It's that time of year when the Roman God Janus encourages us to look back at the year we've just had and to look forward to the year ahead. Following this tradition, I shall be discussing what I have achieved over the past 12 months, and what I intend on doing over the next 12. As I did this last year, I can also compare what my hopes were versus what I managed to do.
2018
It's been an interesting 12 months.
I've been juggling trying to find the correct format for some events against working more events away and also some personal life stuff. This lead to me being a little hit and miss on things in 2018.
I only managed 50 posts this last year, falling 2 posts short of the 52 posts a year target. Failing by two posts isn't a huge deal, but I want to make sure it doesn't become a habit. Everything I said about the purpose of the Blog last year still holds true.
The Quick Hit series helped, not only to give me a regular source of content but to allow me to analyse all the Codexes as they released at a break-neck pace. Thanks to all the people that let me borrow books from them to facilitate this effort. I've had positive feedback on the series, so will be looking at something similar to replace it.
Local events have been a little bit wayward compared to my intended amount as well. Star Wars X-Wing has managed to be regular, but others have fallen to the wayside. This is far from ideal and something I seriously need to rectify. The Christmas Star Wars Day events was a success though, and so were the Store Championships.
I worked quite a bit with Asmodee and had a great time doing so. From judging at Nationals and Euros to demoing at Tabletop Gaming Live and Insomnia, it's been fun. The best bit is the colleagues, there are some wonderful people at Asmodee and on the Judge and Demo teams. I look forward to seeing more of them all.
I played more at my own events. This lead to those events being more enjoyable for me and let me get back into playing those games properly. I still have the option of building more fun decks/lists, but now when I don't I end up playing games against people on a similar level. The easy solution to get around claims of dodgy rulings on my own games is to not claim prizes. This leaves me only playing for pride while not actually denying people a prize. if it's a semi-important event and I do well, then the prize I would earn gets passed down. If it's a regular event, then any promos I would win simply stay in the prize pool.
I've attended a few X-Wing and Final Fantasy TCG events run by other people in 2018, but other than that mostly failed to play outside my own events. I have gotten in a tonne of casual 40K games as well as some Keyforge and a lot more MTG Commander than previous years though.
On the personal side, I have had 3 close relatives pass away at various points during 2018, an Aunt, a Grandmother and a Grandfather. Between funerals and my mental state around those events, it's been difficult to focus on doing the gaming side of things.
The lowest point was the Cornish Nationals. My Grandfather had recently been diagnosed with Terminal Cancer, and that weekend had been readmitted to the hospital. I debated not going to the event, as I wasn't in the best of moods, but it was for Charity so I did travel down with the rest of the Marauders hoping that the team's presence would help.
Round one, I got smashed largely down to zero evades present on my green dice. My red dice were hot, but I was only managing to do 1-2 damage a round versus losing a ship in return. A bit jarring, but whatever. I spent the rest of the round forcing myself back into a positive attitude, watching the games around me. Pairings for the next round were called and, due to a player having to drop out, I received the bye. 20 mins later, all my enthusiasm dropped away. With a lunch break due after the round, it was going to be 2 hours before I'd get another game of X-Wing in. I went outside for a break and an attempt at clearing my head, but it was too late.
I played the next round with the intention of dropping and did so. It wasn't worth forcing myself to continue to play a tournament when my heart just wasn't in it. I relaxed for the rest of the day and played in the Hanger Bay side event in the evening.
It's a sobering lesson; if you aren't in the correct headspace to play in a tournament, don't force yourself. Nothing is wrong with just hanging out and spending time with fellow players, and that in itself can prove to be a helpful escape. But the point to playing a game is to enjoy yourself, and sometimes outside issues will make that impossible. Don't play for the sake of playing, make sure you take care of yourself first.
2019
So moving forward, it's time to put the bad stuff in the past and get back on the improvement train.
The blog will continue. I still feel like I have plenty to say and the written form is my preferred way of expressing myself. What I need to do is both promote the blog more and make an attempt to get more engagement from you, the readers. Currently, I'm basically putting my thoughts out on the internet, and I'm not getting much in the way of online response. It would be nice to see more comments from readers on the Blog, especially if they disagree with me. I want to see more alternate viewpoints on things, rather than come across as some sort of all-knowing oracle, even though I do give that impression some(most) times.
Local events need more work. I need to get better on the promotion side of events, as well as improving the visibility of my "brand" Baron Administrator Tournaments. Going into 2019, I will be focusing on running weekend events for the following games;
- Star Wars X-Wing
- Star Wars the Living Card Game
- Warhammer 40,000
- Keyforge
With these core four games, I can focus my efforts on getting them running monthly and promoting them across social media. I also want to use the Blog to help with this, putting up reports on the events. It's going to require a lot of discipline on my part, as well as a lot of time, but it should be worth doing.
More work with Asmodee is on the cards. I had to turn down a lot of Christmas Demo work due to the aforementioned family issues, but I will get back into doing it soon. I'm also on the Judge team for the UK X-Wing System Open in Milton Keynes. It's going to be a great opportunity to hang out with Judge friends and see some of the best players from across Europe play X-Wing. I can't wait.
UK X-Wing System Series Open - Milton Keynes 2019
I'm going to continue to play in my own events, and try to get more gaming done in general. I enjoy gaming and have stuff for plenty of games that I found zero time to play last year, so I'm going to make a concerted effort to play more of them this year. Especially games like the Game of Thrones Card Game or VS2PCG where I keep buying new cards, but failing to find time/opponents.
I'll also try and reflect this in the blog, posting about a wider variety of games as I play them.
Finally, I want to try and get to more events run by other people. There is always something to learn from seeing what they are doing, as well as how the players are enjoying the event. It also lets me play against people I wouldn't normally see, in the case of events that require travel, or play games I don't normally have the time to play, in the case of Yugioh.
All in all, I'm taking a positive outlook on 2019. As an aside, it's kinda weird that I'm writing and publishing this on the 7th of January, exactly one year after the last one. Here's hoping I can manage the same thing next year.
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