Two Years of Nonsense

Good Sunday everyone!

Wow can you believe it's been two years already? Ok two years and 5 days, I'm a little behind on schedule.

But my what a year it has been.

This year saw a lot of changes, some I'm proud of, others not so proud.

For starters I passed my first exam back at the end of March! Since then I have passed three more with one left for this course outstanding.

It's funny actually reading back at my post last year, all I wanted to do was pass 1 exam, now if I can just pass one more, that will be 5 in the bag complete with level 2 of AAT.

But we've also seen more this year, and not all of it so great.

We've seen me hanging up my henchman tshirt and stop working on my own game MaliQuest.

I think both of these points are both good and bad at he same time. Henching was something I really enjoyed, but my heart wasn't in it to carry on. More importantly it game me an excuse to go and visit my Local Gaming Store, which since I have visited only once or twice.
- To my defence, it is a 4 hour round trip to get there and back.

In regards to MaliQuest, moving away from the established Malifaux licence was scary, and it certainly hurt the interest that it was receiving, however doing so has allowed me to explore the game in ways I never thought possible before.

I also started New Fairbank Radio, yup that's right, it was in the past 12 months hat was started, and boy does it feel a lot longer.
We started as a MaliQuest cast with myself, my wife Sarah and our friends Tom and Vicky. Since then Tom had to leave and we were joined by Vicky.

Now we're playing CRYPTS, however it is with great sadness that I must inform you that we're taking another hiatus following our winter break.
- yeah, it's all to do with my last exam. I want to ensure that I pass it, so am trying to focus as much spare time on that as possible.

I also started Hobby Sofa with my friend from my FLGS Andrey, we record monthly and are now regularly joined by friends of the cast. This is due to carry on, but that is because I don't need to put half the work into that, that I do into NFR.

Of course we also saw me 'complete' my Malifaux collection, including a number of models I have still to finish painting, but that is largely to make way for my new modelling focus for the immediate future; Hell Dorado!

We also saw me having a minor breakdown over the direction Malifaux was taking, and in turn we saw a drop off in quality of posting. This is probably my biggest regret of he year, but I have worked hard to correct that, and now I believe I am back to my old self and using this medium of blogging to celebrate what I love, be it table top games or video games.

And that is how I see this blog progressing for the next year. Without my Henching taking up every 4th weekend, I'm able to spend a lot more time with my other love, video games, and I'm really really enjoying getting back into that, as I am sure has been obvious what with my recent posts about these games.

*******************

It's customary in these sort of posts to also comment on what hopes and dreams you have for the next year, plus mentioning things you are looking forward to and are excited about.

I guess my main hope is to be still writing this in a years time.
After that, I'm also hoping to get some more table top games in, both at the clubs near me and at home - I do think picking up Star Trek will help with that.

I am looking forward to seeing what else Cipher Studios put out for Hell Dorado what with their Kickstarter of Inferno now being received, so it is only a matter of time before we start seeing content in shops.

We also have a number of things coming from Blizzard Entertainment; the Diablo 3 expansion, along with Warlords of Draenor for WoW.

Oh and how can I forget, there's the new Alien game coming!

All in all I have a lot to look forward to, and that is not even touching on Salute2014 where me and Andrey will be meeting with the SoulStone Train podcast crew!

So on that note, take care everyone, stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!

- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley