Like a weird government agency, I track my gaming progress from October of one year to September of the next. Don't ask why, it's just the way I've done things since I started. Too late to change now.
The Blog
This year was full of milestone's 250,000 hits (mostly non-Ukrainian-robot humans) and 2,000 posts overall.
The Top Ten Blog Posts of the Last Twelve Months
#1 (Review) Lettow Vorbeck by Decision Games (Reviews)
#2 Pre-Cruise Post (General Blogging)
#3 Fall-In! 2016 AAR (Conventions)
#4 (Kickstarter) Rifts Board Game *CANCELLED* (Kickstarter)
#5 Donald Trump: Presidential Nilbog (Risus)
#6 New Pulp Arrivals at the Kriget Rum (Pulp)
#7 That Silly Dog (Pulp #1.9) (Pulp)
#8 Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming (Blogging)
#9 Don't Miss the Boat (Pulp #1.10) (Pulp)
#10 It Crashed Upon the Desert Sand (Pulp #1.11) (Pulp)
Seriously, if I knew there were that many multiple chit-based wargame news aggregators that created legitimate traffic, I would have reviewed the game months earlier. I'll also make a note that 90% of the traffic for the Rifts Boardgame Kickstarter has come since they cancelled it (and I noted so on the post).
You'll notice one glaring ommission on a top ten list from a blog called Gaming with the Gnomies. No Gnome Wars (Save the inclusion under the Fall-In AAR). To be honest, I've got the same number of posts year-to-year and a consistent ammount of traffic to those posts. It's just that my other posts are seeing an increase in traffic year-to-year. The views on a "good" gnome post equal the average views of any other topic.
The Best Laid Plans that Didn't Pan Out:
Mousageddon: I had planned a grand Mousaggedon kid's game for Cold Wars and Mepacon, but the fates did not favor that. Then I slotted it for November, and between minor kerfluffles with Fall-in! con staff and the latest Reaper Kickstarter, my personal passion for the project waned.
The FLGS: While it's nice to have two FLGS in the area, most of my game purchases are still at cons and online. I went two for four with special orders at one store and I just don't get over to the other one often enough to follow through with the orders. I've been working up a dual review of the stores on my drives home. I just haven't had the time to type it up coherently.
Cold Wars 2017 - Messed up weekends plus kids gymnastics meant I skipped my favorite con, where a childless ViscountEric can act like a childless ViscountEric. Already working on next year.
Highlights of 2017:
THE JOURNAL!: The true brightest star of the year was the shocking discovery of the players' journal from my college AD&D game, which ran from 1998-2000. It was missing random entries, abruptly stopped just prior to the final run towards the climax, and was written in multiple character perspectives, but I've cobbled that together for The Ballad of the Pigeon God. Its re-appearance has sparked my interest in my homebrew World of Georic. Whether I act on my desire to play more is a whole different story entirely.
Since the initial discovery, even more material has been unearthed.
Live N*de Video Chat: Can't wait to see what garbage traffic those words pick up. ViscountEric has expanded his online footprint with some gaming over at Roll20. It started as just some 5e as a player to bide the time, but two hours into that campaign and I already added placeholders to run games. Plus it's a great venue to try my sillier or stranger concepts Two sessions of Risus: Terraforming Mars was just the beginning! Actually running Illuminati University, has a long hiatus was a feather in my cap.
Fall-In 2016! - Another weekend with Maja, filled with Gnome Wars, painting, and swimming at the hotel pool.
Mepacon Fall 2016 - My "Cthulhu Comes to Springfield 2" relaunch of a time-honored con game failed to garner any players, but my first-ever kids game (Mouslings!) worked fairly well. I did get to jump into a Cthulhu Dark Ages game and finally learned Fiasco. Maja had a great time as always.
Mepacon Spring 2017 - I did get an afternoon reprieve from the girls gymnastics so I could travel to Scranton and cosplay as an actual paying attendee! Ran into an old classmate from high school, got interviewed by the local paper, snagged up some cheese and gravy fries at Chick's before the caravan of cartwheeling girls finally got home that night.
"The Weekend" 2017 - My true mixture of family vacation and gaming worked out well. Got to physically hold some Hinterland figures, then get them slaughtered by dervishes.
Kickstarters-
Pyramid of the Lost King and the Reaper Bones 3 Kickstarter arrived after significant delays!
Song of Blades: Axe and Brimstone - Arrived. Great Halflings
OGRE Miniatures - Set 1 - Delayed, but coming to America
Jet Bike Construction Kits - Arrived
Psi-Paladins and Techo Barbarians 28mm Miniatures - Arrived
Talislanta: The Savage Land - Delayed
Pizza Dice - Delayed
Cat-Men and Dungeon Scenery - Arrived
Reaper Bones 4 - Pledge Manager for a year just started. A buck reserved me Wave 1 shipping no matter what I decide on.
OgreZine! - I can afford three bucks for more OGRE stuff
Macrocosm - Legion of Steel - Processing.
The Kid's Painting! .
A twice flooded basement and crazed gymnastics/baseketball/life schedules for the girls has curtailed their painting projects.
My Own Painting
I'm as scatterbrained as always with my projects. Lots of pulp figures got finished, dominated by, erm... Pulp Figures. I finally finished a German Gnome unit, plus I have a good chuck of my Blue Martians/Goblins/Monkey Men done.
Games
Savage Worlds of Showdown: The Pulp Game completed Season Two, a journey to the Lost World.
Family Games: With our schedules, we had a little dust accumulate on our pile of family games, although every time one of my friends came over, Maja was quick to whip out Dungeon Roll or Car Wars the Card Game. The big successes for the family that games together front were Rory's Story Cubes (a successful diversion on our Bahamas cruise), the My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria Storytelling Game, and like many things this year, an amusing Family Decathalon they we just can't finish.
2017 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards!
Best Kickstarter: Song of Blades: Axe and Brimstone Kudos to many of the smaller Kickstarters who arrived on time. I may not use the actual rules for the setting, but the halflings are great figures that I can use in the Mousling games, plus it arrived EARLY.
Worst Kickstarter: Pyramid of the Lost King. When comparing the logistical nightmares of millions of pieces from China for Reaper's Bones 3 and complicating delays of a lone man producing a book, I'm actually giving the massive project the benefit of the doubt. Given that I had written it off as vaporware, I was amused that it actually saw the light of day... if you paid printing and shipping costs for it. I will say that it is on my pile of products to review and might garner some positive marks for content.
Best Game: Rory's Story Cubes. The concept was an instant hit, and be it five minutes or even a half hour, the girls have made some great sessions.
Best RPG: My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria - It's not only the first game my daughter Maja is wildly excited about, making up new Pony characters whenever she gets the chance, but she actively wants to run this game, which gives me as trepidation as the first day of driving lessons, many years from now.
Best Minis: While the Axe and Brimstone Kickstarter produced some great models, the Reaper Bones 3 items I picked a la carte through the pledge manager were right up my alley to paint up.
After years of gnomes and mice, the big models were a pleasure to paint. Storing them, on the other hand, has been problematic.
Best "Other" Purchase: Going through my tiny list of purchases this year, my biggest "other" gaming purchases have been a few forays into the jungle known as Jo-Ann Fabrics. Sure, our one cat puked all over the jungle cloth I used for the lost world game, but I have a surplus of felt for roads and terrain at a fraction of the cost of the "good" stuff. I might even venture some Pony-themed cloth for all the MLP games I'm running at Mepacon.
The Blog
This year was full of milestone's 250,000 hits (mostly non-Ukrainian-robot humans) and 2,000 posts overall.
The Top Ten Blog Posts of the Last Twelve Months
#1 (Review) Lettow Vorbeck by Decision Games (Reviews)
#2 Pre-Cruise Post (General Blogging)
#3 Fall-In! 2016 AAR (Conventions)
#4 (Kickstarter) Rifts Board Game *CANCELLED* (Kickstarter)
#5 Donald Trump: Presidential Nilbog (Risus)
#6 New Pulp Arrivals at the Kriget Rum (Pulp)
#7 That Silly Dog (Pulp #1.9) (Pulp)
#8 Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming (Blogging)
#9 Don't Miss the Boat (Pulp #1.10) (Pulp)
#10 It Crashed Upon the Desert Sand (Pulp #1.11) (Pulp)
Seriously, if I knew there were that many multiple chit-based wargame news aggregators that created legitimate traffic, I would have reviewed the game months earlier. I'll also make a note that 90% of the traffic for the Rifts Boardgame Kickstarter has come since they cancelled it (and I noted so on the post).
You'll notice one glaring ommission on a top ten list from a blog called Gaming with the Gnomies. No Gnome Wars (Save the inclusion under the Fall-In AAR). To be honest, I've got the same number of posts year-to-year and a consistent ammount of traffic to those posts. It's just that my other posts are seeing an increase in traffic year-to-year. The views on a "good" gnome post equal the average views of any other topic.
The Best Laid Plans that Didn't Pan Out:
Mousageddon: I had planned a grand Mousaggedon kid's game for Cold Wars and Mepacon, but the fates did not favor that. Then I slotted it for November, and between minor kerfluffles with Fall-in! con staff and the latest Reaper Kickstarter, my personal passion for the project waned.
The FLGS: While it's nice to have two FLGS in the area, most of my game purchases are still at cons and online. I went two for four with special orders at one store and I just don't get over to the other one often enough to follow through with the orders. I've been working up a dual review of the stores on my drives home. I just haven't had the time to type it up coherently.
Cold Wars 2017 - Messed up weekends plus kids gymnastics meant I skipped my favorite con, where a childless ViscountEric can act like a childless ViscountEric. Already working on next year.
Highlights of 2017:
THE JOURNAL!: The true brightest star of the year was the shocking discovery of the players' journal from my college AD&D game, which ran from 1998-2000. It was missing random entries, abruptly stopped just prior to the final run towards the climax, and was written in multiple character perspectives, but I've cobbled that together for The Ballad of the Pigeon God. Its re-appearance has sparked my interest in my homebrew World of Georic. Whether I act on my desire to play more is a whole different story entirely.
Since the initial discovery, even more material has been unearthed.
Live N*de Video Chat: Can't wait to see what garbage traffic those words pick up. ViscountEric has expanded his online footprint with some gaming over at Roll20. It started as just some 5e as a player to bide the time, but two hours into that campaign and I already added placeholders to run games. Plus it's a great venue to try my sillier or stranger concepts Two sessions of Risus: Terraforming Mars was just the beginning! Actually running Illuminati University, has a long hiatus was a feather in my cap.
Fall-In 2016! - Another weekend with Maja, filled with Gnome Wars, painting, and swimming at the hotel pool.
Mepacon Fall 2016 - My "Cthulhu Comes to Springfield 2" relaunch of a time-honored con game failed to garner any players, but my first-ever kids game (Mouslings!) worked fairly well. I did get to jump into a Cthulhu Dark Ages game and finally learned Fiasco. Maja had a great time as always.
Mepacon Spring 2017 - I did get an afternoon reprieve from the girls gymnastics so I could travel to Scranton and cosplay as an actual paying attendee! Ran into an old classmate from high school, got interviewed by the local paper, snagged up some cheese and gravy fries at Chick's before the caravan of cartwheeling girls finally got home that night.
"The Weekend" 2017 - My true mixture of family vacation and gaming worked out well. Got to physically hold some Hinterland figures, then get them slaughtered by dervishes.
Kickstarters-
Pyramid of the Lost King and the Reaper Bones 3 Kickstarter arrived after significant delays!
Song of Blades: Axe and Brimstone - Arrived. Great Halflings
OGRE Miniatures - Set 1 - Delayed, but coming to America
Jet Bike Construction Kits - Arrived
Psi-Paladins and Techo Barbarians 28mm Miniatures - Arrived
Talislanta: The Savage Land - Delayed
Pizza Dice - Delayed
Cat-Men and Dungeon Scenery - Arrived
Reaper Bones 4 - Pledge Manager for a year just started. A buck reserved me Wave 1 shipping no matter what I decide on.
OgreZine! - I can afford three bucks for more OGRE stuff
Macrocosm - Legion of Steel - Processing.
The Kid's Painting! .
A twice flooded basement and crazed gymnastics/baseketball/life schedules for the girls has curtailed their painting projects.
My Own Painting
I'm as scatterbrained as always with my projects. Lots of pulp figures got finished, dominated by, erm... Pulp Figures. I finally finished a German Gnome unit, plus I have a good chuck of my Blue Martians/Goblins/Monkey Men done.
Games
Savage Worlds of Showdown: The Pulp Game completed Season Two, a journey to the Lost World.
2017 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards!
Best Kickstarter: Song of Blades: Axe and Brimstone Kudos to many of the smaller Kickstarters who arrived on time. I may not use the actual rules for the setting, but the halflings are great figures that I can use in the Mousling games, plus it arrived EARLY.
Worst Kickstarter: Pyramid of the Lost King. When comparing the logistical nightmares of millions of pieces from China for Reaper's Bones 3 and complicating delays of a lone man producing a book, I'm actually giving the massive project the benefit of the doubt. Given that I had written it off as vaporware, I was amused that it actually saw the light of day... if you paid printing and shipping costs for it. I will say that it is on my pile of products to review and might garner some positive marks for content.
Best Game: Rory's Story Cubes. The concept was an instant hit, and be it five minutes or even a half hour, the girls have made some great sessions.
Best RPG: My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria - It's not only the first game my daughter Maja is wildly excited about, making up new Pony characters whenever she gets the chance, but she actively wants to run this game, which gives me as trepidation as the first day of driving lessons, many years from now.
Best Minis: While the Axe and Brimstone Kickstarter produced some great models, the Reaper Bones 3 items I picked a la carte through the pledge manager were right up my alley to paint up.
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| Stormwing |
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| Mystic Circle |
Best "Other" Purchase: Going through my tiny list of purchases this year, my biggest "other" gaming purchases have been a few forays into the jungle known as Jo-Ann Fabrics. Sure, our one cat puked all over the jungle cloth I used for the lost world game, but I have a surplus of felt for roads and terrain at a fraction of the cost of the "good" stuff. I might even venture some Pony-themed cloth for all the MLP games I'm running at Mepacon.
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