New Year, Old Frontiers

Well, here we are for the annual New Year's retrospective post.

All the pictures are a sequential selection of last year's painting and games

I think we can all agree that 2020 was a balls up, wasn't it? Mrs. Rabbitman and I had 7 tickets to the local theater festival bought, plans made for Romantic Weekend Getaways, maybe even some out of Province travel. Actually meet our beautiful granddaughter. It was going to be great.

Hot Lead 2020 was looking like it was going to be the biggest and best ever.

Like the rest of you, everything got tossed in the recycler and shredded. 

But with the sudden clearing of my schedule and staying home on weekends there were other opportunities. Mrs. Rabbitman observed that the garden was looking the best it's done in years thanks to nice weekends not being spent with the cadets. 

Also, like the many of us, I doubled down on hobby therapy for my mental health.  Since I stayed working money wasn't an issue either. 

Looking over the blog for the past year shows that I've been a busy gamer. Painting up a storm. Even though I bought quite a bit, I got it all painted and I painted up some good chunks of the leadpile. 

I haven't kept a tally of figures painted but some significant highlights are 

• the big additions to the Elves, Mordor and an entirely new Rohan force for Middle Earth 
• the 1/600 scale WW2 Bag the Hun project planned,  purchased and successfully executed within the space of   5 months 
• the massive, and long desired, expansion and renovation of my 11th century Medieval host, which occurred simultaneously with the tiny airplanes 
• except for my Firefly in the Expanse project, I think I painted something for every period that I currently game and have figures in the leadpile for 

I also played a lot. I mean a lot a lot!

A rough skim through the blog shows 20 or so games; 7 face to face, 6 remotely and at least 10 solo, which beats previous years all to bits.

Highlights were:

• Contact Front breathed new life into my 20mm Afghanistan collection and gives a solid challenging game. 
• Oathmark still interests me. I just need to get used to it. I think the Mad Padre and I will play it again when we're able.
• Bag the Hun certainly delivered exactly what I wanted. A solo friendly game with big formations of aircraft all swirling about. Great stuff. My New Year's Day game made me feel like I was in the 1969 movie my dad took me to see.
• Lion/Dragon Rampant remain my go to. Easy. Fast. Fun. Adaptable. 

So where next?

Well, excavating the leadpile produced big dividends last year, I'm going to continue with that. Especially early on before I succumb and buy something. There's some nice 15mm WW2 and SF pieces in the stash I should build. Also a platoon of German paratroopers started. And Goths, Prussians Swiss and Samurai to paint.

For terrain I still want to build some urban ruins and clear the collected crap out of the way. Same with my 15mm science fiction. Corridors and room modules for a colony are on the list. 

Game wise, more of last year plus I want to take a look at adapting Contact Front to my Firefly in the Expanse games. Adding a ship component with scratch built ships is in the back of my mind too.