Looking ahead and looking behind

"Where did you go, if I may ask?' said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along.
To look ahead,' said he.
And what brought you back in the nick of time?'
Looking behind,' said he."

It's traditional to use the turning of the year to both look back on the previous year and look ahead to the coming one. So here goes nothing.

Unfortunately, due to numerous external events my hobbying had to take a back seat for much of the last year. This meant that I only managed to attend a single event this year and that finding time for painting or blogging has proven difficult at times.

Looking back at the year there are two main hobbying highlights:

Firstly, starting this blog has been an exciting endeavor after I finally plucked up the courage to write my first post. I have loved the challenge that this blog has brought to me and the feedback that I have received from it.

In terms of my favourite model that I've finished this year the prize goes to my female Ranger of the North with horse (okay, technically she was painted many years ago, but I finally finished the complete model this year so it still counts). This model may not be my best paint job ever, but it means something to me personally, so it gets the prize. See https://edgeofthewildsbg.blogspot.com/2019/09/be-excellent-to-each-other.html for the full story behind this model. An honorable mention goes to the Donegal Khandish Warrior, just because it's based on where I live currently.

Looking ahead to next year my biggest goal is to continue with this blog. As I said above, it's something that I am proud of and gain a lot of satisfaction from.

From a gaming point of view, I hope that I can manage get to make it to a few more SBG events on the Irish Hobbit League calendar as well as get a few more regular games in generally. 

Over the past while I've tended to skip from army to army which when combined with limited game time means that I don't have chance to master an army reducing my chances of getting wins. Therefore, I've decided that I am going to focus on the armies of Gondor. My reasoning behind this selection is partially due to numerous options available within Gondor, partially because I enjoy playing human factions and partially because I already have a large Gondor army fully painted.

My primary hobbying goals for the coming year are basically to paint some models and enjoy myself as I do it, setting myself deadlines and targets I find can place too much pressure on myself and I don't enjoy the painting as much. One thing I do hope to do is to increase my terrain collection, although as before I won't actually set any particular targets and will wing it instead.

So, onwards to 2020.