2011 Year in Review

Another year down for Mik's Minis which means it's time for another award-winning YEAR IN REVIEW! Okay, maybe not award winning, but it's time to reflect nonetheless.

The first thing I am not going to do is dwell on last year (2010) compared to this one, constantly comparing the two. I'll say it just once, to sum up, 2010 was a much more productive year for me than 2011. There, we can move on now.

Keeping my 'totals' box to the left has been handy as always, but my HUD idea didn't motivate or keep me on track like I had hoped. I'll leave it up there for now, but it's more of a reminder of what I'm not getting done than what I should be doing!

Games Played: 121
Basically I played a game every three days. Not too shabby, and looking back there is a good deal of consistency to boot as well, something I've lamented in the past. My top slot goes to Blood Bowl, in which I raked in twenty matches of this timeless classic. I've been playing Blood Bowl for for a very long time, off and on of course but going on twenty years now. It doesn't get old, it really is an amazing game, and maybe why it has the lion's share of gameplay this year. Not too terribly far behind is Thunderstone with thirteen plays. Thunderstone is a quick and easy pick up game and always mixes things up game-wise, each time you play it's a different game.

But Blood Bowl and Thunderstone are more boardgame than anything else, what of the RPG's? Three roleplaying games logged in about the same amount of plays; Deathwatch and Fiasco both with five plays each and FATE's Legends of Anglerre with four plays.

You know what 2011 is lacking though? Miniatures games. Might of Arms and PKowboys both lead the minis games with lackluster three plays each and Gutshot is the runner up with two plays. All other minis games logged just a single play each (and there weren't that many to pick from). Wow, I just didn't spend any time pushing around little toy soldiers in 2011 huh? I may have to rectify that for 2012. Here's a link to all the various and sundry games that went down in 2011.

Miniatures Painted: 30
I don't have much to say in my defense in this category. Thirty painted miniatures is absolutely atrocious I will say that. Atrocious! Thinking back to the last category though, if you're not playing miniature games, you simply don't paint miniatures, that's all there is to it. Thirty minis painted, sheesh, moving on.

Miniatures Bought: 23
I guess the upside to not having painted that many figs this year is that I've saved a ton of money in money spent on figures! This means that I painted 130% of the figures I bought as well. A 130% rating is nothing to sneeze at! Still, twenty three figs in the big picture is what? Not even a platoon? I'll just have to tell the missus that in 2012 I need to spend a lot more money on figures.

Terrain built: 4
For some reason I didn't include a 'terrain built' wrap up last year, and with just four pieces done this year one might ask why add it now? Well it's in the box on the left, so in here it goes. I built four pieces of terrain. In a year. One per quarter. The sad thing is that all four of these were cd-based pieces, so they weren't very large at all. Terrain is what makes our world go 'round, it's what makes the games we play that much better. So what's a good goal for terrain making? One a month? I don't know, but four might not be cutting it.

2011, as judged solely by these totals, was something of a wash. Oddly enough however, it felt just as 'full' to me as any other year. Ah, but these are the things we do, not who we do them with. I wouldn't have been able to log in over a hundred games played if not for the other great players sitting around the table. I would've had zero need to paint figures if not for my buddies with their own painted figs of which to battle. Lastly, I wouldn't have even considered writing this blog if not for you, the readers, out there. It's because of all of you that I do what I do here. I think I'm ending it there, happy new year!