Its that time of year where we set silly goals and objectives for ourselves over the coming year. Most people chose to lose weight or get fitter. I lost 18kg last year and started running – promptly put 3kg back on over the Christmas & New Year period mind you (neither were actually New Year resolutions). But these are the resolutions of ordinary mortals. We (assuming you’re reading this blog because you have an interest in wargaming) of course have much more far fetched and unobtainable objectives to set – like completely painting an army, or painting all our unpainted models, etc etc. So what am I planning to fail to achieve this year?

Completed in 2016

I thought a look back at 2016 would help give me some ideas. To see if I actually achieved anything. So here is a list of all the hobby projects I completed during 2016.

• SLA Halloween Jack – painted up as a HVT for a Halloween Infinity tournament.
• Scarface – painted up as a Northern Open best painted model entry and a Mayacast Masterglass entry.
• Cordelia – part of my Northern Open 7 Neoterra lists.
• CSU – actually the Infinity RPG KS Neoterran Executive model. Again painted for my Northern Open 7 lists.
• Guild Ball Morticians team – painted up as a comission.
• Created a custom Guild Ball pitch, and printed by Deepcut Studios.
• Created “splaypaintbrush” templates for use in Infinity and Guild Ball and cut by Cogotwo.
• GNOME objective markers – made for a local Infinity event run by GNOME, and again cut by Cogotwo. I’ve just realised I never actually finished that blog post!
• Objective room (you haven’t seen it on the blog yet as I haven’t finished its blog post)

My objective design cut and assembled…40 times lol

The Objectives in action along side the elusive Objective Room at the Halloween tournament.

My favourite project from 2016 has been the RPG Neoterran Executive. I had loads of fun painting it, it was relatively quick, I used some new techniques I’ve learnt towards the back end of 2016 (gold NMM) and I think it looks great.

That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy painting Scarface, the stand in CSU was just more fun – I guess because I didn’t feel pressured knowing it was going to be a painting comp entry.

Speaking of Scarface, here is his little sister; Cordelia.

I made the mistake of publishing a list or resolutions this time last year on this blog. Embarrassingly I have not achieved a single one!

On the flip side I have achieved a couple of other goals that weren’t on that list.

• Moved house.
• Won best painted army, and best painted single miniature at the Northern Open 7.
• Getting fitter as mentioned in the first paragraph.

Being a SMART arse

With last years resolution failures in mind I’ll take a leaf out of the “how to set objectives book” from work, this year I set some SMART objectives. This SMART thing is all about setting realistic objectives. So if you were to apply it to “I’m going to paint an army this year” you’ll see that that is not a very SMART resolution at all.

• Specific – “paint an army” – paint in what way? Undercoat? Basic 3 colours min painting requirement some tournaments use? Tabletop quality? To the best of my ability? Bases included? I think you can see where I am going here
• Measured – “paint an army” – I’ve already mentioned about what could constitute a measure of “painted” above, but how big is an army? Is it all the models I own for that faction? Is it a standard size list for a given game, eg 300 points for Infinity, or is it a specific list? Is it 1 captain, 1 mascot and 4 player models for Guild Ball, or is it a selection of 8 or 10 models to allow variety.
• Achievable – painting an army to the best of my ability in a year should be achievable, if real life didnt get in the way of hobby time. So being more specific and having a given measure goes a long way to making an objective achievable.
• Relevant – well this is easy as its going to be related to my hobby. That said I could paint an army for a myriad of games but is there any point in me painting a 40k army if I don’t play that game?
• Time-bound – I suppose this is easiest as the whole point of this post is to set out what I want to achieve in 2017.

I have to admit at work, we make a bit of a mockery of the SMART objective thing but I wonder if it’ll work for my hobby. I will also say that maybe the above interpretation is not correct but its good enough for me.

2017 Resolutions

So here are my SMART New Year Resolutions to get done during 2017. I am currently only playing Infinity and Guild ball regularly, so for models to be relevant they will be associated with those games. Of course through the year my games played might change but that’s always the risk.

1. Paint my Masons Guild Ball team to a good standard using NMM techniques. It’ll consist of Honour, Marbles, Brick, Harmony, Flint, Mallet. It will also include a Masons themed goal post. Bonus points for other Mason models or Union models.
2. Guild ball terrain – last year I got a pitch made, but I have not made any head way with the scenery for the pitch. So this year I want to paint up 7 pieces of scenery to a decent standard. This will be 1x fast ground, 1x rough ground, 1x forest/rough ground, 4x barriers, maybe 1x obstruction. All themed for my custom pitch.
3. Infinity – Add fully painted models to my Neoterran Captiline Sectorial army, enough to be able to vary my 300 point list builds. I can currently just about feild a 300pt list fully painted. I will add ~200pts worth of models to the list with a mix of SWC costs to allow flexibility in list building. 99pts of this will be my Uhlan model.
4. Hobby – having moved house back in April i still have not sorted out the spare room which is supposed to be my hobby room. I want to set up my painting desk to allow me to paint in those spare 30mins you sometimes get without having to spend 29mins tidying up first.
5. Hobby – post to this blog regularly. Try to at least have 1 hobby project related post per month. Preferably have 2 per month.

There is a number of other thins I’d like to do, but they are unlikely to happen. Things like get a second Infinity force painted, get a gaming table built to play on, and some scenery. That sort of thing, but we’ll see what happens over 2017 (after all its taken till nearly half way through January to get this blog posted 😉  ).