Charging Into 2024
It's time for another year-end post, wherein I reflect on the previous year and look forward to the next. I'm sure your feed, email inbox, timeline, or wherever else you consume content in this late-Web 2.0 era is full of these kinds of things, so thanks for taking the time to read this one!
So how was 2023? All-in-all pretty good, despite the fact that I didn't complete my hobby goals. In spring of this year I decided that I would completely paint the Blood Angels Combat Patrol, and the Orgoth Sea Raiders Core Army Starter. Sadly, I end the year with the Orgoth somewhat built and primed, and the Blood Angels on the cusp of completion.
I got back into gaming this year. The pandemic really affected me, and continues to do so, but this was the first full year in a new job away from the public, and a year where I started to really take steps to figuring out my place in this new world. These are all pretty heady topics that are outside the scope of this post, but suffice it to say I took small steps towards getting back into the gaming rhythm that have done wonders for my mental health. I've been hosting monthly game days amongst a close group of friends, and I've let their whims carry me in terms of what I'm playing, which has been fun, but has probably been the greatest factor in my not meeting my hobby goals. This year has seen a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 6th edition, and Warhammer 40,000 10th edition.
I also decided 2023 was the year that I began to wean myself off of the gaming nostalgia trip I've been on since (according to my Instagram) 2019. It's been fun revisiting Oldhammer and Middlehammer, but there's so much cool stuff happening in the GW hobby, and wider hobby world, that I felt I was missing out by immersing myself in nostalgia. This has been gradual, and is less of a matter of moving past nostalgia outright, and more about carrying over parts of it that I still find useful into modern gaming. Of course this sounds strange considering I've been playing lots of sixth edition Warhammer, and equally strange when I talk about what 2024 holds, but it's not zero-sum. I'm trying to just put my nostalgia back on the shelf, to probably dust off later.
So what does 2024 hold for me, and this blog? I'm going to set less-concrete goals for myself, and continue to reorient my focus towards feeling good about the hobby, and (more-importantly) the world outside of it. I'm going to continue to host my game days, and I'm even going to try and finish my Orgoth in time for a tournament this year—we'll see how that goes.
While I want to focus less on reveling in nostalgia, Games Workshop's not exactly making that easy with the release of Legions Imperialis and Warhammer: the Old World. In a way these are both new, and old, games, so I'm going to consider them the synthesis I've been looking for, and embrace the two this year. My hopes are to have a 3,000 point Legions Imperialis army of Blood Angels (and maybe some Ultramarines), and a brand-new 2,000 point High Elf army for Warhammer: the Old World on the new-sized bases. These are less of a checklist of things I want to have finished around this time next year, and more of a representation of the direction I want my hobby efforts to go.
Really, the goal is to find that my efforts result in something I'm happy with, and can enjoy with my friends.
So what about this blog? I love it! Whether people read it or not I'm happy to type away at it, and I'm hoping to include more of that as part of my attempt at increased focus this year. I have some ideas for articles that may include:
More Horus Heresy Book Club posts
The state of gaming social media
The latest part of the History of Citadel Colour
History of the Epic gaming system (as well as the review of Legions Imperialis I promised in my YouTube video)
Update my Online Game Guide
Writing's good for me and I like it. Another goal of mine in 2024 is to step further back from social media. I do social media at my day job, and I find that it's no longer personally rewarding. Just today I deleted Threads from my phone, and haven't been on Twitter in months. I'm still liking Mastodon, despite the fact that it's definitely more boring than Twitter and Threads, but I think there are better ways to interact with like-minded hobbyists, and I'm going to use this blog as a base of operations.
So to wrap things up here, 2024 will be continuing to find my footing after the pandemic had knocked me off kilter. It will be made up of small steps taken with purpose and effort, and the focus will be on how these discreet actions I take at the paint table, online, or at the gaming table contribute to the feelings in my head and heart. As corny, and cringe as it may sound.
This blog (purposely) does not have a comment section, but feel free to find me on the few social media sites I'm on, and let me know your thoughts, and what you're looking forward to in 2024!
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