Paint it or Punt it

I’ve spent a few hours today going through models I know snuck their way into the flat since the last time I did a spreadsheet update so that I can start the second year of this project on an honest footing… sort of.

A couple of cheap ebay pick ups mean that total model count went up in Q4 having gone down for the previous 3 quarters of 2020.

There was shiny syndrome as usual in the form of the Khorne Daemons getting expanded. I’ve changed my mind about them and will be moving them on to fund future projects.

I’ve earmarked the last batch of things to be sold off. Then it is time to get back into painting.

At the start of the project last year my aims were simple: get my collection under control and stop kidding myself about games that I was never going to go back to.

The collection shrank from 1281 to 755 (-526). Painting % went from 8.8% to 32.9% thanks to Painting and Punting.

Games I got rid of everything for in alphabetical order

• Age of Sigmar
• Dust
• Guild Ball
• Infinity
• Kill Team
• 40K

There were some unfinished armies that moved on with the intention that new ones will replace them for the same game (mainly Kings of War).

The biggest loser was GW – I love the quality of their models but increasingly I’ve no interest in playing their games, the rules just don’t do it for me. Over the year I came to realise I have turned into one of those people who just reads the fiction. Other than MESBG, I don’t think there will be many GW purchases in my future.

The main result for me was beginning to question far more my motivations for buying models. I didn’t play a game at all in the whole of 2020 but have been working with the mindset of Beyond Covid. Getting back to my local club, GW isn’t played so thankfully I won’t be missing out.

The main aim for the Paint or Punt Project remains working towards 100% painted. Breaking it down to smaller goals looks like this for at least the first half of the year:

1. Of the 520 models that remain unpainted, 279 are MESBG because it is extremely easy to pick up cheap ebay armies. If I can get half of the factions completely painted I’ll be happy (currently 2 out of 9)
2. Burrows and Badgers to 100%
3. Finish painting the Star Wars Clone Wars core box now that I have inherited the painting responsibilities for all of it instead of just my half.
4. Judge Dredd 100%. These were given to me by a friend who was clearing out his own collection a couple of years ago and I’d really like to get them into the display cabinet
5. Frostgrave. With the intention of playing through the solo campaigns and scenarios at some point, it would be nice to have it mostly painted up.

One of the things not curently in the spreadsheet is my Mantic project. As I said above, I have intended to get a new KoW army since early last year and that remains a big part of this year’s hobby goals. This has been added to because Armada looks like my jam and I have some models on the way for it already.

Mantic will get it’s own project in the future but it’s numbers will be part of quarterly reviews.

Right, I think that’s enough rambling for now. I suppose I better get to painting…