It is hard to believe but this thing that I started just to keep my wargaming group on a schedule has been around for ten years. It has expanded far beyond the original idea of being a notice-board for upcoming games and events (largely due to my inability to focus on any given task!). I thank all who have looked over the years as well as those of my friends that have contributed articles as well as all who have commented in reaction to my posts. Since that first post on 29DEC10 we have added 1148 posts, have had 741,896 individual pageviews and have received 2873 comments. There 213 fellow wargamers who follow this blog. Visitors have come to the blog from every continent except Antactica, citizens of the USA are the most frequent visitors with Merry Old England coming in second.
The all-time most popular post is "More Silliness With Blueboard" (8.25K views) with seven of the top twenty posts being of the D.I.Y. category (so you will continue to be peppered with my arts & crafts projects) with the balance being split evenly between Convention reports, figure reviews and After Action Reports. The most popular Page confirms the trend toward D.I.Y. with "Adventures in Blueboard and Foamcore" (21.6K) topping the other subjects by a significant margin, 28mm figure reviews follows in second place.
I would like to thank R.U.P., The Housemartin, J&R and Honest Dan for their contributions over the years as contributing editors, your help has been invaluable.
But, enough with the reminiscing! Let us see if I managed to get anything accomplished in the final quarter of that dreadful year 2020.
4th Q
25,684 pv avg 279.2 per day
213 followers
30 posts
92 comments (I appreciate them all, even the ones that don't like me!)
13 general hobby related posts
5 figure reviews/builds
8 kit reviews
3 fort walkarounds
1 rules review
12 games played/ 3 write-ups on Great Epicurean Wars blog
2020
100,274 pv 273.9Views per day
+13 followers
185 posts overall
527 comments
30 general hobby related
8 figure reviews/builds
25 Kit Reviews
6 Fort walkarounds
8 book/rules reviews
45/16 Games played/ write-up
Looking at these numbers the last quarter tapered off a bit, I am blaming the holidays and some personal events for the slacking of output! But there is no time to caterwaul over the past, ever onward and upward! Perhaps the most important thing for me was the vast reduction in The Pile, having gotten rid of all the pre-WW2 15mm minis that I finally admitted I would never get around to painting. This year's mission is twofold: first, to free myself from the fifty-year accretion of assorted plastic models (they have built up like barnacles on a ship's hull) and second the assessment and reduction of the unbuilt 15mm WW2 and later collection. With any luck, between painting and selling-off I should be able to fire some ranging shots at the 25/28mm mountain that looms over it all.
Wow, I have not looked at my stats this year. I did get a few new followers. Now I have 77 followers. My blog must be boring as a zit on a fleas ass...lol. Most of my time has been printing 3d builds. The latest is the new Napoleonic kickstarter I bought into. Printing wagons in 15mm scale. Back to my dungeon of doom.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the "March to Hell" kickstarter from 3D Breed Miniatures? 15mm and 28mm Romans with all the enemies! And they do WW2 Marines and Japanese in 28mm (plus some weird Rev War stuff that is hopelessly cartoonish)
DeleteA truly impressive piece of work you have amassed. It is definitely your credit as a craftsman and gamer that shines through it all. Congratulations and here is to the next ten years, although I expect you will run out of forts along the way.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I fearthat the 28mm "Lonely Mountain" is beyond redemption.
You have contributed to that product yourself so praises go all-around.
DeleteRun out of forts in what way? Visit, or build? To my count there are over 100 in the CONUS east of the Mississippi, then of course there is Europe as well!
I really don't have any hope of eliminating the Mountain (unless I win the Lotto and ship everything to Sri Lanka for Fernando to paint) but I have been successful in painting more than I am buying, so that is progress of a sort.
Six fort walk arounds a year for the first ten years gives you a theorhetical 60 already done, that leaves you only 40 more!
DeleteSadly I have managed FAR less than six a year. This year was spectacularly productive in terms of fort walkarounds. Time and finances limit my ability to get to more.......some of these things are in VERY out of the way places. I have picked the low-hanging fruit near other travel destinations, now the real planning effort will have to begin.
DeleteNow, now. We all know that you have always planned to drive through Wyoming as part of your drive to Florida. It is hardly out of the way. Now Alaska, that is a planning effort!
DeleteAs far as I know there aren't any star forts in Wyoming, There IS one in Hawaii but I can't figure out how to drive there!
DeleteWell, I found these six Forts in Wyoming on a cursory search. In parentheses is the agency certifying if I saw it.
DeleteFort Bridger (State)
Fort Laramie (National)
Fort Fetterman
Fort Caspar
Fort Phil Kearny (State)
And of course the "critical" Fort Fred Steele (State)
And here is a website about all of them.
https://travelwyoming.com/article/west-still-lives-discover-old-west-history-these-8-wyoming-forts-battlefields
Housemartin, you ARE one of my oldest and dearest friends, but those aren't forts and never were. In the 1860s the Army started naming any agglomeration of Army buildings a "fort" (I guess to make the base commander feel better) and a cursory examination of those sites on Google Earth would reveal that there is nothing there aside from the foundation lines of the barracks in the buffalo grass. I need walls! or at least upright logs to make it worth my drive. Assuming I live to be 100 (hugely unlikely!) I will try to make it there.
DeleteHey now, if you are getting picky in your dotage that is on you. For the record, Fort Caspar, and Fort Phil Kearney both show pictures of walls, wooden walls, but walls. ALthough at least part of Fort Caspar's walls appear to be "walls" like those partiction "walls"inside the Alamo. But if you demand Walls, they have Walls.
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