Resolutions for 2021

For this year, I'm going to try to keep the same goals I had last year, just expand my goals where I can, and realize that game playing goals are a bit too difficult to set, as I just can't predict when, or if, game play will return to normal.

Get 20 painting points
I managed 16 last year, so I'm going to just increase my goal a little.  I think this could be easy to achieve, but I just worry that I might lose steam at some point.  If I keep up my momentum the entire year, that just means next year's goal will be all the higher

Play 10 of my games that I've never played before
I can't predict the return to gaming, as I've mentioned before, but I think taking any 10 games that I own and have never played, and putting them on the table in some form is a good goal I can work towards no matter the face to face gaming situation.

Read 26 books
I hit my goal of 25 last year, so I'll work to increase this number by one, just to read more and more!

Lose 25 pounds
Okay, I am up on weight than I was this time last year... but I do have a plan.  Let's try this again, eh?

Overall, goals that are achievable and measurable.  Something to help catapult me into 2022 moving in the right direction!

What about you?  What resolutions have you made for the upcoming year?

Taking a look at how I did on my 2020 resolutions...

Photo by Leon Contreras on Unsplash

Well, it is time to look and see how I did on my 2020 Resolutions.  This was a particularly challenging year, and gaming was heavily disrupted, so really, the fact I accomplished any of them is something I should feel good about :).  Anyway, let's look at each of them, and see how I did.

1) Get 10 painting points

As I mentioned in my December summary, I did complete some painting!  If you could the points for each of the painted models (four Stalkers, Bane Lord Tartarus, two Machine Wraiths, Adam, and a G-Tank), I finished the year at 16 points.  This was a modest goal but given that I haven't finished a model in many years, I feel so proud that I did as well as I did, and I hope to continue with my painting energy into the new year!

2) Reduce number of unplayed games by 10

This one was a disaster.  I did manage to play a few of my unplayed games, but I bought more than I played, and my total number of unplayed games increased by a LOT.  In some ways, there was nothing I could do about this.  When March hit, I just didn't have as many opportunities to play games, and during the periods I was part of a stay-at-home order, I had my in-laws here, and had almost no free time.  Even during the period in the early part of the year, however, I just didn't have a real chance to play my own games, because my normal gaming groups tend to focus on things that my *new* games just don't get a chance in.  Just how it is, I suppose.

3) Play 30 games of Warmachine/Hordes

I ended the year having played 7 games.  Obviously, I didn't hit my goal, but I was on pace to do so until COVID shut the world down.  I wanted to try to get into Wartable, where people have been playing Warmachine online, but I just haven't managed to do it yet.  Either way, didn't accomplish this, and it's not wholly my fault.

4) Read 25 books

I finished the year at exactly 25, so success!  I read a good mix of fiction, non-fiction, long and short books.  Overall, a very good year for reading!

5) Lose 25 pounds

Well, I used the early part of the COVID lockdown to start jogging daily, and in the first two months, I was down over 10 pounds, and was feeling great.  Then... I started to go back to work, and the stress piled on, and the free time started disappearing... and I ended the year five pounds over where I started.  This is a tremendous problem, and my biggest focus for next year.

So, I managed to succeed at two resolutions out of five.  Not great, but admittedly, this is a better rate than I usually manage!  Well, on to 2021!

Quarterly Summary, 4th Quarter 2020

 

Surprisingly, this isn't just me being lazy, I just figured monthly updates of what I'm up to aren't particularly interesting, so I am going to try to move to doing this quarterly. 

Games Played

• Marvel Champions: The Card Game - 14 plays.  Clearly, this game has gotten a lot of play by me over the year, and it's continued even in the last quarter of the year!  Nine of these games were solo, and five were with Rob.  Major parts of this- Rob and I finished the Rise of Red Skull campaign, and then lost several times to Kang.  I managed to finally beat Kang two-handed solo.  I also spent a lot of time playing Spider-Woman and Ant-Man in various builds, and got a great feel for those two heroes.  Overall, I'm still loving this game, still excited to play more, and get more content, and really, they've done such a good job with this one.  My record over this period was 11-3.

  

  In case you weren't aware- Kang has large table space requirements.
  

• Marvel: Crisis Protocol - 3 plays, all against my brother, Matt.  I've been switching to try out Web Warriors, after picking up the Miles-Morales/Ghost-Spider box.  I win all three games against Matt, and I'm really enjoying the Web Warriors, although I'm not making the best use out of them, thus far.  I have found Captain Marvel in Web Warriors AMAZING though.  Ridiculous!
  
• Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps - 1 play with Bob.  We play the first scenario to get the hang of the rules and mechanics.  We do manage to win, but we played it on super easy mode (a single motion tracker card a turn- apparently we should have drawn FOUR a turn).  We're going to revisit this early in 2021 with a bit more challenge, and see how it goes!
  
• Godzilla: Tokyo Clash - 1 play with my brother and his kids.  This actually turned out to be a lot of fun - a little like Monsterpocalypse, but not as deep.  With that said, it was easy enough for some young kids to play, and complicated enough that I had a good time playing it.  Quite pleasantly surprised!
  
• Horus Heresy - 1 play against Bob.  I took the Heretics, and spent the early game reinforcing the various spaceports to ensure that I could claim that victory when it was available.  Bob used the White Scars to almost rip apart my forces at one spaceport, and then made an attack on Horus.  I had a card there, however, and moved Horus into a spaceport, safe and surrounded by my traitor pals, and was able to claim the win when the Spaceport victory was legal.
  
• Monsterpocalypse Miniatures Game - 1 play against Matt.  This was mostly a learning game, as we took the starter sets and a few additional units on each side, so he could learn the basics of the system.  He ends up defeating me, and enjoys it enough that he buys in.
  
• Old School Tactical (Vol II) - 1 play against Bob, tackling the first Airborne scenario.  I took the Americans, who are assaulting a small village held by the Germans.  We didn't end up completing the game, but it was going pretty well for me, as I had been aggressive, and managed to lock almost all of his forces in melee, allowing my other units to move in and get prepared for the end game.
  
• Star Wars: Legion - 1 play against Matt, trying the Skirmish format.  I take Rebels, he takes Droids.  I think I'm doing pretty well, as I obliterate one of his best units early on... but then Dooku arrives in the middle of the table.  He takes out Luke, and really... I just run out of steam and things to throw at him, and I lose big.

  

  Apparently not shown, the Dooku who is about to wreck my day.
  

• Tannhäuser - 1 play against Bob- I take the Germans in a Deathmatch game against the Americans.  I roll extremely well, and roll through his forces en route to a win.  It's been a long time since I've played this game, but it was better than I remember.  It has really held up well!
  
• Tiny Epic Tactics - 1 play against Rob.  We learn the game, and I didn't record the specifics of our teams, but I know I get out to an early lead, and keep the pressure on, and manage to win.  I remember seeing this on Kickstarter and being very interested in it, but just couldn't manage to afford it in time.  Definitely a regret- this game was really cool!

  

  It's over, Blue.  I have the High Ground!
  

New Arrivals

• Several Kickstarters arrived, significantly lowering the number of outstanding Kickstarters I have!  Let's have a look...
• First Legion Fantasy Miniatures
  
• Part two of my Warcaster: Neo-Mechanika Kickstarter!
  
  
  

  

  The minis included
  

  

  The playmat, marked to aid scenario play!
  

•  Watch on the Rhine
  
• The Riot Quest Kickstarter
  
• Battletech: Clan Invasion, the new ATO Annual, A Splendid Little War: 2nd Edition, La Resistance (new game from Flying Pig Games), and the Illuminati Big Box. 
  
• Plenty of new miniatures, expansions for card games, and a variety of other things I didn't keep track of!
  

Miniature Assembly/Painting

• I have finally finished painting models!  These are my first models that I've completed since I lived with my parents... literally, what, 2005?  Fifteen years.... and now, I have models that I've completed painting.  Really, it's been quite the year. Let's see what I've finished...
• Bane Lord Tartarus (2 painting points)
  
  
• Four Stalkers (2 painting points apiece = 8 total)
  
• Adam (From Cthulhu: Death May Die) (1 point)
• G-Tank (Monsterpocalypse) (1 point)
• Two Machine Wraiths (2 points apiece)
• Finally, I started on a Cygnar Ironclad.
  

Reading

• Lots of magazines, a few rulebooks.
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier, Lucky Broken Girl by Ruth Behar, The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans, and Branches by Adam Peter Johnson.  All were pretty good, although the Coming of the Third Reich was a notch above- a very interesting, informative read.
  

Kickstarter

• I am going to skip this for this period, because I totally didn't keep track of this for the last few months.
  

Resolution progress

• It's the end of the year- I'll have a separate post covering this.