Dino’s annual review 2021

Adios 2021! Finally the year is over and as usual in the Bunker, we take the time and ponder a little about the events of the past year. Of course, I could make it easy for myself now and say "Burn in hell 2021!", but despite many lows, there were definitely also pleasant highs.

And so the year got off to a pretty good start when I was able to add a group of painted zombies to my Army of Hades in January and finally bring it up to 300 points in February.

With that, I had actually put together a playable force within a very short time. But that wasn't enough for me. Since I wanted to play Mortal Gods with friends and family without them needing a complete army of their own, I started to build another one.

In addition, I wanted to have a gaming mat for a long time, with which I would be able to use with a lot of systems, and so I bought a snazzy gaming mat from PWorks in March. It just had to be, didn't it? Because in this month I also completed the 40 and since then, strangely enough, I have arrived in the circle of the "old" hobbyists.

However, the outlook for this age had triggered a negative event at the end of 2020, namely suddenly being in the crosshairs of a yearly rationalization measure at my old employer. I was therefore all the more pleased to have been promised a new position in March, which was even located in my place of residence, which would preserve the family work-life balance and solve a couple of financial worries.

In the hobby, I had completed a long-term project of painting a centaur for Mortal Gods Mythics that Andy Hobday of Footsore Miniatures had provided me with to serve as imagery for the web store.

Apparently they decided against it, but I kept my part of the deal, which is fine with me. I really had a lot of fun with the model, so I would love to paint another one of the sort, but that's when the time comes.

Besides, with the purchase of the mat I had set my mind on finally building more terrain and maybe even being able to put up a whole gaming table - because what good were two playable Mortal Gods armies be without that?

Soon the Afghan houses from Renedra came into my possession, which Dennis has examined in detail in his review. But also fountains from Sarissa and various tufts and trees, which I had ordered via AliExpress, came into my hands. At the end of May, with this gained motivation, I was able to finish a few rock formations, as they should not be missing in any terrain collection.

Towards the middle of the year, however, I also got entangled in some other projects, which caused me to lose my focus for a while. The same could be said of my work, where many tightly calculated assignments and the need to acquire skills in new software had suddenly led to an immense amount of stress.

In July I was happy about the support of the hobby community, when I got a model from blackmail82/iklaxler, which I had been looking at for a long time - an animated Zeus statue!

Unfortunately, the work stress continued and I did not make good progress in painting. During this phase, I only managed to paint a few models, but this was not a tragedy, as I was able to save up for a few rounds within my hobby moderation project without any problems. Towards August, I was able to add more rock formations to my terrain, as the few I had didn't really seem sufficient for the table.

What struck me thogh, was that I actually needed trees for the field to breathe more life into it. Here I had a setback, because a few trees I had ordered from AliExpress turned out to be rather poorly manufactured wire bindings, in contrast to the plastic trunks that were seen in the according product images.

The end of September brought a similar damper - the new employer, for whom I had worked so hard, had decided to release me on the last day of my probationary period. Of course, I worried about this for the first few days, because I had apparently failed to recognize a problem here. Until I came to the realization that sometimes there is no problem at all. In fact, sometimes it's just that bad people choose to do bad things. So after realizing that the fault wasn't mine, I went into the application phase and had twelve(!) interviews within four weeks, which only reinforced my belief in myself.

A new employment contract came into being without any further obstacles, after I had decided on three companies that looked promising and chose the most suitable offer for me from those. Since I had decided to take some time off, which I urgently needed mentally, I also made better progress in the hobby in October - the first group of mercenaries was finally finished, which also completed the mercenary part of my Corinthians.

November finally marked a milestone for me hobby-wise: the "new satellite" of the Chaosbunker was finally ready to move into acrion and I finally had my own mancave. In addition, I began to technically upgrade to the present at home, as I would like to run a streaming channel for various video games together with my wife. As a by-product and "training ground", streams for the hobby will now follow in the future.

The end of the year was mainly characterized by various illnesses - due to Corona, my children were not on the road much this year and you can see that they lack defenses. However, I probably have to say the same about myself, since I catch an infection from my kids with unpleasant regularity.

So what remains to be said about the year 2021? I have reached my goal to write at least twelve articles this year and despite many adversities I somehow managed not only to keep the ship afloat, but also to catch more wind.

However, I haven't been able to interact with the community as much as I wanted, so I'm including that in my resolutions for 2022. I also want to play more, because I almost didn't get to, given the circumstances.

So what can you expect from me in 2022? Well, I think you can read about that best in my outlook for the year 2022. And with that, a happy new year 2022 from me!

Greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino