December 2021 review
A brief recap of the whole year 2021, not just the last month. To give some perspective on the activity this year - for multiple reasons, with "only" 77 new posts we had fewer articles published this year, compared to the last years rising numbers (2020 - 195 new posts, 2019's 176 or 2018's 140 posts). I even finally stayed true to my promise to cut down on reviews, of which I published 12 this year (now summing up to a total of 275 English and 320 German published reviews), clearly less than the about 50 of last year.
So, what were the reasons for this?
We moved in summer into our new home, and with a collection as extensive as mine, that takes a bit of time in preparation. In the first half of the year, when I spend time in my hobby den, it was mostly to sort out items that I didn't want to keep and sell off before I move them.
Kick Off 2021
I gave the indication in the holiday wishes, that I'll do another Kick-Off this year.
A few (or a lot?) of the things that were planned for 2020 had to be put on hold and are still the goals for 2021 - which was primarely having a good time. But let's talk about this in the usual format, answering a few questions.
What was the biggest challenge of 2020?
Well, yeah, the plans for the last year had a full schedule of events along with weekend trips to a couple of cities, picking up on culture and some museums. That obviously didn't happen, turning the vision of 2020 from this:
To this:
November 2020 review
Wow, we're already in December, the last month the year and now let's look back at November and what happened (and what not).
Usually November means a tour to Antwerp for Crisis and having a great time with some of the guys. As this wouldn't be happening this year, I wrote up a throwback and we had a virtual guys night.
Fully loaded Wargamer Dad’s weekend
I had a full on wargamers dad weekend this weekend. My wife took our daughter for a weekend trip along with her godparent and I had full 48 hrs for myself.
So on thursday evening I prepared a garlic pizza dough for friday night, using the Kenji Alt Lopez recipe for NY style pizza, and mixed in the garlic part from Sam the Cooking Guy and topped it of with three types of peperoni to make it a meatlover style pizza (of course with my homemade tomato sauce). I'm so glad that I found that dough recipe, just look at the fluffy texture and air pockets.
Weekend Update CW 21/2020 – Oldhammer, mexican food and equipment
Prolonged weekend over ascension thursday / fathers day!
Working from home continues and my "office" is more of a studio than an office-in-home, so I work where I usually do my reviews and such. The notebook took a toll on the cutting mat and the exposure to the heat made it warp quite a bit. Therefore I replaced it with a new one and added a smaller A3 one on top. But will switch back on monday, when the regular work week continues.
And finally my Warlord order arrived, including my new open sea gaming mat, that I want to use with Cruel Seas and Black Seas. Along with the ships by Hagen Miniatures, I am looking forward to put the naval week(s) on here.
Weekend Update CW 20/2020 – Roofing, Backlogs and Lego
Had a bit of spare time on friday night and took up the kitbash of the Laketown House. A more detailled coverage on the build will soon follow. Mixed up a bit of Grey Stuff by P3 and took care of the gaps between the shingles and wall pieces. And as usual, you end up with too much modelling clay.
Weekend Update CW 19/2020 – Of Ships and Cooking
This week I picked up the Lord of the Rings / Middle Earth terrain reviews, with the Lake Town House. I even started on the kitbash, completing the core build, that will need a touch up with green stuff / grey stuff. And the Frostgrave articles continued as well, with the crewmen for Ghost Archipelago.
For the Oldhammer skirmish project, a small package from Worcester arrived, covering some old Ghouls and a Skeleton banner bearer. Yeah I'd change ghoul #5 and #6 for ghoul #11 and #12, but the banner was a great find. As for the core skeletons, I'm looking into either Crooked Dice or trying to recover some of the late 90s original plastic kits.
Weekend Update CW 18/2020
It's a prolonged weekend this week in Germany, with friday being labour day. A small lot of Dark Elves arrived, to go with my Realm of Chaos project, we had a go at the last missing piece of my Wild West collection and had another Frostgrave review this week.
Easter-Weekender
Happy Easter! Virtual easter eggs today. Three reviews on here this week, the warbands of the Wurmspat and Hrothgorn, as well as St. Celestine with Battle Sanctum.
I had chance to take a first glance into the Claymore Castings package, that I ordered. And this week a small package by Troublemaker Games arrived, with some samples for 6-8mm plastic terrain, that I'll look into shortly. The prolonged weekend enabled me to go through a couple of Frostgrave sets, preparing some articles that will go along with Dino's ongoing series A sword and sorcery adventure.
Weekender – Home Office Week 3
We went into the post-ww2-war era this week, with two reviews covering the Korean War, and the far future of Gaslands and the Horus Heresy. And I've taken the pictures for two upcoming Beastgrave reviews.