Goal Setting 2020

Time for my 8th annual Hobby Goal update!  Once again I look into the future and try to establish some timelines and objectives that I will ultimately ignore/fail to achieve in the name of personal motivation!

This is my battlefield.

In the past I have tried several different approaches and personal challenges to keep it interesting.  Last year my 'the past must pay for the future' actually worked out better than I expected.  I managed to reduce the overall size of the lead pile significantly while not overspending on new toys.  With that framework in mind I am going to continue along the same vein.  Looking at my project catalog I have 111 planned units already in the queue ranging from 1/6000 scale warships to 28mm tanks.  This amounts to roughly 3600 equivalent painting points.  My annual totals average around 5000 points and   150 entries, so it is within the realm of the possible to clear the backlog.  (note that possible and probable are significantly different animals think 'edible' and 'good to eat')

I would like to focus more on building up my terrain and skirmish collection, so I plan setting my point goal to a more modest 4500 points (for me at least).  By scale that will look like this

2020 by Scale (Projected)

Note that 28mm will continue to dominate as I plan to tackle both the backlog of Renaissance and Kushite models in the collection.  (Plus the Vikings I am currently working on.)  More importantly, my goal is to continue to focus more on the backlog of models rather than new acquisitions. Most of the above collection items were purchased before 2018, so I expect to have at least half my production be from those long neglected models. 

2020 by year of Acquisition (Projected.)  

Going into the specifics of my collection objectives, lets take a look at the major objectives:

28mm Dark Ages:  I had a bit of a revival in painting my 28mm viking collection in 2019 that will continue into 2020.  I plan on replacing all of my old plastic models with metal ones that are more conducive to skirmish gaming.  I have most of the models on-hand, and the re-base of the older models is now complete.  I expect to do about 8 units overall with another 9-12 personalities for the vikings.  In addition, I want to expand the Skraelings to a full five units with 2-3 more command figures in the coming year. 

28mm Renaissance:  I had a large number of figures from a successful kickstarter come in in 2018 that has left me with another 12 units to go.  I want to add another unit of Gendarmes to the collection as well as some missile troops.  That and three artillery pieces that need to get beyond the primer phase.

28mm Samurai Era:  A success story from 2019, the only remaining pieces are some personality figures and skirmish models.  I want to finish Takeda Shingen (finally) and then a loose collection of Sohei skirmishers.  If I can clear enough stuff from the Queue, then Warlord's new Ona Bugeisha and Sohei packs look very promising.  (as well as Footsore's Ashigaru Scouts)  Not much is planned for the Korean army, unless there is a surprise release of armed Buddhist monks for the period. 

28mm WWII:  I need to finish the last units for my US Airborne force (a section of LMGs) as well as a US Half-Track and Sherman Tank.  I managed to pick up a 28mm British Airborne command and specialty pack at a steep discount when the Warstore ended business, that will serve as the seed for a planned platoon for Chain of Command at some point.  

28mm Ancients:  Still working on finishing off my Kushite Egyptian force, though I seem easily distracted.  I have the models to finish five more chariots, three stands of light cavalry and a horde of archers. 

18mm Seven Years War:  I already managed to get another unit of Curassiers added to the collection this month.  I have enough models to do three units of Cossacks and 4 stands of combined grenadiers.  That should be enough to call it done for anything after Kunersdorf. 

10mm Seven Years War:  Just four light infantry regiments to go.  You'd think I would have just done it by now. You would be wrong. 

10mm American Civil War:  Another collection that has not hit the table in awhile and thus suffers for it.  10 units await completion, I need to at least finish the bands and the ambulance stands as they are long overdue from being the last of the Secret Santa minis in the collection.

6mm SciFi:  I love the old Battletech minis (my first real wargame following GHQ micro armor back in the 80's), and so I threw in on the Clan Invasion Kickstarter which will deliver sometime in 2020 (maybe...)  I still want to give them a try using the Polyversal rule system, so I plan to finish off a couple regiments of mechs, infantry and armor.  Overall about 20 mechs, and 100 suits of body armor/infantry in all.

3mm Moderns:  Another nearly complete collection.  There are still a large number of Helos awaiting completion as well as some CAS aircraft.  

1/6000 Naval:  Going on 15 years without completing the US capitol ships from the Leyte Gulf boxed set.  I want to at least get the Battleships and Aircraft carriers done this year. 

Overall Hobby Goals

In addition to growing the projects/shrinking the lead pile I have several other objectives for the year:

1. More games:  Time continues to be my enemy.  I managed two games with Jon over winter break after a four month hiatus.  I had the opportunity over the summer to play numerous Skirmish games with my son, but time for larger games with adults is still a rarity.  I would like to at least get my 28mm Imjin War collection and 10mm SYW out on the table this year.  y goal will be to host a game on my table twice this year.  (I think the last time was in 2015).  That said my current goals for games at home are:
1. Chotusitz 1742 (Prussia versus Austria) I originally set out to do this as a play-by email style game with Jon over the summer, but it unfortunately did not go well.  The battle itself if very interesting, but modeling it correctly proved to be a significant challenge. I have the the AAR at about a 50% solution as it stands and the battle is still set up on my game table.   This the Prussians coming out party for their new and invigorated Cavalry following their poor showing at Mollwitz the year prior, so it seems like a decent follow-up.
2. Chungju 1592 (Japan versus Korea)  This is one of the first open field battles during the Japanese Invasion.  While a crushing defeat for the Koreans, I think it could make for an interesting delaying action.  More research is needed before I opt to dedicate this one.  
2. New Light Box  I picked up some white LED lights as part of the post Christmas clearance sales.  I plan to take some time in the shop this summer and build a light box to replace the German-landscaped cardboard box I have been using for about 10 years now.
3. Game Table 2.0: I have been using my den as a cabinetry lab for my woodshop for some time now.  One of my first projects when we moved to the new house back in 2012 was to construct a custom game table.   I have learned some new techniques since then, and there are a lot of improvements I would like to make.  Especially expanding the table top from 4'x6' to 5'x 9'  This may depend on the other projects for this summer, but I have already been working on my concept sketches. 
4. Wrangle my Terrain:  Another big addition to the collection has been my expansion of available terrain for the table top.  All of the skirmishing necessitated new buildings and scatter terrain.  My overall goal is to get where I can lay down a decent 4' square table worth of Urban Ruins (c. 1980s), jungle (fantasy) and medieval ruins (Frostgrave, Rangers).  The implied task then is to actually have a workable storage system for all that over-sized 28mm terrain.
5. Clean up and repair of old collections.  I recently started rejuvenating my Spanish American War US army collection.  I still have my 20mm 1973 Arab-Israeli collection to fix up as well as some old GW Bretonnians.  The goal is to get the bases standardized and fix old/faded paint.  After that, I suppose the 20mm WWII collection needs the most love. 
6. Clean up my base sizes.  Also of importance is getting my existing collection more standardized to make games easier.  I have been moving towards a two scale system for quite some time (10mm and 28mm), but am reticent to eliminate my existing large collections of 6mm figures. One thing I do want to do is get all of my models on standard bases, so I can use them for both skirmishing and large scale games like impetus.  This also provides a chance to 'unify' the flocking/basing materials for some of the more eclectic collections which helps to pull together the set despite the different manufacturer and painting styles over the year. 

So there it is, written out and cast to the winds as a prayer to the dice gods.  Let's see how much of this can survive contact with the hobby table this year.