Having already written out some RPG related goals for 2026, it's time to turn my eye to miniatures games.
Moving in something of a full circle in my gaming habits, I had moved away from miniatures games for about 7 years. Partly this was due to spending a disproportionate amount of time freelancing in the RPG industry, then publishing my own RPGs. Partly this was because Covid put a stop to face to face gaming for a good while. And partly this was due to burn out I experienced after working with Spartan Games on Dystopian Legions, Planetfall, Firestorm, Dystopian Wars and Halo. Halo particularly was a huge amount of time and work, and combining this with a real life full time job, and a family, left me running on empty.
Time heals all wounds as the old saying goes, and in 2025 I finally broke out the paint brushes which had been sitting silent and gathering dust. I painted a Necromunda gang, some ships for Oak and Iron, and a Gallic army for DBA, not too shabby.
So, 2026 goals, without further preamble...
Blood Bowl is my first goal. I never really played much of it when I was playing GW games in the late 90s, but I recently got the third season box, and intend to paint and play this one. I already have the Bretonnian team assembled and undercoated, and I'm trying to decide on what paint scheme I use for the team. In the meantime I'm painting the tokens and markers (more on this in another post).
For the Bretonnians I am thinking of doing a more setting traditional red and blue mix, but I have been tossing up doing green and yellow, or blue and yellow. I'm not entirely sold on which combination of main colours to use just yet, so I'm working my way through the bits that don't require as much thought.
I enjoyed my forays back into Necromunda in 2025, and I am looking forward to painting and playing Blood Bowl this year.
More Necromunda please. I realise this game is particularly enjoyable as a part of a campaign, but I find it difficult to commit the time to actually playing a campaign, especially during competition season (I'm a gymnastics coach by trade). So maybe just some one-off games here and there would scratch the itch.
Speaking of GW games, my friends tried to talk me into 40K recently, admittedly on my instigation and with my help, but on deeper reflection I don't think I want to go down that path. There's a good argument to make, that one should collect and play the games that other people play, and it's true there is a thriving 40K community around where I live, but no. I think Necromunda and Blood Bowl are enough GW for me.
Some of my friends are trying to draw me back into playing Dystopian Wars, and I'll be honest: I'm showing signs of cracking. The game is now under the auspices of Warcradle Studios, and if I do decide to rejoin the ranks of Dystopian Wars players, I'll have to get hold of a new fleet. Not sure which yet, I quite like the Egyptians, Prussians, and English, but I am also one of those people that likes to collect a fleet no-one else in the group is running, so we'll see where that lands me as the year rolls on and the cracks develop further.
Lastly Infinity... this one is a bit of a long shot. I have a heap of Yu Jing miniatures sitting in a box in my shed, all of which are assembled but unpainted. 2026 could be the year I break these out? Corvus Belli make lovely miniatures, and I would like to get some paint on them. Perhaps this could be the game that has me testing out some speed paints (which I have otherwise shied away from). No doubt I'll tell myself that I'll only do a simple and neat job on these, and then like every other time I'll end up picking out more and more detail until the 'speedy' job I was going to do ends up taking just as much time as my usual plodding method.
Fin
That's a wrap, and those are goals, for now at least. I am too often distracted by odd little miniatures games that no-one else plays that I'll probably end up wandering off and wanting to play something else entirely. I mean, I still have an unpainted English army for Sharpe Practice that could get a run, I have multiple lovely little anthropomorphic dinosaurs for Chronicles of Anyaral, and a collection of modified Hot Wheels cars for Gaslands. I have Silent Death space ships that I've been wanting to paint for years, and the itch to break out Full Thrust, a rules set I haven't played in more than 20 years.
But I have to stop thinking about all of those, because I am far too easily distracted.
Focus!
Blood Bowl first, then we'll see what comes next...
