Christmas, once again, brought me some lovely gifts from the family. Again, I am so appreciative of what they do for me so I can indulge in my hobby. I know output both gaming- and painting-wise has been very slow recently but that will hopefully begin to improve next year. The support I receive does spur me on to achieve more but my enemy is always time.
This year I received a large number of gaming-related items as well as some peripheral items to inspire and spark my currently somewhat limited creative flair - DVDs of The Princess Bride, The Dark Crystal and the second series of House of the Dragon.
I should hopefully be getting a game of 5e D&D in towards the end of January, so Tasha's Cauldron of Everything is a welcomed supplement to get my D&D head on.
I also tend to receive the latest Frostgrave supplement, if one has been released, each birthday or Christmas - these are a great source of inspiration and ideas for future gaming activities. I don't know why, but I am especially attracted to colder climes and wintery settings for my gaming worlds.
The latest(?) Osprey game book When Nightmares Come was also a pleasant surprise - I am also drawn to Cthulhu-style worlds. I like the idea of mankind being almost powerless to defend against the darkness that prevails in the universe but I am still looking for ways in which to portray that in a game. Each rules book or supplement I read adds to my knowledge but my view is that if something gets game stats that players can access it becomes defeatable. Anyway, I digress - this could be an idea for a blog post at a later date.
My figures haul also went up again this year. I got a couple of packs of Games Workshop's Lord of the Rings Hobbit miniatures. I have a small, but steadily growing Hobbit militia that I would like to pit against some goblins/orcs/trolls at some point. If anybody out there could suggest alternative hobbit/halfling miniatures from other manufacturers that scale well with the GW offerings I would be very appreciative. I don't need many (so big boxes of plastic miniatures are out unless the sprues are sold anywhere individually) but for skirmish level games (up to 20-30 a side) I prefer to have each warrior represented by a unique figure (even if that is just a different paint scheme or weapon swap).
Hopefully, I will have more time and be more talkative next year, so I can keep the blog ticking over. I may change the format a little to also include more gaming thoughts and ideas.
