I’ve only discovered TGN recently and it’s opened my eyes to lots of new releases and companies I’d either forgotten about or simply didn’t know existed.

Miniatures

Highlights for me have been the Hydra Miniatures 30mm pulp range (my first purchase of 30+mm minis) - I’ll be buying more of these next year. Hydra’s customer service is excellent btw.

I also bought some Brood minis fromDark Age namely the Hounds, Broodlings and Puds, and these are great looking ‘gribblies’ for any system.

Artizan Designs Thrilling Tales range has been another place I’ve recently spent some cash and will be doing again next year. Loadsa characters here.

Games

I bought Fantastic Worlds from Ratrap Productions - lots of fun.

I’ve also got the rulebook for Hordes from PP which I haven’t played yet but will be doing in the new year if Santa brings me some new toys to play with :-)

Stuff I’m looking at

Followng my Ask TGN about WWII I’ll be delving into WWII skirmish gaming next year, expanding on some of the ranges I’ve already mentioned and trying to resist GWs new Ork releases.

I’ll also be buying into Copplestone Castings ranges and the many Pulp Sci-Fi miniatures I’ve seen here on TGN.

Finally I’ll be buying the Alpha Forge Mephalian Gort and crew as mentioned above - I voted for that one in the Sci-Fi range when the votes were running. It struck me as being very unique and full of character and something I’d enjoy owning even if I didn’t play many games using it.

Phew! I’m going to need to earn a lot more money next year.

Thanks Larkin Vain, a pleasure to have you playtest Pulp City!

My new games this year:

Infinity: great miniatures, though not in everybody’s book, very nice to paint too.
The rulebook is just to messy to me, I admire the way it was published but the spinning colors and tons of very advanced rules put me off.

AE -WWII: Great game, good to very good minis, love the customization options, though as Larkin has mentione, it is hard to put together prior to painting. The sculpts keep getting better, the game will OWN weird war market in 2008!

Wyrd: I love most of the line, some - madly. It’s one of the lines that I really enjpy painting. Can’t wait to see the game!

Hordes/WM: The game slowly drifts to a point where fielding warjacks is only good against friends that play with warjacks too. I hope 2008 will bring some balance, until then I will still enjoy playing with friends.

2008:

lots of hopes and plans: Helldorado is picking up the pace, new GW Vampires had rekindled some fire in me. This will be a great year!

Let’s see this year I got (but not neccesarily have played):

Urban War starter: (it was on sale with the new game coming out for $20). Haven’t played it yet, or um painted it yet for that matter.

Anima Tactics: Got the light side starter and a few neutrals, all finally painted but not played yet. I got a friend to get dark side starter so hopefully I can start getting some games in. Fantastic figures, not too hard to peice together either. Hear that PP?

Confrontation (metal): I bought a bunch of these when they were on sale as Rackham decided to go all plastic. Haven’t played yet… haven’t painted them yet for the most part.

AT-43 starter: Got it, played it, love it. I just wish Rackham would have stepped up and sent me a new Wraith Golgoth for the one that came broken in the box after I followed their rules and sent them a few pictures with descriptions. Disappointed with a lack of any response. This has actually kept me from buying more so far.

Hordes Trollblood starter: I had every intention of painting them and getting them out on the table but so far three of them sit in primer.

Superfigs 15 mm packs: I was waiting for them to release a set of figures for this system making it easy to get into and they did a few weeks ago. These haven’t even been opened yet as my wife commandeered them when they came in the mail until after the holidays.

Things that I’ve let fall by the wayside

Star Wars Minis: I think after hundreds of dollars spent, I’ve learned my lesson that collectable miniatures are just not my thing. Even if it’s Star Wars. The last boosters I bought were Bounty Hunters and the product quality seemed pathetic. The silver lining is I recently got into the RPG game and I have every figure I need to help that out.

Warmachine: Great game but I think PP has gotten off the goal with this one. While the Pirates are cool, they aren’t Steampunk. And the endless versions of cavalry make me less interested. I still want to play but I like the warjacks a lot more than solos or cavalry. Go Khador!

Things on the list for 2008.

Helldorado (in English please)

Pulp City looks phenomenal so far. Release it already!

Wyrd’s upcoming game. I think top to bottom they sculpt the most interesting miniatures. But I don’t want to start buying until I see some defined factions. We’ll call this a wallet tightening decision (painful).

I’d love to get into Infinity but it just seems really expensive and you have to be a good painter to really get teh most out of their amazing figures and I’m average at best.

I also got Marvel heroscape on sale and am planning ontrying a friend’s copy of Tannhauser. I’d consider these more board gamish though.

Company I’m most disappointed in: Mongoose. Seriously I was all set to get into Battlefield Evolution and then you went and released some awful figures from a quality control standpoint and then totally abandoned the game. I will NEVER give Mongoose my cash. I just think the whole thing has been handled pathetically by them. They have blamed everyone else but themselves.

My own favorite…

games/supplement
Hell Dorado as a first. The game pretty much combines everything I like from other systems and drops what I dislike from them. On top of that the universe is attractive and the minis amazing.
Hordes-Evolution is a close second. The storyline gets more and more captivating, PP is as always on top of their game when it comes to designing rules, and their miniatures get better and better as they mature.

fantasy minis
This year was literally overwhelming in this category. I’ll keep it to my very favorite ones.
Most of the stuff from Hell Dorado is simple way above everything else in my opinion, but I think Bran Carnoth, the greater Damned of Anger, and Chams Al Majid are the most striking ones to me.
Rackham’s swan song will definitely be the Mid Nor demon tower to me. It pretty much combines everything I used to love about this manufacturer.
Warmachine/Hordes had quite a few interesting models this year again, I think I’ll settle on the Warpwolf extreme (a bold and very under appreciated model imo) and Borka Kegslayer for Hordes, and Captain Rengrave for Warmachine.
Last but not least, the 54mm demon from JMD miniatures.

SF miniatures
The whole Infinity range acts as a continuous and strong incentive to get into the game. The Ariadna tank hunter and the Nomads Daktari are probably my favorite ones here.

Pulp minis
Harby from Hasslefree. Two of my favorite comic books in one mini, what can I say?
I’m assuming it belongs to that category, the bath girl from Crocodile games is probably on my overall top5 for this year. I put the link as there are few pictures of the model around, but you might consider it as NSFW.

Thanks Larkin Vain, a pleasure to have you playtest Pulp City!
Thanks. It was a pleasure and a blast to playtest. A great game that I can’t wait to come out.

I also got Marvel heroscape on sale and am planning ontrying a friend’s copy of Tannhauser. I’d consider these more board gamish though.
Man I almost totally forgot about Heroscape! I’m a very big fan and went really big with this game. I currently own 3 master sets, 2 master sets 2, 2 castle sets, 2 forest sets, 2 laval set and 1 ice set. I’m trying to complete my collection with expansions. It’s a great game and perfect way to introduce young ones into the world of miniatures game. It’s simple enough that I got my wife to play it with me, yet complex enough to have strategic army building and combos.

Mention them all you want but I would prefer if there were no links. :-)

Don’t forget that Toys R Us has also been running sales on the sets as well.

The games I’m playing currently must suggest what games and models I think really stand out, this year.

Infinity
First off, the minis are top notch. They are well proportioned (aside from the giant guns) and well detailed. It’s the kind of game that benefits from some house rules in the same way Necromunda or Mordheim did. It’s a game in that vein and incorporating guided weapons, parabolic fire, stealth and electronic countermeasures, its a very tacticly rich game.

Helldorado
With some help from a few fellow hobbyists, english rules are available. Again, the minis are gorgeous. I’m particularly fond of the Westerners and the Arab/Persian faction. The game plays surprisingly quickly and smoothly but with enough interesting special actions to give it color. If you’re just a collector or painter you can’t go wrong with these minis, some of which are far mroe gruesome and nightmarish that we might be accustomed to in the hobby. With a little bit of effort translating your cards, you have a great game, too.

Warmachine/Hordes
Though I’m a little burnt out on the leagues, I continuously find myself coming back to my work table to assemble and paint my Privateer Press stuff. This is the game I’m most likely able to get a pick-up game with. The models continue to be top notch (though I think Infinity and Helldorado are a cut above) and the game continues to be brutal. It’s a game of big wins and big losses. Evolution was a beautiful expansion and I was well pleased with the offerings for my faction. Love them or hate them, you can’t deny that Privateer Press puts together a lovely book.

Battletech
The nostalgia is overwhelming. I saw this at Gencon and got a game in that day. Rules, maps, and 20 figs for fourty dollars, it’s also a great bargain. While the miniatures won’t win any awards on their own merit, they have that 1980’s japanese comic thing going for them. Few other games capture the feeling of enormous payloads of rockets tearing legs off 100 ton machines of war.

Wyrd
A lot of my minis money has been going to Wyrd miniatures of late. That they don’t have a game to play with their minis is their only fault. And they’re working on fixing that! The thing I like about the Wyrd line is that it’s not your standard fantasy fare. There are steam-powered spiders, zombie prostitutes, and a family of weird(wyrd) west gunslingers. Morgue Master McMourning is my current favorite in the line.

Werner Klocke
Klocke continues to impress, enough said.

Redstripe: Wyrd game comes out in 2008.

I’d be very interested in that.

As I look back over my gaming year I can see just how diverse it has been.

I started the year as a die-hard Lord of the Rings fan with an occasional interest in Warmachine, and ended up as a rabid Warmachine/Hordes junkie with an eclectic interest in Alternative Victoriana thanks to the quaintly odd Pax Limpopo range of figures from Eureka - even ended up as a playtester for their upcoming Pax game.

Suffering burnout halfway through the year from a particularly tedious terrain project caused me to put aside my LOTR fetish for fresher pastures and brought me into contact with some truly wonderful figures (mostly through the services of this website - my second favourite site after my own). This site has opened my eyes to all manner of shiny miniature goodness - Darkson Designs, Freebooter, Wyrd Minis, Pulp City, Pardulon, Hasslefree, Olleys Armies, and a host of others have some brilliant products just begging for my PayPal account, and the new games that are in the offing - Tannhauser, AT-43, AE-WWII, and all things Zombie - are promising a rich gaming future into 2008 and beyond.