It’s December’s Round-Up time. Finally. The delay is mostly due to the backlog of posting my November stuff over the first part of December, followed by a mixture of being busy, being tired & lazy and also it being too damn hot to go outside to take photos with a mini-heatwave at the start of the month that just delayed everything. This is going to be a long, wordy post with the round-up, the 2022 reflection and the looking forward to 2023 – so be warned.

The big group photo of December’s models looked like too much of a mess to really see anything, so I split it into sub-groups for the additional shots. First we have not-quite-the-last Zombie Dogz with the first of too-damn-many Zombie Crowz. 14 Dogz and 5 Crowz.

Next, my second big batch of Zombicide Walkers. I’ve still got about 18 left from these sculpts, but rather than batch-painting them I’m going to (try to) have a little more fun with them and paint them slightly differently to “large group of zombies wearing suits”. 25 Zombie Walkers.

Then there’s the small D&D Miniatures – Vegepygmies and Batiri Goblins. Not much work, done quickly. These were the first models I finished in 2022. 7 Tiny D&D Creatures.

I finally finished the last of the biggest sub-project I’ve painted in awhile. Well, projects where I’ve cared significantly about how the models look and put extra work in (sorry, batch-painted walkers). The Zombicide VIP Walkers. At some point I should take a group pic of them all, right back to the Santas and Hot Dog Men. 24 VIP Walkers.

And then finally – the most interesting models for most people – the celebrity-inspired and Character-licenced Zombicide survivors. I got way more than usual finished in December – the second half of the Night of the Living Dead cast, 4 official Zombicide models and their Zombvivor counterparts, 2 Proxies and another Zombvivor counterpart, and a pair of Marvel Zombies models. Their bases are a bit bigger, and their stature is just a bit taller, but they’ll fit right into standard Zombicide games with just a bit of tweaking and house-ruling. Balance may be a littl eor a lot off, but there’s only one way to find out – and fun overrides all, anyway. 18 Survivors.

So over December, that was 93 models painted. I’ve literally just added them up now, and even for me, that feels fucking insane for a single month. I guess October was also 93,. but they were almost all batch-painted berserker walkers while December featured a lot more individual models. Well, either way – now you know why I wasn’t posting – all my time was spent either at work or painting models, apparently. Turns out I had 517 models painted by the end of November (I forgot to do the count when smashing the Nov Round-Up together) – so that gives me a total of 610 models completed in total for 2022.

Well…

Time to break it up with a photo of Leonard.

And now, It’s the overall reflection time for 2022.

In January when I usually have time off work, I got a bunch of models painted – a bunch of mutant rat and giant tick fodder for Shadows of Brimstone, a few more Zombicide survivors, several models for Journeys in Middle-Earth (which I’d hoped to get fully painted and play in 2022 – NOPE!) and a bunch of tanks (and a few walls) for Flames of War. Also a few Blood Bowl models for my Chaos Dwarf team.

In February I continued with more hobgoblins for the Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team, and got started on the actual zombies for Zombicide. I decided to paint the fatties with no real serious consideration that I’d ever get to the walkers. I also got another survivor done, as well as several models for Fembruary – one of the Last Chancers, an Elf, another Middle-Earth player model, a Judge and then into several D&D boardgame heroes – Both female and male. Also, Ultron for Marvel Crisis Protocol that I wanted to get done and play (NOPE!)

In March I pushed on and finished the Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team – with the exception of one model that I wanted to tweak and add to the team but just could not find! Marouda painted a single model which was nice – if only I could persuade her to do more! A few monsters (and two siege towers) from Journeys in M-E done for Monster March as well as a couple of monsters from Mythic Battles and a Reaper Undead Ogre got headswapped into being a very large orc!

April proved to be a lighter month – another 3 M-E hero models as well as a few villains, some more Zombicide survivors as well as a random Reaper modern model, an old Goliath, some old-school Rogue Trader Commissars cleaned up and a few tanks and armoured vehicles for my Mid-War Flames of War desert forces. I also got a pair of Yetis done from the Shieldwolf range that has been stuck on the desk for over a year! I’d tried to get them done for Monster March but they missed the deadline – but different to most years, I pressed on to finish them anyway!

More Monsters in May, due to the Monster Mayhem challenge! Four monsters/Abominations from the Zombicide Ghostbusters sets, a pair of Bob Olley Ogres, old Call of Cthulhu Byakhee, a couple of D&D Elementals and a Reaper Not-Bulette, Spawn of Ungoliant from the M-E game and a Mordor Troll from GW’s ME-SBG alongside a midhammer Minotaur with oversized weapons. Outside of those monsters, I also got a hero from Cursed City painted, another Zombicide Survivor, the Trebuchet from Zombicide Black Plague, and some Flak half-tracks for my mid-war Afrika Korps.

In June I scaled down the models to (almost!) all human-sized, and so with the exception of the Oldhammer Minotaur that was fixed up for his new home as part of the Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team and the Rogue-Trader-era Squat Tech-Priest it’s all humans! Well, some of them are Zombie-form humans. So three more Last Chancers following on from February as well as a whole bunch of Zombicide survivors (and their Zombvivor forms, as noted).

In July the Season of Scenery kicked off, and in that I got a whole bunch of scatter terrain donein the entirety of Massive Darkness II’s “Hellscape” pack as well as a couple of MDII bridges. I also got stuck into a pile of Grey WWII German armour – getting my StuGs and PZII’s done. As usual by this stage, I also got another Zombicide Survivor finished and got stuck into the Zombie Runners. Finishing off, I had a few miscellaneous models such as a couple of Ogres and another pair of Last Chancers and some Ghoul Blood Bowl players- with a plan to get both of those sets of models done by the end of the year ….NOPE!

August featured more Season of Scenery shenanigans with some War Cry bridges, an Endless Spell and most of the set of Warhammer Underworlds Catacombs terrain. There’s also a bunch of Zombicide models in there, a mixture of Runners and Berserker Runners as well as a few Berserker Fatties. No “player” models in this month!

September wrapped up the Season of Scenery with a whole bunch of terrain from War Cry, as well as several sets of stairs and a lot of scatter bits from Archon. Another couple of Endless Spells as I was thinking I’d try to get the last of that initial box finished before the end of the year (NOPE!) and the final piece of that WH Underworlds set (but missing a piece that I just could NOT find!) A couple more bits of 40k-relatyed sci-fi stuff, and a couple of Zombicide barricades brought the terrain aspect to an end. Some rather bright spiders from Journeys in Middle-Earth (remember that game?) and a trio of Moose (Meeses!) from Bad Squiddo – just because!

By the time October rolled around, we were playing a lot of Zombicide again, and so I leaned rather heavily into that by painting 77 Zombies of various kinds, and also finished the Lich King and his Abominations from the World of Warcraft-themed Pandemic game. Also a couple of other bits and pieces. Zombtober, indeed!

November was again dominated in terms of numbers by Zombicide – with a good amount of several types of zombies as well as half the cast of the Night of the Living Dead Zombicide game, but physically dominated by the four large terrain pieces I managed to complete after a couple years of sitting on a nearby desk, in turn annoying me and being an invisible bit of clutter.

We just did the December thing – a month where I basically turned my focus almost entirely to getting models finished for Zombicide.

Another Feline Interlude.

And now for the reflective bit that will be rather interesting (for me at least) to see how I did with the Hobby Goals I chose back at the start of the year in January… many of which were carry-overs from the year (or years!) before…

So here we go…

• Finish painting all the previously-opened Survivors from Zombicide. (I know which ones I mean!)
  Started, not Completed, Basically, I had a set of Survivors cleaned, primed and ready to paint, but I didn’t end up getting them all done – mostly because I did add in quite a few others that I got painted instead while not getting that initial pile completed.

• Paint all of the Fatties from Zombicide.
  DONE! Aside from the two spin-off games that I still haven’t opened, and 2nd edition – but those were never intended here.

• Finish painting all of my Last Night On Earth Models. At this point, it’s just a bunch of hero models. If I want to “stretch goal” this, I can move onto the stuff from LNoE’s sister game – Invasion from Outer Space.
  Nope. Still haven’t touched these. They’re in the same container as the Zombicide Survivors from above, and so when it came time to paint more survivors, it’s no surprise that the ones for the game we’ve been playing were first choice. There’s also a few more standalone expansions to LNoE I didn’t take into account, but perhaps that’ll be something for 2023..

• Try and finish the last models from that Drizzt D&D boardgame. Anything past that, I’ll call gravy. Also – heroes are non-mandatory since their quality varies widly and I can often sub in better models from GW or Reaper.
  Nope. Still got the uninspiring Drow models to go. I did finish some heroes early on, and a few non-Drizzt expansion models in December (to be shown shortly) but none of the ones I was “supposed” to get painted…

• Similarly, it was pretty satisfying to finish all of the models from the core LNoE box, so I may try to do another boardgame or two completely. Less likely to be one of those huge CMoN monstrosities, but I have some more, sanely-scaled board games like Doom and Gears that could be contenders. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021. Any boardgame will work, though.
  DONE! I did manage to paint nice little chunks of several boardgames, but ultimately I finished enough models to reasonably call Zombicide 1st Edition Season 1 complete as well as the Zombicide Prison Outbreak standalone expansion. Strictly speaking, I didn’t get the precise numbers of each sculpt from each of those two core boxes done due to the variation in Walker sculpts – but I did get more than enough walkers as a …”model type” painted to call it a fair success

• Keep plugging away at my Marine and Chaos Marine “Combat Patrols” of 2 squads + hero, vehicle and Dreadnought – as well as adding to the forces that are past that point. I’d make a list of factions for this, as I have in the past, but there’s really no point. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021.
  Nope. I had gotten some models out and ready to work on, but getting sick in June derailed my speed and ability to paint properly, so they got put back away. I’d hoped to paint a Dreadnought for Dreadtober but again, work and time and a focus on Zombies that I’m actually using ended up knocking that one out cold.

• Finish my Orc and Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl Teams that have been WIP/Semi-complete since the 1990’s. Then I can either move onto more of the classic models, or delve into some of the “new” teams. (from 2016+) Actually, I also have that custom Tomb Kings team I started that needs to be completed…. I’ve been thinking very specifically about these models lately, so I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021.
  Started, not Completed. Chaos Dwarfs done and complete. I didn’t manage to complete either the Orcs or Khemri. I’d say there’s a decent chance of this happening in 2023.

• Sort out a couple of cars finally for Gaslands. As I mentioned, having lots of spare 15mm weapons should make this doable now, so I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021.
  Nope. Nothing done at all in 2022.

• I’d like to get started on at least one of my much larger terrain projects done (tile sets, castles, etc) by year’s end, even if it crosses over the summer break into 2023.
  DONE! I built two large kits, and it’s possible that I will finish one of them in January. I have finished a bunch of terrain tiles in January, though -so I’m calling this one functionally done.

• Paint 2-4 Warhammer Underworlds warbands, so I can finally start playing the game. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021.
  Started, not Completed. I’ve got two of these warbands on my desk. I’ve worked on them but didn’t get either completed.

• Get as many of my part-painted models completed as I can. Which really ties in strongly with so much of what’s already written above. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021 since it’s about reducing a very specific set of models that are sitting around.
  DONE! I’m always chipping away at these, so it’s an easy win in terms of the write-up, but the meaningful part of it is really just when I manage to clear something from the desk or the pile that’s been sititng there for months or years..

• Do something with/for War Cry. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021.
  Started, not Completed. My beastmen (and Minotaur!) do seem to have morphed into a simple warband at this stage so far. I’ve been working on some of the terrain, but learning the rules and actually playing it were a bridge too far for me in 2022.

• Actually PLAY some Blood Bowl and/or Blitz Bowl. May as well throw small-scale 40k and getting some Kings of War, War Cry, Combat Patrol, Middle-Earth SBG, Kill-Team, Gaslands, etc going here as well. I have lots of small-scale and skirmish games. It’d be nice to play some of them. Yep, Play More Games. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021, but we’ll obviously add Flames of War in here as well!
  Sort of. We’ve played quite a few different boardgames. A number of them involve miniatures – either in a “miniatures game-lite” format (like Zombicide) or simply as glorified meeples. I did get to play a “proper” game of Fistful of Dice with the GURU a couple of months ago, so that counts as well. Still, nowhere near as many games as I’d like to have played, and especially not enough “proper” miniatures (war)gaming!

• Finish my 15mm DAK force for Flames of War.
  Started, not Completed. Sadly, I didn’t quite get this one one. The last infantry units (mounted Panzergrenadiers) are based and started, their Halftracks are clipped off their sprues and cleaned up – and then that still leaves the field guns….

• Finish my 15mm British 8th Army force for Flames of War.
  Started, not Completed. This one really stalled out. I still need to paint the Valentines and a few other things, but the Germans kept the 15mm priority and so little more got done here.

• Start (hopefully finish) the four other Mid-War forces for Flames of War that I’m wanting to get done.
  Started. Did I really type “hopefully finish?” here? I did manage to start working on Grey-armoured, Eastern Front Germans.

• Review all of the 15mm scenery I’ve picked up.
  Weather/repaint all of the 15mm scenery I’ve picked up.
  Started, not Completed. I really didn’t get much done on this front in 2022. They make great content for when I’m not getting all that much painted, but they still require time to concentrate on typing blog posts, and for a lot of this year, I’ve spent more limited time painting rather than blogging…

• Try to review some more of the other hobby-adjacent stuff I have – Art books, Helmets, Video Games.
  Nope. Haven’t done more than think about this one in 2022.

• Complete those winged models (I know which ones I mean!)
  Nope. I’d hoped to find and paint these, but it simply didn’t happen. I did locate the missing ones, though!

• Start and finish those Dwarves with the chains and the hammerheads (I know which ones I mean)
  Nope. I looked for those but couldn’t find them. One day I’ll find them..?

• Finish those three bits of scenery still sitting in The Tray – and the two WHU sets.
  Nope. Still have these to do. Already referenced the WHU models above.

• Paint some more Beastmen…
  …and some Chaos Dwarves…
  …and a few more regular Dwarves, including Slayers.
  Started. Well, I did some beastmen and a Minotaur, nothing on either type of Dwarf, unfortunately.

• Get enough Marvel Crisis Protocol models done to actually have a game.
  …and actually have a game.
  Started, not Completed. I wanted to modify this one to be “complete at least one MCP model per month but haven’t done anything on the three that are on the desk for more than half of the year. I have recently started on four more of these, which makes perfect sense in my not having completed any of the ones I had out to work on… right?

• In non-gaming goals, I’ve been off crutches for four days now so I’m keen to get back to the Gym and Pool again, and I’ll also be trying not to die.
  Started, not Completed. The fitness stuff has been really start and stop this year. Unfortunately, the second year of covid lockdowns was enough to really just fuck all my good habits as well as Capital Works at work (and some other factors) reducing the amount of space and time I had for my mini-morning workouts.

• Something I forgot to add to my initial goal-writing was to post some more painting turorials. I’ve actually gotten one done this year, though there are also a few more I’d like to do at some stage.
  DONE! I’m calling that DAK armour tutorial a win right there, even if I don’t get a second one done in 2022…

As with last year, there are only a couple of these goals fully completed, but I have gotten something done on quite a lot of them – which is kind of the point – hobby motivation. There are of course WAY too many goals for me to realistically complete in any given year which is a given, and of course goals change over the 12 months of a year. This is the time when I really look more closely and can start to basically cross a bunch of them off as simply not gonna happen this year.

Shall I do 2023? I’ll do 2023. Get it done and out of the way now rather than setting up yet another post!

I’ll start by seeing what should be recycled, modified or expanded from 2022.

• Paint all of the remaining Models from Zombicide 1st Edition – all expansions, all add-ons. This one is a big call, so I’m going to break it up into smaller sub-goals that are more achievable.

• Finish painting all of the alreadly-opened Survivors from Zombicide. (I know which ones I mean!) – I’ll reset this one to the primed ones in the tub right now

• Finish painting all the Zombie Dogz from Zombicide. Setting this for January and (spoiler alert) I got it done.

• Paint all of the Toxic Zombies from Zombicide Toxic City Mall. 

• Paint all of the Skinner Zombies from Zombicide Rue Morgue. 

• Paint all of the Seeker Zombies from Zombicide Angry Neighbours. 

• Paint all of the remaining Guest Artist Boxes from Zombicide Seasons 1-3

• Finish painting all of my Last Night On Earth Models. At this point, it’s just a bunch of hero models. If I want to “stretch goal” this, I can move onto the stuff from LNoE’s sister game – Invasion from Outer Space. Carried over from 2022.

• Try and paint all of the remaining monster models from the Dungeons & Dragons Legend of Drizzt boardgame. (Adventurers or Proxy Adventurers optional) Carried over from 2021-22.

• Paint an entire boardgame that’s not specifically mentioned here.

• Paint some boardgame expansions that are not specifcically mentioned here – big ones, small ones, doesn’t matter – and the more the merrier!

• Keep plugging away at my Marine and Chaos Marine “Combat Patrols” of 2 squads + hero, vehicle and Dreadnought – as well as adding to the forces that are past that point. I’m going to specificlaly name and sub-goal some. Maybe the specific accountability will remind/prompt/motivate me for that sweet dopamine rush of completion a few times?

• Finish the Squad of Primaris Minotaurs
• Paint the Minotaurs Shield-Captain
• Finish the Squad of 2nd-3rd Edition Iron Warrior Berserkers
• Finish the Squad of RT-Era Ultramarines
• Finish the Mob of RT-Era Orks
• Finish the Mob of Plastic Boyz
• Finish the Mob of AoBR Nobz
• Finish the Mob of Killa Kanz
• Finish the Minotaurs Redemptor Dreanought

• Finish my Orc and Khemri Blood Bowl Teams that have been WIP/Semi-complete since the 1990’s/2000’s. Then I can either move onto more of the classic models, or delve into some of the “new” teams. (from 2016+)

• Sort out a couple of cars finally for Gaslands. Recycled again from 2021.

• I’d like to get at least one of my much larger terrain pieces or projects done (tile sets, castles, etc) by year’s end, even if it crosses over the next summer break into 2024.

• Paint 2-4 Warhammer Underworlds warbands, so I can finally start playing the game. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021-2.

• Do something with/for War Cry. I’ll keep this one wholesale from 2021-22.

• Actually PLAY some Blood Bowl and/or Blitz Bowl, small-scale 40k, Kings of War, War Cry, Combat Patrol, Middle-Earth SBG, Kill-Team, Gaslands, Tanks!, Flames of War, Team Yankee. I have lots of small-scale and skirmish games. It’d be nice to play some of them. Yep, Play More Miniatures Games and Board Games. I’ll keep this one again from 2021-22

• Finish my 15mm DAK force for Flames of War. Sadly, I didn’t quite get this one one, but it’s something achievable for 2023.

• Finish my 15mm British 8th Army force for Flames of War. There’s a lot more work in this one than finishing the DAK. Also a big difference betwene properly playable and finished.

• Start (or hopefully finish) one of the four other Mid-War forces for Flames of War that I’m wanting to get done. This will be tricky, I already have a lot on this list, but it would be nice to finish an additional force.

• Review all of the 15mm scenery I’ve picked up. This is good “filler” content for when I’m keen to get blog posts up but not in a painting mood. Obviously it’s going to play second fiddle to painting as much as possible, so we’ll see how this one goes.

• Weather/repaint all of the 15mm scenery I’ve picked up. Again, it makes great content for when I’m not getting all that much painted, but it still requires time to concentrate on typing blog posts.

• Try to review some more of the other hobby-adjacent stuff I have – Art books, Helmets, Video Games. I’ll keep this one. It’s enjoyable to do something different, but time is as always the issue.

• Complete those winged models (I know which ones I mean!) I may even be able to get this one done in 2023…

• Start and finish those Dwarves with the chains and the hammerheads (I know which ones I mean) I still can’t find them, which really sucks.

• Finish those three bits of scenery still sitting in The Tray. They’re for two different games, but they need to be focused on and finished.

• Paint some more Beastmen…
  …and some Chaos Dwarves…
  …and a few more regular Dwarves, including Slayers.

• Get enough Marvel Crisis Protocol models done to actually have a game.
  …and actually have a game.

• Finish painting the entirety of the Marvel Crisis Protocol Starter Box.

• Get as many of my part-painted models completed as I can. This really ties in strongly with so much of what’s already written above. I’ll keep this one from previous years since it’s really about contnuing to reduce a very specific set of models that are sitting around without adding too many more to their number.

• In non-gaming goals, Relearn my exercise and Gym habits.