It's been another loony year, but to be fair it wasn't as crazy as 2020.
Despite the frequent lockdowns and disruptions, we managed to soldier on through our Space Opera campaign, and are now on the verge of completing it.
The terms of the lockdowns were such that in those weeks which we could not meet in a large enough group to play RPG, we could meet in smaller groups (sometimes just FG and myself) for wargaming, so over all it was a good year for wargaming compared to previous ones.
Over all, we played roughly 25 sessions of RPG and 14 of wargames, which isn't too shabby.
What I did a lot more of this year was building and painting terrain, as well as rounding out my armies, such as more terrain for my sci-fi WW1 armies, archers for my Uthuk warband, a few more units of men-at-arms for my 15mm Wars of the Roses armies, more figures for my 10mm Arab Revolt collection, of course figures and terrain for our Sludge project, and finally, one more unit of Night Goblin archers and three fanatics which you see above.
What I did this year was also to more or less decide on what rules to use for the respective armies. The lack of a satisfactory set of rules has always been a barrier when it comes to playing with the figures I already own. This year saw me try out a few sets of rules using the existing figures I own, which are: Contemptible Little Armies for 10mm Arab Revolt, Trench Hammer for my WW1 sci-fi figures, and Never Mind the Billhooks for my 15mm Wars of the Roses figures. Now these are truly "complete" projects for which I have figures for both sides, enough terrain to populate a table, and a set of rules which I know and like well enough to spend a weekend playing.
As usual there are unplanned projects which came out of nowhere. One was Never Mind the Billhook, and the other was Sludge. I suspect these two sets of rules caught many wargamers out of the left field this year, so I count myself in good company. The Sludge campaign had to take a pause when RPG became possible again, but I plan to see it through during the coming year.
Likewise, we were not able to complete our Blood Bowl league. Blood Bowl Thursdays were very social occasions for us, involving more alcohol and trash-talking than in my other sessions, so I look forward to picking it up again.
Another wargame I look forward to playing more of next year is Kings of War. Adrian and I joined a local KoW group, who seem really friendly and active, so my Night Goblins may be seeing a lot more action in the near future.
In terms of "new" project, FG and I have been buying and painting up models and terrain for a 10/12mm mecha project. I already have a bunch of Heavy Gear Caprice and Dropzone Commander Resistance figures and models painted, as well as some terrain, but the arrival of his Battletech kickstarter has spurred us to getting more - a lot more - terrain, as well as look into rules. I am in the process of painting up a more conventional force with armoured vehicles instead of mechas, and we hope to be trying out CAV and Alpha Strike next year.
For RPGs I think we did remarkably well, completing two campaigns and playing most of another. The Deepnight Revelation campaign will likely end in January next year, and the campaign to follow will likely be a Wuxia campaign using the The Art of Wuxia rules. Despite all of us being Asians (and most of us being Chinese) we have never actually played a wuxia campaign, so I am looking forward to this one. Following that, and if the kickstarter delivers on time as promised, we will probably play the Blood Sword campaign.
That's more or less it then. Lots of plans to play with the toys we already have, but no doubt over the course of 2022 some cad somewhere will come up with some fun set of rules that will sweep through wargame-dom and make us all go out and buy new figures. Let's hope it's not something that requires a high figure count...
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