Play More Games, Play More Often.

In admin news, I’ll be pausing the weekly articles (The Week In ChargeBlog and The News Stand) until the new year after Monday’s release. They will be coming back, although I plan to adjust how they are written in order to help fix my schedule around them. Over the Christmas break, I’ve got a few things planned (although sadly it seems my usual games will be taking place in the New Year as we’re all busy) and I’ll be planning to write SITREPs on the stuff I get up to.

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