2023 Challenge - March

So in March, some things happened. Those things were a lot and so I found it hard to paint, let alone paint anything to completion. Since that's the case I'll just briskly run through things I did accomplish, because there's more to life than minis... and there are other accomplishments than painting a guy to put on a shelf. (Accomplishments will be bulleted with interspersed elaboration.)

• I collected, cannibalized, assembled and partially painted about 440 points of Death Guard (circa 8th edition indexes.) The list so far is a chaos lord, a helbrute, two squads of plague marines, and eventually will include a squad of poxwalkers (and maybe a spawn and a plague surgeon to stretch it into 750 points for 8th ed codex games.)
• I played a game with them and at the very last moment mustered a tie (as opposed to a loss.)
• I dug out some 3D printed minis my friend Nicolai sent me some years ago and popped at least one on a base.

I'm pretty satisfied with these accomplishments, since most of them involved me working with things I already had. For a number of years I had a habit of collecting minis that I didn't necessarily have a plan for, and that includes starter sets for Warhammer 40k. The most basic version of the game was 40 USD at the time, and came with a handful of miniatures for each side (6 primaris and 9 death guard,) and for years they languished in a box.

In the time between now and then, I was gifted a space wolves army, had bought some death guard blind boxes, and had swapped for a handful of old finecast plague marines, and since the recession...

(Hi people in the future, a recession began early 2023 and has since gotten very real with inflation of housing and consumables markets. Big yikes for my pals in the present!) 

...began taking it's toll, it was the perfect opportunity to work within the constraints of my hoard. Admittedly, I didn't have a dreadnought, so I snagged someone's 20 USD helbrute, and now I've got a little pile of pus boys. This army is kitbashed mostly out of old/firstborn marines and plauge marines, and blue-stuffed components (another way to stretch the collection is with bad pressmolds.) I figure I'll save the newscale plague marine bodies for specialists and heroes, and at present I'm stumped about the poxwalkers (what to make them out of because I think the actual models too goofy for me,) but otherwise I've made a playable army that while not good or competitive... it goes on a board and does a thing. That's all I want really. Just to make a collection of minis for a thing, and then to use them. So those are coming down the pipe, someday.

• I've been making progress on formatting a card game named Necroduel. Its nearer to finished than it isn't, but once it is, it'll be exciting to share it. Doing this project from start to end, I realize that I'm like a triathelete in a quadathlon, where I can idea, design and draw really good, but the digitizing is a real stumbling block for me. That being said, I'm ready to develop this skill, since I'll need it again real soon!
• That's because I'm developing some ccg/ecg type games, and I've playtested this new one a few times to solid success! Its probably a while out from the light of day, but that's the nature of most creative pursuits; people only know about it when its 95% done. I'm not quite at that point, but I'm pleased with the progress thus far!

• I secured housing for next year despite rent crisis.
• I watched the country I live in strip away rights from trans people like me for a month. This will continue to be an issue for the forseeable as more anti-trans legislation tries to get written into law. This is heartbreaking and disgusting and reminiscent of the pre-holocaust years, and as much as that sentence sounds like hyperbole, it is not.
• I led a book club on Carmen Maria Machado's The Low, Low Woods, and planned the next one for Michael Deforge's Sticks Angelica.

Its really nice, getting to read books and talk about the books and think about books with other people. I still need to pick my next book, and I think we'll do something Super-flavored since that's the flagship genre of the medium. Right now we're split between N. K. Jemisen's Far Sector and Tom King's Strange Adventures, neither of which I've read anything by, but both whom I've heard nothing but praise for. Tune in next time and maybe I'll remember to say which we went with.

And there you have it, the comings, goings, and rumblings of a nerd. As stated earlier, while none of these are direct related to having painted miniatures, they're still cool things I did that maybe get me closer to opportunities where I might paint a bunch of little dudes. Time will tell, but I am sleepy, and so...

See you in the funny pages Comrades! Bye bye!