Paint it or Punt it

My pledge from the Hobby Pledge thread starter in the forums by @lawnor

1. Paint it or Punt it – take a long hard look at my models and be honest about the chances of playing those games. Get rid of everything that is superfluous and create a spreadsheet of everything else to start painting. The end goal is a 100% painted collection but I’m not going to commit to that this year (or at least until I’ve taken inventory!)

2. Make terrain – over the last year my flat has become the base for our RPG games and I’d like to get enough terrain that it can be the same for our miniatures games. I really enjoy making terrain and I enjoy not having to leave my house

3. “Help” more people into the hobby. Last year I tried a group of friends on MESBG and they loved it but I didn’t follow through. This year I want to help get new players in to the hobby whether that’s by providing armies or teaching them how to paint their own. I’m very fortunate to have nerdy friends, it seems a shame not to corrupt them.

4. Get an army ready and the confidence to go to some tournaments for MESBG or Star Wars Legion.

5. Hobby for 30 minutes a day at least 25 days put of every month. That works out at 150 hours over the year minimum.

I’ve decided to rename this project to match the biggest of my hobby goals for the year – Paint it or Punt it.

I, like most people, have far more models than I’ll ever paint or ever play with. This year I want to slim down the collection to only things that are getting/going to get used and work towards 100% painted. I don’t like having so many things still on sprue or primed but nothing else. I want my collection to be something I enjoy not have stored in a cupboard in a cardboard box.

The first step of this is do to a full inventory of what I have. The second will be to have a hard look at what realistically is going to get used in the future. If it won’t, it goes (Punt it). If it will, it goes into the paint queue.

I’ve already started work on a new table for Star Wars Legion (Theed, Naboo) to go with an upcoming Legion Battle Companies Campaign were planning. I also have some MESBG terrain that I started on. Not sure what the balance will look like between painting models and terrain but in the first half of the year I’d liked to have this but if the pledge ticked off.

This one I’m confident of in theory but socialising is draining my energy badly at the moment.

This one we’ll come back to in tomorrow’s post about an addendum to the pledge.

The paint queue gets tackled by way of the original aim of this project – a little hobby every day. It’ll help work through the backlog and (I’m fairly sure) will help with the ongoing project of improving my noggin. Now every day might be a bit much so I’m starting out 2020 by going for 25 days out of the month. This gives me leeway without feeling guilty of I need a day or two off. I’ll still have a soft target of daily though.