2017 Hobby Audit (Spending Analysis) Part 3/4

Well apparently the account does not like the beatings.  He ran the numbers again and things did not turn out quite as well as I had thought.  Still there are improvements, mostly.  Off the top of my head, the same caveats as previous years still apply.

Anyway, the spending breakdown:

Modelling Supplies:  15%
Painting Supplies:  19%
Gaming Supplies:  11%
Terrain Supplies:  8%
Miniatures:  42%
Scale:  1%










Other views: 
How much of the total spending was on kickstarters:  <1%
How much at conventions:  25%
How much FLGS:  Kinda lost track and don't feel up to backing it out.  Not significant though.
How much toward things that are getting to the table: 24%

The account swears by his numbers and it turns out my initial estimate of only going over budget by 5% was wrong.  He says it is more like 17%.  So, not as great as I had hoped but still a reduction from last years 23% over budget numbers.  Once again (making 2 years in a row) modelling and painting supplies took a pretty major hit with the purchase of my second hobby lamp (this one for my airbrush area).  It also looks like I got a little carried away at Adepticon.  But there was a major shift on kickstarters, getting it down to "noise" level! 

In truth, the money spent toward things getting to the table may be optimistic, since we have already seen how many hobby games I can manage to get.  They are all things that are pretty solid for the local group, so I am going to stand behind those numbers for now.

Explanation of categories, if curious:
Modelling Supplies - Includes items for assembling, miniature storage, etc
Painting Supplies - Includes paints, brushes, etc
Gaming Supplies - Need it to play the game, or it helps.  Includes tokens, cards, rules, etc.
Terrain Supplies - Anything related to terrain or the making of terrain
General Hobby - Things not related specifically to a particular aspect, like gaming/hobby magazines
Miniatures - Take a guess
Board Games - No hiding miniatures here!  Imperial Assault goes under Miniatures.
RPGS - Bet you can guess this one too.
Scale - Scale models/Non-gaming models

Up next, final thoughts.

Tale of Four Gamers - Company of Iron, My Week 1

So, taking a break from my 2017 Hobby Audit, I've decided to touch on and provide a week one update of something I'm involved in for 2018.  My buddy Mike over at Mini Mayhem, along with Derek at Throne of Angels have dragged me into a Tale of Four Gamers.  Mike is documenting the overall effort and what not on his blog, so if you are interested check it out.  As we intend to play at Adepticon, this will count as my "paint something for Adepticon" goal.

So for this first month of the Tale, I foolishly decided to go for what will be the only unit in my force:  Protectorate Exemplar Errants.  Tackling these guys first would hopefully give me plenty of breathing room to work the remaining force in parallel to other projects I would like to be working on.  So, straight off the bat on January 1st I jumped in.  And I jumped in the deep end.  I figured by the end of the first week, I would have everything assembled, cleaned, primed and the white completed.  And this is where I got:

They may look dangerous but just get out of their peripheral vision,
they can't turn their heads side to side.

Yep, just barely got to the assembled and cleaned (debatable) state.  And that alone took a herculean effort.  There are a lot of things I want to "say" about these models but they are not very nice words or comments.  I just can't resist at least one comment though:

Nice, "nubs" for slotting into the figure!

See those 2 red circles, indicating the "nubs" to be slotted?  Look at the figure and tell me where to slot them?  I kinda figured out, albeit to late, that the scabbard one is "supposed" to fit on the belt right behind the left thigh armor.  And that was really the problem with these figures, a lot of "supposed to's".  In fact, in a fit of rage and desperation let's look at what did not get attached:

Hmm, yeah we don't have time for this BS.

Yes, some are spare/extra parts but most are not.  This is a very dysfunctional group of soldiers.  Four have decided to drop their shields and pull their crossbows.  While the other six thought it was a better tactical choice to drop their crossbows and pull their sword and shields.  Who is in charge of this chickenshit outfit!?  Oh wait, I guess that is technically me...

The best part, I am thoroughly convinced that these guys will only perform if painted to the highest standards humanly possible.  Otherwise, they will just roll over and somehow die during deployment.  I'm sooo looking forward to the quality time I get to spend with these a-holes.

2017 Hobby Audit (Goals Failed) Part 2/4

Let's just jump right in, the 2017 Hobby Goal failures:

Specific Goals:

• "Weeks having played miniature games > 12"
• Sadly I ended the year with only 8 weeks where I actually played a miniature's game.  Lots of real life conflicts interfering with the bi-weekly game days coupled with the groups obsession with Frost Grave (and my disinterest in Frost Grave) limited my ability to get many games in.  Needless to say, this is trending in the WRONG direction.
• "Weeks having played board or role-playing games > 20"
• I am dumbfounded that this is such a hard goal for me but I ended the year with only 8 weeks where I played a board game (most of which were with my daughter).  There is a weekly Wednesday lunch group at work that plays board games.  The problem is, I'm that hard pressed to get my hours in at work with 2 kids now.  That being said, my daughter has managed to help me get a few games in.
• "Read more books => 12"
• Ah, this is embarrassing.  I read no books this year.  I just never really found myself with the free time to read.  I even tried audio books but there is an adjustment period, IMO, with them that I just never managed to get past.  The baby certainly did not help this, and usually when I found myself with enough free and quiet time to do this, I gravitated to my hobby desk.
• "Paint something for CMON Expo"
• Well, since I decided fairly early not to go to CMON Expo I did not bother to paint something up.  Honestly, the "gap" between Adepticon and CMON make this a tight deadline for me, compounded by usually deciding not to go.
• "Painting something for NOVA Open"
• Well, since I decided fairly early on that I probably would not make the NOVA Open I did not bother to paint something up.  Regardless, I should have still painted up my Blood Bowl team so that I can have it ready to play Stu if I ever make it back there.
• "Paint up 1 (of my many) Dungeon Crawl type games."
• Well, I gave this one a shot with Tail Feathers but it just did not help that I enjoyed the project.  Granted, I think I will enjoy playing Tail Feathers with my daughter.  I just don't enjoy painting these models up, so I got distracted every chance I could.  I finished the year with 2 birds, 5 bird riders and 1 solo still left to do.  

General Goals:

• Oh the infamous "Don't buy more miniatures than you paint."
• Nope, did not happen.  Sadly 77 models bought is probably at the lowest I have every been but I only painted about 36 models.  Still, compared to years past this is a pretty big improvement.  Also, keeping this goal in mind waved me off of a lot of purchases that I do not regret.

Overall, given the goals that I did achieve, I don't think it is to bad.  Other than reading no books for the year.  Ugh.  Yes, I certainly intended to get more done for the year but I was also dealing with a newborn.  Next time, my 2017 spending analysis.  

2017 Hobby Audit (Goals Achieved) Part 1/4

So before I get to sorting out my hobby goals for the New Year, I always like to take a look at my hobby "performance" for the year just ending.  You can find the original post of my 2017 hobby goals here.  As the name of the post implies, I'm starting with the goals achieved:

Specific Goals:

• "Weeks having painted/assembled/hobby'd > 30"
• I do not have an exact count, because it has become so frequent/normal that it does not register that often.  I can only imagine a couple of weeks were I did not do any hobbying whatsoever.  So I am going to unilateral say it was about 45 weeks that I "hobby'd", so goal achieved.
• "Paint something for Adepticon"
• While I intended to convert and paint more than one Hot Wheels model for a vehicular combat game, technically I only needed one for my planned events at Adepticon.  You can see it here.
• "Start my Super Secret Modelling/Painting project"
• Oh boy, I cheated because this project was my vehicular combat project.  There is an over arching theme to the project, the car above being one of the first.  Yeah, I should have done more than one by now but I'm throwing myself a bone.  Funny though, it may have been another project that I have not shown off on the blog, yet.  I can't remember but I have started that one too, so either way it is a win!
• "Stay within budget"
• The early reporting from the account says I was only 5% over budget.  He was beaten until he promised to re-crunch the numbers, but needless to say I am going to count this as a win because 5% is not bad.  At least its not bad for me...  You should see the numbers for 2013/2014.  Oh my...

General Goals:

• "Reign in spending"  
• This spans a little beyond just budget in that it covers "what" exactly I am buying and why.  See the original 2017 Goals post for more details.  Overall I did a bit better in this regard, with only a few lapses, and I am happy with how it turned out.  I went a little off the rails at Adepticon and I may have gone off the rails with the Fallout Minis Game pre-order, but that would be it.  I'm giving myself a thumbs up on this.
• "Less kickstarters"
• Oh hell, I knocked this one out of the park!  I only backed one kickstarter this entire year!  Granted, I backed it because I really wanted to support the person's effort and not so much with the intent to play the game.  But still...
• "Paint more, including finishing some of my incomplete but started painting projects"
• Ok, I did paint more this year.  Approximately 36 models (yes, it is sad that is more but it is still more!).  Oddly though, I never worked on my incomplete but started projects.  Hmmm.
• "Find my painting 'center'"
• I think I have actually come close to this.  I'm starting to approach a speed with a corresponding result, that I think I am happy with for a tabletop quality.  Yes, there are still things I need to do better, or learn how to do period, but I think by the end of the year I was achieving a pretty good rate.

Overall, I am really happy with the 2017 goals I achieved.  A little less so with the goals that, I now realize, I failed (next post).  Ugh, some of them make me feel a bit embarrassed...  We will cover that next time.

December Recap

As expected the holidays did not play very well hobby related items.  I did manage to get a bit of hobbying done by making some progress on the birds for Tail Feathers.  I will try to get those posted up soon, but alas I will be short of my goal (to paint up the whole box set) by the 5 corresponding bird riders and 1 solo character.  I came close and the hobby retrospective for the year is actually looking pretty good, well except for games played.

I did not manage to get many games played for December.  In fact, all I did manage was a batch of games on Christmas, all games I had bought for my daughter from Christmas and played with her:  Q-bitz, Battle Kittens and Purrlock Holmes (can you tell she's a bit obsessed with cats?).

Anyway, I will start to post up the hobby retrospective/analysis and 2018 goals over the next week or so.  Have to compile a bit of data and go back to see exactly what my goals were.  LOL.

Oh, yeah there was some nice/exciting loot to be had for the month:  In addition to some choice Christmas gifts was the arrival of Mythic Battles Pantheon in the form of 2 large coffin boxes.

Happy New Year.