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Forgive the personal post, but I wanted to talk about some things that are important to me here and on this website. Whether you’re American or not, I think this is a good time of year for reflection and thanksgiving. It’s kind of being grateful for the past year as the winter sets in and looking forward to what’s to come. It’s kind of like saying your prayers before you go to bed, except nighttime is winter.

Or whatever. I’m just grateful for some stuff.

The Success of The Wargame Explorer

I started this website about 18 months ago, on May 2nd of of 2021. I’m a writer by trade, and I work in internet marketing professoinally, so I figured I had the skills to do this. But I had never started what is essentially a small business before, and that was daunting.

Well, suffice it to say that things have grown far beyond where I ever thought they would. October was our best month ever, with 106,000 pageviews in the month. I know that for some sites that’s small potatoes, but for me running this all on my own, with no advertising budget and doing it in my spare time, it’s pretty satisfying.

And I have big plans for the site. I can’t predict where anything is going to go, but I’m only going to be devoting more time and effort into making this site grow. For the first time I’m getting companies actually reaching out to me for reviews and sponsorships rather than me reaching out to them–and that’s pretty cool.

Anyway, I’m really grateful for all of you who come here to read about wargames.

Continuing the Hobby Streak

I am grateful for the hobby streak. I’ve been a little lax about following the rules of #HobbyStreak strictly in recent months–I don’t post the pictures as often as I should–but I’m still hobbying every single day, at least 30 minutes. And since I started Jan 1st, 2021, I’m currently on Hobby Streak Day 683.

And am I getting better? Well, yes. I’m not routinely pumping out Golden Demon winners, but I’ve come an awfully long way from where I was 683 days ago–this picture above was on Hobby Streak Day One. But to me it’s never been about honing my hobby skills to a fine tip (I say “hobby” skills because to me this includes more than painting) but rather it’s about commitment and effort. It keeps me engaged. It keeps me present in the hobby, and it gets me to try different things. When you’re doing so much hobbying you can’t just work on one army or one game–you’ll get bored quickly. So I go from game to game, from company to company, and find fun new things to do.

Finishing Two Horus Heresy Armies

This one is a big one to me, even though it may seem like a little thing. I just said above that I get bored easily of one thing, and I mean that I have a really hard time painting a full army. In the last 683 days of Hobby Streak I have painted I think four full armies (I think) and by chance all of them were Space Marines. Two homebrews, (The Inferno, and The Rock Badgers) and then two Horus Heresy armies. (This isn’t because I’m a Space Marine nut, but because I find them easy and satisfying to paint. I got very close to full armies of Nighthaunt, Kharadron Overlords, and Idoneth Deepkin, but couldn’t slog through all the infantry.)

But I found The Horus Heresy Age of Darkness boxed set to be a wholly satisfying and enjoyable painting experience. I never got bored of it. I made an entire World Eaters army, and then, several months later, I dove in again and made an entire Word Bearers army.

I admit that I have yet to actually play a game of The Horus Heresy, but we’re getting to that. That was one of the major reasons why I painted a second army, so that I wouldn’t have to find another Heresy player–I could invite people to play with me. (I adore my FLGS, but their in-store wargaming scene is a little lacking. They stock everything, but their gaming tables are almost exclusively filled with card games.)

(I should also note that when I said I haven’t completed a lot of armies, that wasn’t including Bolt Action. I’ve completed like five Bolt Action armies, because they’re so quick to get through. And I love playing Bolt Action more than any other major wargame.)

Squats!

I am grateful that the Squats are back. I have talked often about how I was a Squats player back in 1st Edition, how I bought the box of plastic troops when I was in middle school, and how I have yearned to have Squats back in the game for decades.

I have now painted two squads of Necromunda Squats, plus an (almost) full complement of Leagues of Votann. I’m still missing the Land Fortress and the Berserks, but I have loved getting back into these guys.

It was also very fun to do my Scots Squats project, where I took along the Hearthkyn from the starter box on my trip to Scotland and got up in the early mornings before sightseeing and painted Squats from my flat overlooking the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. It was very satisfying.

Starting My Model Railroad

Remember how I said above that my Hobby Streak referred to a lot more than just painting? It especially refers to working on my railroad, which has taken over my (thankfully very large) desk. The model railroad was inspired by Boylei Hobby Time’s video. Well, it was inspired by the fact that I have LOVED model trains since I was nine, and it was model trains that ever got me interested in miniatures games. But Boylei Hobby Time was what push me over the edge.

I have an art project going where I create dioramas of Pilgrims fighting Sea Monsters. That has taken root in the model railroad, and this railroad is anything except realistic. Some of it is in N scale (the train itself) and some of it is HO scale (I like that for some, but not all, of the buildings) and the figures are 1/72 scale, and then I use a whole mix of monsters. In the picture seen here we have Union Cavalry fighting a Mega Gargant.

Having the railroad on my desk, where it quite literally surrounds my workspace, means that I am incredibly invested in this thing. And it is very gratifying, at the end of a hard workday, to just sit back and let the train run in its loop. I find the sound of the train to be remarkably therapeutic.

Meeting So Many Cool People

One thing I didn’t expect to come from starting this website was being able to meet so many interesting people. Back when this site was very young, with hardly any readership at all, I started trying to interview people. And the first person to bite (because of course he was) was Brent from Goobertown Hobbies. Brent is one of the most genuinely nice guys you would ever meet, and the fact that he responded to some nobody with a tiny site (it probably had twenty-odd articles at the time) speaks volumes about how willing he was to help the little guy.

But there have been so many people since then who have been willing to be interviewed, from Alex at 52 Miniatures to Matthew at Miniwargaming to Baldermort to Discourse Miniatures. And some have been involved multiple times, like friend of the site Troy at Sonic Sledgehammer, who has not only been interviewed twice (here and here) but also guest wrote a post for the site. And there have even been chances to interview game designers for promotion of their games, like I did with Will Hungerford for Rivenstone.

Getting to meet so many cool people was not something I’d planned, but it has been a wonderful side benefit. I will be very sad if Twitter ends up dying, because the wargaming community has been great (and dysfunctional, but mostly great).

Ukraine Fundraiser

I am EXTREMELY grateful for the success of the Ukraine fundraiser that we did earlier this year to raise money for Save the Children Foundation. It started with just three models and eventually grew to half my hobby shelf. We raised $1460.50 USD thanks to the generous donations of people who paid far more for my poorly-painted models than my models deserved.

I don’t often get political on this site (though I do on Twitter all the time, so you can find me there), but I got my undergrad degree in political science and international relations, and I don’t think there has been a more consequential conflict in world politics since the Vietnam War than the War in Ukraine. It doesn’t HAVE to be so consequential. It could end now and be a small paragraph in a history book. But the potential consequences if Ukraine loses, however they lose, are enormous in their implications.

And that’s to say nothing of the catastrophic human losses. There’s a reason that I wanted to donate to Save the Children and not a more military-oriented charity. This war is devastating–as is every war. (My words about Ukraine are not intended to downplay Syria or Iraq or anywhere else.)

Learning so many new games

On a lighter note, I am thankful for being able to learn so many new games. I’ve always been a wargamer, but I have notoriously been a Warhammer fanboy. While I did get my start, long ago, in historicals, I discovered Warhammer 40k in 1st Edition and never strayed.

But in the last eighteen months I have played so many great games. I have loved some (I absolutely adore Bolt Action) and I have disliked others (cough Kings of War cough). But honestly even the games I haven’t loved have been fun. I haven’t played a game for this website that I have legitimately hated. Even Kings of War (and Armada, it’s brother) are fun games that just have worldbuilding problems. To be 100% fair, I enjoy Kings of War gameplay right now much more than Warhammer 40k 9th Edition.

But there have been so many little games, like Sludge War and Silver Bayonet and Victory at Sea, that have been exciting and fun. It’s been great to fill up my shelves with all of these different games, to kitbash Turnip28, to try painting 13mm “Epic Scale” Black Powder.

I’m Thankful For My Readers

More than anything, I’m thankful for all of you who are reading this right now. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, last month we had 106,000 pageviews, which means 106,000 times someone read something I wrote, and that boggles my mind.

Thanks for the last eighteen months. Here’s to many more years, and I hope you have a wonderful thanksgiving, no matter where you live.