2011 Rear end review...

So as 2011 rapidly draws to a close I am aware that I have played my last game of the year.  I managed to make it a practice Blood Bowl game against my friend Ryan to which my Dwarfs managed a draw against his Humans.  A good game all in all.  Still with the year end looming I thought I'd take a look back at some information for myself as well as maybe some of the things that I think highlighted the year.

First, I keep track of my games every year.  You can call it vanity (although once you see my loss record I think you'll forget that idea) but I like to call it justification.  I view it as proof to myself that my hobby earns it's well spent money.  I've aggregated my information from a spreadsheet and will put it below for the discerning reader to look through for fun.

In the year 2011 I played a total of 56 games between Warhammer Fantasy and Blood Bowl.  Of these 56 games I won a total of 25 (44.64%), lost 26 (46.43%) and drew only 5 (8.93%).  Having lost more than I won makes me want to cry.  Last year I managed to pull off the 50% W/L ratio, but apparently not so this year.  Part of this I attribute to many games at the end of the year being with my Skaven army that I quite admittedly have no idea how to play properly.

Still, I go further...  Of those 56 games 49 we're Fantasy in which I won 22 (44.90%), lost 25 (51.02%) and drew 2 (4.08%).  I cry more!  Still here's where I get to bring up that most of this was due to Skaven as I break it down by army.

Dwarfs - Total games played 28
Wins 15 (53.57%)
Losses 12 (42.86%)
Draws 2 (3.57%)

Skaven - Total games played 17
Wins 6 (35.29%)
Losses 10 (58.82%)
Draws 1 (0.00%)

Wood Elves - Total games played 4
Wins 1 (25.00%)
Losses 3 (75.00%)
Draws 0 (0.00%)

Here we can see that I am still doing the best with my Dwarf army.  Even in its constructed for 7th edition form with blocks no larger than 20 (25 with Slayers).  The Skaven, you see have had a rough time; and I've only been playing them really for about 4 months.  The Wood Elves I only played at Adepticon this year in the 1,000pt. tournament which I did not expect to do well in anyway.

Breaking down simply tournament data speaks a bit of blissful thought though.  Out of my 49 games of Fantasy 31 we're played at Tournaments.  Given that I (kept less accurate information here) played mostly Dwarfs in my tournaments I scored a 15 in both the win and loss while only managing 1 draw in a tournament setting.  I know I played Skaven in at least 6 of these games; I also know that out of those 6 I lost 4 of them thus leaving me to continue stating the trend that I'm still better with my Dwarfs.

My Blood Bowl gaming has garnered a whopping total of 7 games this year.  6 of those being played at Adepticon's Stupor Bowl tournament and 1 having been played literally yesterday.  All the games we're with my Dwarf team.

Wins - 3 (42.86%)
Losses - 1 (14.29%)
Draws - 3 (42.86%)

So, statistics...  If I we're a more intelligent person maybe I'd graph this out and see the trending data of what time of year I perform best, or perhaps be able to figure out what opponents from what geographical area I do the worst against, but I'm satisfied that I have any data at all to look at.  In the end what matters to me is I played enough games over the course of the year to have had 1 game played for all 52 weeks in a year.  I also have a goal of having at least a 50% win ratio which was denied me this year by a single game.  If only I hadn't bothered playing one of those losses with the Skaven army.  Alas, twas not to be.

However I digress...  Looking away from my statistics I think back on the year as a whole.  For Fantasy it has been a pretty exciting year.  We've seen the coming of 3 new army books, a supplement and a campaign.  Out of all this I believe that Storm of Magic seems to be the largest failure for the game int hat nobody in our area plays it or is even the slightest bit interested.  Blood in the Badlands really got my the most excited.  While no army book came out this year for an army I own at least this book gave us new rules in the way of siege games which is something I'm much more interested in than in slinging gargantuan spells around that smash and blast whole units from the board.

We've seen the birth of what I refer to as the Giant Monster Model craze.  Although this isn't just in Fantasy, its trending that way with 40K and the vehicles int hat game as well.  I have to also however admit that the models from GW are looking better and building better than ever.  The kits are also costlier than ever but given the product quality you can't much complain.  Unless of course your talking about Finecast.  I have yet to purchase a single model from that line but expect I will eventually.  I have no excuse for not buying any other than I haven't wanted or needed one yet; however I must admit I've heard both good and bad in just about equal amounts.

My Skaven army that I'd gotten most of the models for last fall and didn't start painting until this fall have really been coming together.  Hopefully at some point I'll figure out how the hell to play them and start winning.  Until that point I guess they are just a fun army, much like the Goblin horde I played many years ago.  Wacky, silly, fun and occasionally winning.

I can't single out specific things from tournaments as memories to share because frankly when I attend a tournament I tend to get a bit drunk and forget most of it.  Ah, friends...  I do love the comradeship and people whom I have the privilege of being friends with and spending weekends knocking about with whilst away from home.

Finally the big note for me and Fantasy this year ended in the shut down of The Waaagh Cast as a permanent podcast.  My goodness there we're just so many at the time.  Oddly enough when I shut down it seems that 4 others disappeared with me which was a bit on the odd side.  Still we we're replaced with great shows who were either just starting up or had been going for a shorter time than ourselves like Garagehammer, Ohiohammer, Pointhammered and the old stand-by's such as Heelanhammer and Bad Dice which we're still there.  I love listening to them all and actually being friends with a number of the US podcasters leaves me extremely happy that I had ever set out on the endeavor in the first place.

I figure I'll finish this up with a thank you to all those who still follow the blog.  Hopefully 2012 brings nothing but joy to you all and great gaming opportunities.  I'll see a most of you that I know at tournaments throughout the year, I am attending Adepticon as always, and will likely be going to Blood in the Sun and whatever Alex Gonzalez decides to run this fall.  Hopefully the Skaven will be done by summer next year and I'll be able to put my work onto that blasted Empire army I've been tinkering with for 4 years.  I plan on making recordings from the GT's that I attend so watch the blog for those postings after the events for some audio love from me.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all and I'll see you all next year, god bless.