Setting Targets

Now that 2013 is done, I better get looking to the upcoming year and what I want to get out of it. There are basically three things that are at the forefront of my mind that I hope I will be able to achieve by the close of 2014.

The first one is obvious, continue with the Eldar. Although, with nothing (at the moment) to look forward to this will be a year of consolation, getting everything I own painted and finished. Tale of Many Gamers isn't going to eat into my backlog as much as I thought it might (and this years Tale has it's own problems anyway) so I am still going to be sat with two more battleforces still in the shrink wrap along with (probably) the Wraithknight and Night Spinner. But at least I have a goal set, I will be looking to get through as much of that as possible before adding more purchases to the army. The aim as it has been for the past 8 months is to get an army that is deserving of a Revenant Titan, and at least it will give me a few months to start putting the money aside.

The next one might come as a bit of a surprise to those that know me, but I will be starting a Space Marine force, more specifically, the Raven Guard chapter.
Every time I write an army list, it is either based on fluff or that I want to take specific models to the tabletop and see what happens. This time, I want to build an army around a specific style of play.
Once again, the fluff of the Raven Guard took me in, I like the sound of stealthy power armoured ninja, but their chapter tactics offer an interesting bonus to taking them.
I initially wanted to take them as a straight up stealth force, but I just can't see that working in a tabletop game where your opponent can straight up spot your dudes from the get go. So instead, I want to create a kind of Blitzkrieg force, hold as many guys in reserve as possible, use chapter tactics to outflank and creep up the table and then rain down on top of my opponent in one fell swoop.
The other reason is to paint some of the models that interest me, like the Storm Raven and the Fire Raptor. I don't like painting models for display, so it will give me an excuse to put them on the table too.

I'm also going to go about building the army up in a slightly different way too. Instead of just bulk buying miniatures and snowing myself under with them, I'm going to create my own Tale of X Gamers style rules and attempt to stick to them.
It will probably end up being Tale of A Gamer: Ravens on a Budget, as the general outline will be as follows:

• You are not allowed to spend over £50 in one calender month on miniatures.
• Any of that £50 that is not spent is carried over to the next month (i.e. spend £40 one month, making the following months budget £60. This gives me a month to paint up some miniatures)
• You are not allowed to buy a new product until the last months purchases have been completed.

Hopefully I'll be able to stick to these restrictions until I am at a point where I feel like I have finished.

Finally, I want to paint some more Lord of the Rings/Hobbit miniatures.
After finishing Legolas the other day I have been tempted to pick up the rest of the Desolation Elf models and get them painted up.
I'm not sure if they would be a legal Mirkwood force (hello bow limit) but they are nice looking sculpts and it would be nice to see where it would take me.
The only two problems I have with this goal is that these minis are generally more expensive in comparison to other GW products and there seems to be no one playing the game locally.


So here's to 2014. Let's make it a good one!