The Old Year Ends and a New One Begins

2021

In general, despite the struggles of 2021, my family and I were very lucky through the year, and I am thankful for it.  In my case, a lot of focus on my hobby helped to ease the experience.

2021 was the most productive hobby year of my life.  I keep a running list of ongoing projects, and on a really good year, I might finish 35 of them.  In 2021 I finished 97, reducing my list from a peak 321 to 224.  Basically, I got three solid years of work done in 2021.

A lot of the work was on the research side of things, completing TO&Es, stat and unit cards for rules, campaign information, etc.  It also involved a lot of terrain for 6mm CW gaming, 15mm WWII miniatures, and 20mm Vietnam terrain, as well as painting 1258 miniatures.

Other periods that saw some progress were 28 mm post apoc , 28mm near future, 6mm WWII, 15mm CW.  Probably the most surprising was 20mm Vietnam getting some attention, after years of neglect.

Ironically, the year ended with a little bit of a fizzle, as I have about 10 projects that are very nearly done, but couldn't squeeze out the time to complete any of them, despite having time off over the holidays.  

Actual gaming didn't make the big comeback that I expected it would, playing only 7 games in 2021, better than 2020 though.  This was really a big surprise, as I had expected 2021 to be a big gaming year.  My Cold War campaign got put off for the entire year due to a recurring problem regarding available space (which I am now going to work around).  

I'm not sure why I got so motivated to wrap us loose ends in 2021; it ended up being a very odd year on the hobby front.  But I had a total blast in 2021, and amazingly enough, I'm going to miss it.

2022

I can't help but believe that 2022 will be "the big gaming year". I have so many campaigns active or on the brink, that some games must materialize.

In one form or another, the Cold War will go hot (1958 style) during 2022. I've worked out a sort of mini-campaign system that I can manage with my Cold War "map room" still largely occupied with my daughter's college (and other) stuff (now), instead of doing the whole war at once.  The Soviet problems in Mugabia are likely to develop somewhat, as a scenario that opens a whole new chapter of gaming, has been setting on the hot plate for some months now.  The Germans are bound to invade 1940 France any minute now.  And with any luck, our Star Fleet Battles campaign will pick up again (Omicron has been shaking its head "no", most recently).

2022 will start off in stride with 2021 with the completion of projects.  My Cold War terrain project will be wrapped up today, and I expect several painting projects to be completed in the next week.  Beyond that, I am going to take the plans-free approach again in 2022, since it worked out so well last year.

River and stream "bridge" tiles awaiting completion for 

Cold War Germany, awaiting completion later today.

I still have 224 items on my "to do" list, and they include items for 18 periods and settings.  Most likely to see attention at this point are, 28mm post apocalypse, 6mm Barbarossa and Kursk, and 1960s-1980s 6mm Cold War hot, but who knows where a stray whim might take me.

Kursk research awaiting attention, 

both are fantastic books by the way.

Happy 2022 everyone!  Hope you have the best year ever!