Dino’s Annual Summary 2020

As regular visitors of the Chaosbunker will have noticed, there have been rather few articles from my hand lately, which is why it's time to approach the year 2021 with a little more consistency and regularity. For many it is certainly no surprise when I say that 2020 was rather mediocre, but let's take a look at it together...

This was 2020

Basically, the year didn't start out bad at all. I went into my ongoing projects with a lot of motivation, wanting to both start a new gang for Frostgrave and finish the one I'd already started.

My marksman and his dog were a good start and I really got into the swing of things. While the first warband around the necromancer was more a group of adventurers and hired swords, the other was supposed to be a royal guard led by the court witch and her apprentice.

Aside from my plans for Frostgrave, I had also reached a milestone in another project in January: Journey of the Maulers is a Blood Bowl article series that now has over 20 articles and is narrative-based. I had tackled the team long before I joined the Chaosbunker, almost two decades ago, but it wasn't until now that it was finally fully painted.

Every time I take a look at the showcase now, the team fills me with a little pride. It just shows that there is a much greater sense of satisfaction when you keep at it until you can live with the result. I've now finished the first season, and there's still the article on the last game to be written on this site.

After a short break, I had another project lined up, because nothing is as tempting in this hobby as starting something new and letting the magic carry you...until the whole thing comes to an almost predictable halt because (you guessed it) you've already made another new discovery. In this case, the discovery was called Gaslands.

This was actually just an idea, with the intention of trying out different methods for the same colors, after I happened to see a few rebuilt Hot Wheels on the Internet. Since I was busy at work at the time and had some extra money coming in from overtime, I bought the rulebook and was immediately hooked. The game was amazingly simple, inexpensive and offered a lot of room for creativity. So I started to experiment a bit and to build terrain for the first time.

On my birthday, my wife showed how well she knew me and gifted me with the Mortal Gods starter. With this she met exactly my taste, because I have a thing for ancient Greece and unconsciously she created again the situation described above - a new, magical project!

The box itself was well filled, with enough material for two medium-sized armies. I really value this, as I usually approach my projects in such a way that I always have two factions. The reason for this is that I can certainly convince my wife or friends to play a round in the hobby with me, but not to get into the hobby. The first painting test went well and I noticed that the classic 28mm scale paints much faster than the minis of the industry giant.

In the meantime, the terms Corona and COVID-19 were probably no longer a foreign word to anyone any more and the increased time spent at home proved to be advantageous for the hobby. In the German-speaking forum tabletopwelt.de, the preparations for the Summer Project 2020 were also in full swing - here, 18 models had to be painted in three months, which was already a Herculean task for me, considering that I paint an average of 20 to 25 models per year.

But I picked up the gauntlet and started assembling the troops for the Summer Project. At the same time, I had become aware of the Mortal Gods Mythic Kickstarter, which also featured the Hades faction. As an old Harryhausen fan, who still had a lot of unfinished skeletons lying around at home, I saw the opportunity to build two larger factions at once.

Before…

…and after!

Oddly enough, by the middle of the year, painting began to become therapy for me. My best friend's son passed away at the age of five after battling cancer for four years. The wind had also changed at work. My project assignment had come to an end and although I was employed by my company, I suddenly found myself without activity and a short time later without a job as the company decided to respond with a wave of layoffs. I slid visibly deeper into a severe depression and the drive for activity in the hobby gradually faded.

Ironically, what helped me recover during this difficult time was not the child in me, but the children around me. On December 14, 2020, my son was born and my two-year-old daughter is a little wild child who is always up to something. Sometimes I have to smile when I see her pressing her nose against daddy's display case - I realize that she also has a creative streak, because a short time later there is always something to be built out of wooden blocks, half a pile of paper to be painted, or a small horde of dolls to be played with.

This will be 2021

Although the search for a new job is of course in the priority, I have decided not only to increase the consistency in the appearance of my articles, but also to set myself more realistic goals. That's why I'm aiming for one article per month - if there are more, all the better. It's not like I'm lacking in projects or miniatures...

For Mortal Gods, I want to write some battle reports. I don't know if that will happen this year, but I want to at least build up my mortal armies to the point where I can put 300 points on the table. The army of Hades is already on a good way. All it needs are two skeletons and two groups of zombies, which, as far as the painting is concerned, are already in progress.

In Blood Bowl, the main thing is to finish some articles, for which there is already a lot of material. These include the Maulers' final game of the season against the legendary Gouged Eyes team and an interview with Matt Forbeck, author of the Blood Bowl novel series.

I don't know yet if there will be a second season after that. Somehow I'm a bit uncomfortable with the 2020 edition and the DLC-like release strategy of the game rubs me the wrong way. But maybe the second season of Maulers might just be a Blitz Bowl season, because my older daughter played a few close matches against me last year (and unfortunately I lost most of them...), which would not only give me a co-player, but also allow me to spend more time with my kids. If it comes to that, I'll probably paint a player for the team from time to time.

Season 2 – to be or not to be?

Apart from that I just want to convert one, or two vehicles for Gaslands, paint them and finish some terrain. I still have the idea to have a race with all the Chaosbunker daddies with two cars each, if we can meet live again to play. If everyone brings a gate and a few obstacles, it will probably make for a pretty interesting gaming table.

So all in all, it will remain quite modest this year. Well, I wouldn't be a real hobbyist if I didn't start a new project, would I? However, this time it won't be a classic project - last year I made a New Year' resolution not to buy any new minis (apart from an Ogre team for Blood Bowl). It's probably not necessary to mention that I failed miserably, so this time I'm following a different approach, which should kill two birds with one stone.

Seriously, I really, REALLY have enough miniatures. It's time to do something with them and to stop myself from constantly carting new stuff in, so I'm setting myself a monthly limit for my hobby budget. The amount will be 20,-€. So, what is Dennis' monthly review, will be my monthly update on this particular hobby project for me.

Will I manage to stay true to my good intentions this time or will I utterly fail again? Just check back from time to time and find out!

Greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino