New year hobby resolutions

Last year was very hard for everyone. It impacted me and my family on multiple levels and there were many challenges we faced (and we're probably not alone - I believe that many other people faced similar challenges as well). Things seem to be slowly settling down at the moment, so I spent some time thinking what should be my hobby goals for 2021.

For this year, I really wanted to focus on finishing my Everchosen army and painting a small group of Sylvnaeth models using an alternate colour scheme. Also, I started building Tzeentch army that uses Chaos Warriors, Tzaangors and some Daemons. Right now, I want to keep it fairly small and play some games with it (I would really like to try Meeting Engagement rules). This army is probably going to be my main "hobby project" in the near future, so expect to a few posts about it on this blog.

So, here are my hobby goals for 2021:

• Build all models for my WH40K and Age of Sigmar armies, with the exception of Adeptus Custodes (however, I will aim to build them as well if I can). The Adeptus Custodes are an exception simply because my focus for this year will not be so much on WH40K - it will mainly revolve around Age of Sigmar. My Necrons are fully painted at this point, and I will probably have my Chaos Space Mrines army painted for me. For WH40K games that I will play, I plan to use my Necrons, in order to try out their new Codex. This means that Adeptus Custodes are going to wait for some time, so I don't have to hurry.
  
• Finish painting first unit of Varanguard, paint the second unit of Varanguard, paint Kurnoth Hunters, Tree-Revenants and converted Branchwych. 
• Try to update the blog at least once a month.
  
• Obviously - play more games, especially narrative-driven ones.
  

I should be able to meet all these goals - they are fairly small and should be quite manageable. In fact, I have managed to already assembled a lot of stuff: Sylvaneth Warcry starter, Branchwraith (by converting the Branchwych model) and all models from Slaves to Darkness starter. Currently, I am assembling the Akhelian Leviadon, so it seems that the goal regarding assembling all models will be completed in the near future. When it comes to painting, I don't worry too much about the Slvaneth, because I have already painted a lot of them (over 3500 points) and despite using alternate colour scheme, I think I can move pretty fast. However, the only thing that I am concerned about is painting Varanguard - the first unit progressed very slowly because I was looking for a colour scheme to use and then I wasn't satisfied with some parts of the paintjob, so I spent a lot of time fixing that. I am still not sure which colour scheme to use for the second unit - should I simply continue using the existing one, or try something new (probaly something Tzeentch-like). 

But, I also realized that it would be a good idea to have these goals visualized in some way. I am a software engineer and I also love Kanban boards, so I have decided to use once such board for tracking my hobby projects. I also like visualizing progress in this way, because I can clearly see how much has been done and what else is there to do. I am using Asana for tracking my hobby backlog. Here's how it looks like right now.

This is my board for tracking how many models I have assembled. There is also another one, that is used for tracking models that I have painted during the year. I have broken down everyting I want to do in small "tasks", and I work on one task at a time, trying  to be as consistent as possible (and also avoid working on anything else, which is easier said than done :D ). 

However, during the last year I have also made a some hard decisions regarding my hobby - this meant selling some stuff, or abandoning some ideas completely. These decisions were made not only because of general lack of time, but also due to me wanting to spend less on miniatures and wanting to more carefully plan my hobby activities. I'll soon write a post about this as well - because it may be helpful for people who are facing similar decisions. Stay tuned!