Phew, okay—I’ve mostly recovered from Salute. This year was definitely one of the more exciting ones, and I actually was there for the vast majority of the show, which is unusual for me. Again, I want to thank Brad Sanders for inviting me down, introducing me to folks as an expert hype man, and giving me a chance to chat about all things Ultramodern. I also managed to chat to a good few people, which is always a plus as someone who has struggled to make time for the weekly club – sometimes wargamers just need a good natter.

Like every show, I get a good hobby motivation hit once I return to The North. I’ve already pulled a few figures off the “to-be-painted” pile and got them on the desk, as well as getting the filament printer refilled with material and back to work printing out a MENA battlespace courtesy of Urban Scatter Gaming.

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However, this year’s trip (and the two separate car journeys enjoying the delights of the A1) also had me thinking a lot about ChargeBlog. The blog has now been running for 10+ years, and like anything that’s lasted that long, it’s survived by changing and adapting as the years go on. From the Ultramodern Comparison Guide that is probably why most of the readers are here, to multiple posts a week back in the day (God’s I was strong), to Wargaming Weekly to the quiet times of 2020/2021 and then the return with The News Stand, the site has kept going by shifting to what is the best way to show my interests.

With us now having lasted over 10 years, it’s time to think about what it is I really enjoy in the hobby. From some introspection, I’ve worked out the three pillars of ChargeBlog, the three elements that make up what this blog provides:

Personal Hobby

The reason the blog has lasted so long is that it changes based on what I’m interested in. Projects like The Old World or BattleTech or Fantasy Skirmish are the sort of stuff I do because it’s what is currently interesting me, or because it’s what myself and the Regular Opponents are currently getting up to. This is (and should be) the most common category of post on the blog, forming the bulk of my writing – ChargeBlog’s tagline is literally “My Adventures in Wargaming” after all.

This concept isn’t going to change – forcing myself to just do stuff that I think will be popular but I don’t want to do is the fastest way to find myself wishing for death and the blog coming to an end. What is going to change is how much I manage to do – the aim is to push for more hobby time each week to keep a steady drip of SITREP and PAINT-REP posts.

Development Projects

This is a bit of a catch-all for anything longer-term, be that lore writing for ChargeReal, development of my own game Project Elements, or my attempts to learn 3D sculpting to bring the figures I’ve been scribbling about from idea documents to printable objects. Development projects are the long-term goals of the blog, letting me flex my creative muscles and open up potential new avenues for myself.

The problem with this is that every one of them takes a chunk of time. Even writing, something I’m reasonably skilled at, takes time to make it right, with each piece requiring iteration after iteration. The other side is that there is a lot of skill growth in this section – it’s taking time to learn graphics design for the writing, games need hours of testing, and it takes even more time for sculpting. I can’t promise that Development Projects are an ever-giving font of content – some weeks I can dedicate multiple evenings to it, sometimes I’ll be lucky if I get more than a couple of hours. Stuff moves slowly, especially as I’m working across several projects at once.

Ultramodern News and Thoughts

At the moment, “The News Stand” is a unique piece on the blog. It doesn’t fit into either of the other pillars I’ve mentioned previously – it’s neither my own personal hobby nor is it me building something for myself. And yet, it is the most successful post series on the blog, both in terms of views and comments I’ve had in person and when talking to people at events like Salute. It is also something I very much enjoy doing, capturing the state of the current industry as it grows and changes, as we see new tech and concepts enter this niche of a niche.

As well as continuing the News Stand (we’re at issue 81, that series is AT LEAST getting to 150 before I reconsider its existence), my other plan is to expand posts that take a deeper look. I’m probably not going back to doing tons of reviews (my days of aiming to buy everything coming out don’t quite make sense as someone trying to slim down how much stuff I have lying around) but there is definitely a space to look at what’s coming out with a more critical but constructive eye. If you can capture what something does well, then you can illustrate the useful elements within it to someone, while being productive around what it does poorly or could be improved.

In my drafts, I’ve got the start of several series that will cover some topics around figures, range constructions and ruleset requirements. This is, much like the article from earlier this year about hobby time, capturing the thoughts that bounce around my head regarding the stuff I’ve been keeping an eye on. These articles are usually just an excuse to get people thinking about what they actually want from their hobby as well as providing tools to better articulate those wants when discussing. It would be better if we could, as a hobby, be better at how we discuss rulesets and figures, mostly to try and avoid suggesting stuff to newcomers that doesn’t match to what they have requested. If this sounds familiar, then yes, I’d like to fill the gap that The Great Big Modern Wargaming Rules Comparison once filled but on a larger scale and across multiple elements of the hobby.

I’d also like to offer the knowledge I’ve gained from staring at these tiny men and rules for over 10 years out to other people. I don’t want to start trying to wear the analyst hat but having spent a chunk of time on this niche of a niche, you start to see what works, what doesn’t and what can be done to improve. I’m not going to hunt down people and randomly offer them my opinions (there is too much I haven’t had experience of to be kicking in the doors and shouting at people) but if people want to chat about the Ultramodern market, it’s something I love to do. You can either message me on Facebook or drop me an email via the link in the top bar.

Something else that needs to be mentioned is the Patreon. It’s going reasonably well! At the moment, I’m happy to say that it covers my monthly website hosting costs and my more regular Patreon outgoings. It would be great to get a little growth (and add a bit more to the hobby funds) and so for that reason, I need to work out better perks for the patrons at various levels, to make it a more attractive proposition. I’d love to get over 50 patrons and get the cash incoming to a stage where it’s slowly building up rather than disappearing off to keep Combat Octopus’s files appearing on my hard drive ready for projects. I think many of my analysis posts will start off available only to the higher-tier patrons, before unlocking a little bit later. My eternal problem is wanting to make sure people actually read my writing versus the need to charge an amount for it.

With all this in mind, here is what’s going on in the near terms:

1. Rebranding – the blog is looking old and creaky, with a theme that looks aggressively “okay” on mobile – luckily I’ve already got a theme planned out, I just need to assemble the pages using the WordPress Block Editor. The same goes for the various header images for the blog, patreon and socials – they need an update overall
2. Back-end fixes: there are a few bits of optimisations to the blog I need to do on the tech side. Some of you may have seen issues with the featured image in the last few posts, and I think this is due to the type of database guff that builds up when you run them for 10 years. There will be some more tweaks, all with the aim of keeping the site up to date.
3. Clear up my desk: I have several sets of figures on my desk that are either painted and waiting for a PAINT-REP or are a few coats away from being done

However, from now on, you’re going to be seeing more posts. I picked up several rulesets at Salute, as well as several pieces that have been lying around. I’ve got a pile of stuff in progress and quite frankly, I need to get back to playing games and writing up those battle reports. My intention is that by the time we get to Salute next year, I’ll be able to write up another planning post for the next year and talk about what actually went well. But for now, I’m looking forward to what I do with ChargeBlog next.

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