Well it has been a while… a whole year in fact.
There was a distinct lack of hobby done in 2019 – I had a
year of restructuring at work, kids are older and doing more activities/consuming more time, and also
the serious illness and death of a family member that still, 6 months later,
requires time and input to work through just the administrivia – and despite
this I still made a choice against advice to the contrary to run two tournaments and play in a couple as well
(albeit with not the greatest amount of enthusiasm due to these challenging
impacts). I think I managed to paint maybe a dozen models and that was probably
only because I needed them for Fields of Blood.
Part of the challenge too, like I raised in 2017, was the
neverending (and compounding) sense of the Fear Of Missing Out with regards to
GW and their amazing release schedule – and in particular my ability to deal
with it, mentally, which I think was worse in 2019. You begin one thing
and a week later it’s yesterday’s news and you might end up – as I did last
year – too scared to start anything for fear of not being able to finish it,
particularly if you are a slower painter like me. I also didn’t do any small
creative bits of work (e.g. an Inqusitor conversion) because it wasn’t getting
me any closer to a completed competitive army so why would you start? And then because I wasn’t doing anything, my
perspective got warped to where I felt like I was failing, and failing at
something I have a huge amount of passion for. This made me consider at one
point giving everything hobby-wise up so I didn’t have to think about it.
Part of this stems from that I always had so many quite
thought out and concrete ideas for how I would build and paint themed armies
(e.g. Space Wolf Kaerls). The current availability of models make it soooo easy
to be able to create cool armies that I think you could spend 24hrs a day
building and painting and still not finish everything. Reflecting on this
In ye olde dayes, you would have 1-2 army releases a year (and several years
between Codex updates) which would give you plenty of time to buy build and
paint an army. These days it feels like 1-2 armies a month. Let alone the
“need” to keep up with blog feeds, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook groups, local
clubs… it’s overwhelming at times.
As a quick comparison, 25 years ago….
1995(ish):
Space Marines
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Space Wolves
Imperial Guard
Sisters of Battle
Tyranids
Eldar
Orks
Chaos
Plus Citadel Journal ‘unofficial’ lists e.g. Genestealer
Cults, Arbites.
2019:
Space Marines (9 variants + custom chapters)
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Space Wolves
Deathwatch
Astra Militarum (7 variants)
Imperial Knights (8+ variants)
Adeptus Mechanicus (6+ variants)
Adepta Sororitas
Adeptus Custodes
Inquisition
Tyranids (distinct Hive Fleets)
Genestealer Cult
Eldar (5 variants + custom craftworlds)
Harlequins
Dark Eldar
Ynnari
Tau
Necrons (5 variants)
Orks (5 variants)
Chaos Space Marines (7 variants + Renegades)
Death Guard
Thousand Sons
Renegade Knights
Chaos Daemons (5 variants)
And note this list does not include Forgeworld army lists.
*EDIT - realised I left Grey Knights off this list!
There are also Supplementary Campaign books (Vigilus,
Psychic Awakening) and Other Games (Necromunda, Warcry, Kill Team, Blackstone
Fortress, et al) some which have units you can officially use in 40k too.
And Errata.
Of the list of armies above I have 12 of them in various
states of size and assembly. Is that too many? Who knows for sure (answer:
probably yes. I have been accused of being a magpie).
So in 2020 I am taking a different approach. After much reflection in the last two months I feel more at peace with where my hobby is at, and I am going to let the FOMO wash over me like a cool breeze and focus on small steps. I want things to be simpler not more complicated.
This year I will look to rationalise my collection (starting with non-40k games) and remove some physical and mental clutter. I have enough
Best Army and Best Painted awards, so there are no itches to be scratched there
which means I am consciously going to try focus away from “Good” to “Good
Enough”.
I am going to return to my challenge of painting 1 model a
week, and see how I go. 52 models should be a tournament sized army, generally, if I decide to focus on a specific thing. But 52 models painted is 52 fewer models I need to do.
I am also going to attempt to stop this alleged hoarding. I've been pretty good the last couple of months (comparatively speaking).
I'll continue to run Maelstrom and Warpstorm and will look for assistance in the administration.
To make things reasonable for my painting goals (i.e. a Land Raider is not ‘1 model”) I will use the
following scale:
25-40mm = 1 model
Vehicle (Dreadnought equivalent) = 3 models
Vehicle (Rhino equivalent) = 5 models
Vehicle (Land Raider equivalent) = 8 models
Large Vehicle (Knight+) = 12 models
Wishing myself luck!
Oh and I am off to a start. Rhino or Dreadnought equivalent? Still awaiting transfers and bases but once I have completed painting the actual models that's when I'll finish them in one batch.
