I haven't had time to do much retrospection on 2008. I think it was a pretty good hobby year. I certainly enjoyed my hobby last year, although I can't really think of any major achievement off hand. It was kind of a half year due to birth of my third child (who's doing great). I suppose the things I'm most pleased with were getting my kids to paint and making a moderate amount of decent terrain. So, what is in store for 2009?

Well, I'm not making any big promises. I certainly don't intend to stop buying figures or finish my current projects or anything outrageous like that! That's crazy talk!!

I figure much of 2009 will be filled with-- very, very, VERY surprisingly for me-- 40k. If I just relax my very uptight self a little bit, I can have fun with it and connect with my less uptight friends. Our small campaign has generated a lot of excitement that was, at times, lacking in our group. So I'm all in on that.

This leads to the second thing to fill 2009, and that's more terrain. You really don't realize just how large a square foot is until you're under a deadline to fill it with wargaming terrain. A square foot a month. That's crazy! Whose idea was this? I expect it to be largely Sci-Fi oriented, obviously, since it's for a 40k campaign. I'm fine with that, I have a bunch of 28mm SF figures and the terrain will work great for any rules. However, I intend to make them as flexible as possible. The stuff I've made was intentionally designed to work well with Necromunda, a game I've played a ton of in the past. I also have some vague plans to make some non-genre specific terrain like hills and forests and such. I already have some hills and forests, but they could really stand to be improved and/or expanded.

There are a couple of other things I'd like to do in 2009, but won't commit.

I'd like to run some more games. I ran a couple of Piquet: Field of Battle games in 2007 that went pretty well. Life kind of caught up with me after that, as well as my natural Sloth, and stopped that pretty cold. I'd like to run FoB again, or maybe try out Cold War Commander with my Yom Kipper war figures. With better terrain.

I'd also like to get into some modeling and/or converting. This is something I always want to do. I just takes time and patience and skill, and those are three things I am sorely lacking in. Still, I hope I can find some small project to complete.

I'd also like to get back painting on my 40mm French and Indian War and American War of Independence figures. I like the figures and have a bunch ready to go, it's just a matter of finding the time, I suppose.

If I really need something to do, I have a bunch of 15mm Napoleonics that could stand to be painted up. I just found that I really, really, REALLY didn't enjoy painting the cavalry. And that's what really needs to be painted. I have ideas of trying the dip on them...

Also, I missed the release of Field of Battle: WW2, and would like to start painting up some 15mm FOW based figures for this.

Got the kids back painting again for about an hour and a half, in which time, together, we all finished eleven figures total. Not bad. Here's a sort of step-by-step through the procedure, with some better pictures of their work. I almost think that such detailed photography of the figures does them no justice, because much of their inexperience just doesn't show when you're not examining them critically.

This is the Velas technique I keep talking about. The first step is prime white.

Next, "stain" paint the figure by painting solid primary colors that have been thinned 1:1 with water. My son has the habit of reusing the paint on his palette well past when it has thickened back up, but I just figured that out today.

The last step I do, and that's using the "Magic Dip" or "Miracle Dip" or whatever you want to call it-- MinWax Polyshades Tudor. I brush it on to make sure it doesn't pool up. Once it dries, and base them, and take pride in my children.

More painting from the kids (and a few by me)...

My daughter was reading Lord of the Rings, had peeked at my LotR rules, and was really wanting to paint some fantasy figures, so I got out some old Harlequin Nightlings I had bought for $1 a pack in a bargain bin years ago. As you can see, they once again have done a really great job. I like the figures a lot, but I don't see them in production anymore. Harlequin's stuff is now sold by Black Tree Design, but the Nightlings there are GW Night Goblin knock offs. I have 6 more foot to paint, then some mounted "Night Riders."

Some pictures of my kids' painted figures.

The first pictures show all our figures together. The photography isn't that great, and I could have done a little better on mine, but I still think they did a very good job for their first time out. I have seen worse paint jobs at Historicon.

I had a 20% coupon for the local games store. I didn't really need any miniatures or RPGs they carried, so I decided to look for family games. I bought Carcassone on the recommendation of my friends, but it was listed for both 8 and 10 years or older, and both ages are older than my kids. The manager showed me Blokus. Lay down funky shapes and try to play them all? Sounds lame. But...it did have a Mensa award and the German "Spiel des Jahres" award, pretty high praise, I thought, so I bought it.

It's a big hit at the house with the kids! It's listed for five and older, but my son, who is about three months short of five, picked it up in no time and was competitive in his first game. In fact, we've played four games so far, and he's come in second three times, beating his six year old sister. He asked to play it twice yesterday. Here's a three way game we played. I was red, him blue, and her green.

The rules, examples, scoring and variants take up both sides of a single piece of paper. Basically, you must cover the small square in your corner with the first piece you play, and every subsequent piece must touch at least one other piece of your color at a corner, but may not touch any piece of your color at an edge. Try to play all your pieces.

Update: Heh. I now see that if I had played the 1x1 block, which I'm pretty sure was the last block I played, in the gap of the U shaped piece on the left, I could have played my final piece along the left side!

My kids, a boy 3 and a girl 5, are getting into Superheroes. The other day, I went and bought a bunch of single common Heroclix from Twilight Cards of a lot of the guys they recognize-- Captain America, Spider-Man and Hulk for him, and Hawkgirl, Batgirl and She-Hulk for her. I also bought a bunch of baddies to fight: Vulture, Doc Ock, the Lizard, Scorpion and a Skrull. I gave them as action figures to the kids. Cost me about $17, with shipping, for 11 figures. The kids went NUTS over them!