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The 2023 Ovelist: Well this turned out to be a different result from what I expected. I was fairly sure that I had done a good job of making my hobby goals a reality, but when it comes down to it, I’m not even batting .500.

So last year I started the Ovelist. The Ovelist is something that I’d heard about from one of my favorite Warhammer YouTubers, Arbitor Ian, and it is essentially a graphical set of goals for the year. (It is named after a friend of Arbitor Ian’s named Andy Ovel.) Most of these are made in matrices, and I chose to do a 4×3, so 12 goals. I figured one a month was reasonable, and it’d give my website some direction.

I failed. Let’s go through the goals one-by-one and see how they all turned out, and then we’ll talk about what my new 2023 Ovelist.

2022 Ovelist Goals

1. Build Two Forces of the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game So I Can Play With My Son

I did literally nothing with this goal. I never decided which armies I was going to paint, and I got very close to being motivated to do this with the new Battle of Osgiliath set, but it never materialized.

If I were going to do this, one of the forces is definitely going to be Rohan. But what’s the other? I have no idea. I’d like a Dwarf army, but don’t have any plans of making one in the near future.

2. Build a New 2000 Point, Game-Legal Space Marine Army

This one I actually did! I built a 2000 point Space Marine army, a successor of the Salamanders called The Inferno. I am really happy with it, especially the vehicles… but I sold it. I honestly love painting Space Marines more than any other Warhammer 40k army, so I expect I’ll do this again this year.

3. Build a New 2000 Point, Game-Legal Age of Sigmar Army

I thought I was really onto this one with the Kharadron Overlords. But it turned out I just liked the airships. I made a Frigate, an Ironclad, and a Gunhauler, and then I stopped. I learned a lot along the way, this being the first time that I’d painted with oil washes, but I just didn’t get the same thrill of painting the infantry as I did the big units.

This was the same problem that I had with this goal in 2021: on my Idoneth Deepkin army, I painted the turtles and sharks and eels but really hated the infantry.

4. 5 Indie Game Reviews

I reviewed eight games in the last year: Enderain, Blood Red Skies, Victory at Sea, A Song of Ice and Fire, Black Powder, Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperialis, and World War Three: Team Yankee. But only one of those is an indie game (Enderain). I need to be better about this in the next year.

For what it’s worth, of the games I reviewed, the one I routinely replay is Aeronautica Imperialis. I really liked that game.

5. SQUATS

I put this on the Ovelist based on the rumors that they were coming (remember the big list of leaks?). But, when they came I went all-in. I bought two boxes of the Necromunda Squats and I have the entire range of Leagues of Votann except for the Hekaton Land Fortress, but it will be mine.

(It should be noted that despite owning the full model range of the Leagues of Votann it’s still not a 2000 point army. I have one of everything, but that’s not enough to get you there.)

6. Napoleonics

Yeah, didn’t make this one either, though I tried. I painted up quite a few British Napoleonics, if you count by number of heads and not number of models (I painted a few sprues of Warlord Games Epic Scale Waterloo miniatures–Epic Scale is 13mm, so you’ve got about ten soldiers per model.)

I have done a lot of things that are Napoleonic-adjacent, such as Sludge War and Silver Bayonet and Black Powder. Black Powder is the closest that I’ve come to Napoleonics, but I painted up mainly American Revolution models for that.

I don’t know if this is something I plan to go back to. I’ve been enticed by Sonic Sledgehammer’s “Imagi-nations”, imaginary nations from Napoleonic times. But, I don’t know if I have the drive.

7. Release a Rule Set

I did not, in fact, release my rule set. I had a really great idea for a game and the very week I started playtesting a game with the exact same premise (which is very specific) was released. So, back to the drawing board.

8. Star Wars Legion

I pulled this one out at the last minute! I’d dabbled with Star Wars Legion on and off all year–I find the models to be exceptionally rewarding to paint–and I did both the Shadow Collective and the bulk of the Rogue One Empire. But in December I got two full fighting forces to do the Battle of Hoth. This is thanks, in large part, to the Echo Base Defenders Expansion, which gives you just a horde of minis. It does seem weird that they would release an Echo Base Defenders set and not an Echo Base Attackers set–I had to assemble the Snowtroopers and AT-ST separately–but it still worked out.

9. Turnip28

I put together enough models for a small force, mainly kitbashing off of the Warlord Games Waterloo (28mm) set and the Warcry Iron Golems set. But I never had enough models to actually play a full game.

10. Batman Miniatures Game

I bought the starter set for this and painted it all up. I was a little frustrated with it because Harley Quinn, the main villain, carries a large hammer made of resin that broke in transit and was too tiny to pin.

I still really love the look of this game and I’d like to get more into it. But my love is primarily for the models, not the gameplay. And the models have to be shipped from the manufacturer in Spain, which is a real pain in the butt (and expensive).

11. Malifaux

Nope. I bought two boxes and didn’t love the true-scale models so I never even assembled all of them.

12. Continue the Hobby Streak

Success! I started the hobby streak on January 1st 2021, which means that I am getting close to two years (Day 728 today!)

2023 Ovelist

So these are my goals for my 2023 Ovelist. As I was working on it, and looking back on my general failures of 2022, I considered dropping it down to 9 things instead of 12, but ambition got the better of me and here we are. The things I want to work on in 2023 are:

1. Batman Miniatures Game

I will play this game and paint its models and do an actual review of it. I really like the new Starter Set, which is based on the new The Batman movie. I wish that Batman’s group of henchmen weren’t cops, but there you go. I also am ordering the Suicide Squad, because that just looks like a lot of fun.

2. Kill Team for Every Chapter

I said that I love painting Space Marines, but ANOTHER Space Marine army? No. Instead, I’m going to flex my customization skills and make a Kill Team for every one of the nine loyal legions. The Dark Angels and White Scars have been ordered and are incoming next week so I can get started. (And I WILL figure out Green Stuff.)

3. Sci-Fi Terrain

As evidenced by my Enderain review, the one thing that is missing from my shelves is good sci-fi terrain. I have a ton of medieval and World War Two terrain, but very little sci-fi. I hope to remedy that this year, if I do nothing more than build a cool Necromunda playing area.

4. Imperial Guard

I am a longtime Imperial Guard fanboy, because when the Squats were discontinued in the lore I proxied my Squats as Imperial Guard. I also happen to love tanks. So with the release of the new Imperial Guard–and especially the Rogal Dorn tank–I’m going to have to get in on that action.

5. 2000 Point Age of Sigmar Army

I know I failed at this last year, but I really want to get it done. Odds are 90% that it’ll be Nighthaunt, an army I have painted and sold twice, but I do that because I like them so much.

6. Solo Wargaming

I want to get more into solo wargaming, and will be actively seeking out wargames with solo playstyles. My 2023 Ovelist is where I’m going to do it.

7. Undaunted

I have heard nothing but awesomeness about the Undaunted series, and every playthrough I’ve seen of Undaunted: Stalingrad makes it look amazing.

8. Finish Train Layout

Not wargaming, but still in my 2023 Ovelist. My train layout is have model railroad and half art installation (I plan to post a bunch of pictures of it soon) but half of it is very unfinished, and the part that is fairly finished is still in need of a lot of tweaking. Although I’m of the opinion that a train layout is never finished, I want to get close enough that someone would look at it and say it appears complete.

9. SPQR

I love Hail Caesar, and have been looking forward to getting my hands on SPQR, the skirmish version from Warlord Games, for quite some time. And this is a cheat as a goal because I got it for Christmas so I know that I’ll have it to work on.

10. Massive D-Day Campaign

This is big. As part of my 2023 Ovelist, I want to have a massive D-Day campaign that will see battles play out in 28mm scale (Bolt Action) but also much smaller scale so we can see the bigger war. I want to have Rangers scale Point du Hoc, I want to have Commandos take Pegasus Bridge, I want to have Airborne land behind enemy lines. And, of course, I want Omaha Beach. I have plenty of Bolt Action armies to put this all on, but I want a much broader game where we can play the whole battle. We’ll see. (This will, of course, all take place for June 6th.)

11. 6 More Interviews

I have been lucky to interview a lot of fascinating people for this website, and I want to interview at least six more–full profile interviews–for 2023.

12. Warhammer 10th Edition?

This one is up in the air. We all are 99% sure that Warhammer 10th Edition is coming out, and the rumors I’m hearing seem to indicate Blood Angels (red-painted generic Space Marines, likely) against Tyranids. I LOVE Blood Angels. I have never painted Tyranids, at least not since the first edition of Space Hulk’s genestealers. So, I imagine I’ll get roped into this one.