2015: A Year In Review

Main hobby regret of the year - I didn't get my hands on this.  As far as I'm aware it still isn't available in PDF.

Another year is over, one in which I started strong then flailed a bit.  Still, that doesn't mean isn't appropriate to do what I did last year and summarise my year of nerdity.

A year in which the BEARDED Quail finally got to play with his bearded figures

We're going to look at how many figures I've painted; how many games I've played and won/lost/drawn; and which of my blog posts have been most popular. 

Where my painting projects have stalled: I still have ten half-painted archers to add to this unit.

First, let's look at my painting statistics.  This year I've painted the following:

• Chaos Dwarf Magma Cannon
• Three Chaos Dwarf Daemonsmiths
• Twenty Hobgoblin archers.
• Three polystyrene Rock Spire terrain pieces 
• Four cardboard ruined buildings
• But still not a single fucking Squat.

Considering I lost September onwards to the big black cloud of depression it's no wonder it wasn't very impressive.  Even so, though, twenty six 28mm figures and a single vehicle isn't much to show for 365 days of nerdity.  The terrain is cool and all but it also isn't terribly much to add to my bag of tricks.

I'm hoping that playing with Paul will helpg ee me along to restart the painting projects, in particular to go back to the Chaos Dwarf army now that I've got a venue to use them.

I'm a lot better than I was, at least.

 Next up is my game-playing statistics.  I've recorded 14 wargames of some stripe on blog this year, not counting two three-person games I took part in how did I do in them?

Total Played
	40K	40K 1st Edition	Dark Future	Dreadball Xtreme	Kings of War	Space Hulk	Star Trek Attack Wing	Sub-Total
Sister Superior						2		2
Charles	2							2
40K Dave			1	1				2
Aaron						2		2
Graeme	1							1
40K Dave + Josh	1							1
Kenny							1	1
Priestly Paul		2			1			3
Sub-Total	4	2	1	1	1	4	1
Wins
	40K	40K 1st Edition	Dark Future	Dreadball Xtreme	Kings of War	Space Hulk	Star Trek Attack Wing	Sub-Total
Sister Superior						1		1
Charles	1							1
40K Dave			1	1				2
Aaron						2		2
Graeme								0
40K Dave + Josh	1							1
Kenny								0
Priestly Paul								0
Sub-Total	2	0	1	1	0	3	0
Losses
	40K	40K 1st Edition	Dark Future	Dreadball Xtreme	Kings of War	Space Hulk	Star Trek Attack Wing	Sub-Total
Sister Superior						1		1
Charles	1							1
40K Dave								0
Aaron								0
Graeme	1							1
40K Dave + Josh								0
Kenny							1	1
Priestly Paul		2			1			3
Sub-Total	2	2	0	0	1	1	1

So, hat can we learn from these stats?

Other than "working out how to factor three-way games into this kind of report is too hard"

• My performance is a lot better when paired with a child.
• I have a higher win ratio playing as Charles' Orks than I do with my own armies. 
• There's a bunch of games I've only barely played like Dark Future, Attack Wing and Dreadball Xtreme and that needs changing.
• I should play 40K Dave and Aaron way more often

Maybe I'll have more luck in 2016 with new games?...

Finally, let's look at the blog stats.  What are my Top 10 most popular posts of last year in terms of page views?

Entry	Pageviews
Ganieda, Sister Of Merlin: My 150th Post 16 Aug 2015	472
Blast From The Past - White Dwarf 98 7 Jun 2015	401
The Perils Of Pygmies - Are These Old Figures Raci... 6 Aug 2015, 2 comments	325
In The Grim Darkness Of The Past There Is Only Lea... 22 Jul 2015, 6 comments	151
The Dying Dragon: Ode To A Game Shop 24 Apr 2015, 1 comment	142
8:15 From Manchester - A Bearded Quail Travelouge 25 Aug 2015	125
Blast From The Past: White Dwarf 97 5 Aug 2015	120
2014 – A Year In Review 1 Jan 2015	111
Bargain Hunting - White Dwarf 78 and 84 26 Mar 2015	108
March 4th – GMs Day 4 Mar 2015	105

The same question now follows:  what can we learn from these stats?

This year it's RPGing, not wargaming, that gets the top spot

• I was surprised to see my article on Ganieda was hugely popular.  Yes, I posted it on a couple of King Arthur Pendragon themed Facebook groups but even then why has it had such a huge surge of people?  I wonder if it's just because there's so little written about her: as mentioned in the article, Ganieda is something of a blank slate so it may be that people worldwide looking for info on her have few places to turn to.

Hey ladies!  Wanna see my pale midget?

• After that my read-throughs of old White Dwarfs take the second and seventh slot, as well as an entry down at ninth.  Facebook posts on modern day and retro themed Warhammer groups probably helped here - there's clearly an appetite for these posts.  Just as well, as I've got a new five issues of White Dwarf I intend to cover in the near future.
  
  
  

  

  This one went worse than I imagined

  
  
  
  
• My third highest post is The Perils of Pygmies, which generated a lot of discussion on groups I frequent but also caused a bit of a meltdown on the main one I'd hoped to get traffic and thoughts from.  I got some good comments in the follow-up that salvaged it a bit, but unfortunately what could have been a really interetesting discussions went really horrible really fast.
• None of the Book Club graphic novel review posts clock in very high, suggesting none of you care terribly much about them.  That's not surprising as they're a bit off the main thrust of this blog.

  

  The blog's mascot appears again

• You are more interested in my summary of 2014 than you are in most of my posts of 2015, which suggests you'd appreciate more TL;DR summaries than my trademark warbling.

  

  That's not hugely likely.