2020 Hobby Goals

Colm suggested that for our first post of 2020 we should all write a paragraph on our hobby goals for the year. What a great idea! So here they are, let us know what yours are too!

Dan Slb: 2019 was a pretty life changing year for me with the birth of our daughter in June. Even with a small baby I have still managed quite a bit of painting this year (being up most of the night has its advantages) but haven’t managed anywhere near the amount of actual gaming I would have liked. In 2020 I’d really like for this to reverse. I’m a tournament player at heart, not a painter, so my aim is to get to more tournaments this year. This is a little out of my hands but I am hoping that as my daughter gets older I will be able to have a bit more free time. I’ve got a ticket for Ardacon so that is my long term goal. 

Some shorter term goals include getting my Army of Thror/Iron Hills project off the ground, getting to grips with my Angmar army, expanding my Mordor force ready for WraithBowl 2020 (more details later in the year) and painting up Aragorn for use in my Minas Tirith army. This might be quite a lot to aim for in a single year but even if I only achieve 2 of these 5 things I’ll be happy!

I have only played with this army once so far! This needs to change. 

Colm: The Christmas period is always an excellent chance to reflect and consider hobby plans for the upcoming months and I've settled on what I'll be getting up to for the next 12 months (at least for now, before hobby magpie syndrome sets in). I've been building up a selection of Azog's Legion, Azog's Hunters, and Dark Powers of Dol Guldur models since starting SBG and I've a few plans for fleshing thse forces out. The first of these is building many more hunter orcs with a mix of weapons and a few fell wargs so that I can max out three warbands of 12 with a few different combinations. Also, my wonderful wife got me the Azog and Thorin set from Forgeworld for Christmas! I'll be modding up a heavy armoured Zog on White Warg with his stone flail. It will be nice to be able to use that combination modelled correctly! 

I have a Good army in the form of The Grey Company, but will be looking to branch out into Survivors of Laketown force. I have some grand plans for a display board with some water effects and I'll be doing my best with the painting with the aim of winning a best painted award at some point. Most importantly as the winner of Gimlibowl I'm tasked with creating the trophy for the follow up, Wraithbowl 2020. I have a vision and I've already spent way too much money on ebay getting the bits required together, but I'm not going to spoil anything quite yet. Hopefully I can pull it off!

Can’t wait to get started on this bad boy!

Steve: After my departure from other gaming systems some time before, MESBG in 2019 opened up my life back into fun, competitive gaming (namely our first Battle Companies campaign, keep tuned for the second!). On top of that it fully reignited my love of painting and all things hobby related and even benefitted my role as a DM for getting me back into mini painting. 

With 2020 arriving I’m looking at working on a Lothlórien army, which will be supplemented by it’s inclusion in the next Battle Companies campaign. I’m usually a fan of the underdogs, but now felt about time to try out some elven class and powerhouse models such as Celeborn after being subjected to many beatsticks last year such as Aragorn and Azog. The best part about a Lothlórien force? I get to work on a project I long wanted to try even before the release of War in Rohan - Defenders of Helm’s Deep. Given that I primarily worked on my Rohan last year, this is a great excuse to get another great looking Legendary Legion sorted. 

Aside from that, I’ll attempt to take part in Drawn Combat’s Wraithbowl 2020 using a primarily Isenguard force (another excuse to get working on the new, brilliantly sculpted Saruman miniature), so let’s see how that pans out!

Steve has already begun work on the beautiful new Saruman kit!

Dan Stu: I can quite easily say that 2019 has been my favourite year of hobbying to date. While I've been painting for a while, I've always dabbled in various bits in between breaks, rarely having a long-term goal in mind. 

This all changed when I jumped in to SBG, and I'm just coming to the end of painting a full 1000pt or so army of an Easterling / Khand alliance. The whole process has been a blast, and I've discovered that there's nothing quite like an impending tournament to give you a bit of 'inspiration'! I'll be spending January painting up a converted Khamul on fell beast, which is a nice treat I've saved as a reward for finishing my first ever fully painted army. Then it's time to make them a display board so they can sit on my shelf to remind all my visitors how cool I am.

Then, it's on to a Scottish - inspired Fiefdoms army , which I've just taken on a huge job lot of - somewhere in the region of 85 models...Yikes! First step is to figure out a really solid way to paint metallics through an airbrush, which will require a bit of experimentation. And when I have this down, I think Fiefdoms and their display board will probably take up most of the year's hobbying time - but I've never been so excited to start a project.

 As somebody who paints at a glacial pace, this photo raises my heart rate a bit

Dave: 2019 has been a whirlwind of a year for me in the hobby world. Having picked up SBG in the final parts of 2018, I was eager to start playing as much as I could in 2019, so when a bunch of us together to start playing Battle Companies, that worked as the perfect entry in to the game. That started around April, and around 8 months later, I still haven't finished painting an army other than my Dunharrow... So I guess going into 2020 my hobby goal for the year is to get more stuff painted, and finish projects that I started this year, which include;

The Last Alliance

The Shire (I'm doing this for our next BC Campaign!)

Eagles

Army of Gothmog

Moria

That's my plan anyway. Get those finished, or at least, much more finished than they are, before moving onto my next hobby goal for 2020: Ents! I've been toying around with the idea in my head for a while now but the two new Ent profiles in War in Rohan have really sealed the deal for me. I'm going to get a small Fangorn force, and I might even knock out a small display board for them too. You've heard it here first folks, that means I have to stick to it... Right? #Ent2020

Dave’s Gwaihir is already beautiful, can’t wait to see what he does with the rest!

So there you have it, our hobby goals for 2020. It looks like a good year ahead and hopefully by this time next year we will have several new armies between us! We’ll keep you posted on our progress throughout the year. What are your hobby goals for 2020? Let us know!