Happy Holidays everyone! I hope everyone will have a few days off to rest and get some hobby time in. I have about a week off, should be some great time to get some DZC stuff finished and start on my next Bolt Action force!
2014 was pretty great overall. Our blog slowed down as we've all become very busy with kids, work, etc. I've taken on more responsibility and our second child is on the way... my kid is more mobile and more curious so a lot less time on the PC in the basement!
I do intend to re-commit myself to posting more - more tactics, strategy, reviews, tips, etc. In the next week I'm going to do a series of shorter articles doing a traditional 'year in review' - covering the games we played, media I took in, models I purchased and painted, and events we went to.
First we'll talk about the Media of 2014 - YouTube, podcasts, blogs, books, and magazines. I have a 45 minute commute one-way every day, so I listen to a ton of podcasts - and Chromecast has made it a lot easier to just pop on YouTube videos while I'm painting. Blogs, books, and magazines take up a ton of my time and provide so much inspiration. I'm going to share my favorites, provide recommendations, etc. I feel that often times really useful 'jewels of the internets' are left unfound to others because they just don't know about it, so I always love seeing other peoples' recommendations. Check it out!
YouTube / Twitch / Etc
I have to admit I'm a bit behind the times in regards to Twitch. I don't get a lot of free time to watch stuff on TV that isn't something my wife would want to watch, or something that is appropriate for my toddler, so Twitch is harder to do - especially since it is live a ton of the time. I have caught a few live games of Warmachine and Hordes on the PP live stream from WMW, which was pretty cool. I've caught a few games from Chain Attack - they do awesome stuff as well. I'm going through their catalog and watching stuff this holiday break!I actually just screwed up the YouTube account I had for years and years. Google changed it so you have to login to Google+ (UGH) to actually comment on stuff. I wanted to merge my G+ and my YouTube accounts to save all my subscriptions and watch later and favorites... couldn't figure it out, ended up deleting my G+ account for my YouTube account, thought it would fix it, and lost everything. I have been slowly rebuilding my YouTube subscription list. If you have something to recommend please do so in the comments.
I wanted to first mention our club's channel. Josh and others have been working really hard to build the channel. You can find it here. We have mostly been doing battle reports (over 100!) and having a great time. We're over 1,600 subscribers now which is insane to me. My wife asked me the other night 'why do people like watching this?' as I was watching a DZC battle report while painting. A lot of gamers just like to see what other people are doing, or don't have the time / energy / cash / playerbase to get to play the games they want to.
We make them short, concise, and easy to produce. We could do hour or two hour battle reports with all the effects, but almost nobody has the time to watch that, and we'd only do four a year.
A few that I am especially proud of are shown below. We are doing battle reports for games that hardly have any up on YouTube which is pretty awesome. If we can gather more attention and interest for these smaller games that are so much fun that would be great!
Other YouTube channels I'd recommend:
Secret Weapon Miniatures - the ever-awesome Mr. Justin presents all kinds of awesome ways to make your models look great with a variety of products, including his own. I think of these as paint "hacks". He is obviously a really well accomplished painter, but I definitely am not, heh. He explains everything very easily and presents stuff that I can usually do to make my models look so much better with minimal effort and understanding!
MiniWarGaming - One could have a full-time job just watching all the content they produce. I will admit I don't watch nearly everything they put out, but I do enjoy many of the 40k and WMH related things. Our neighbors to the North have been doing a great job and I really admire how they made a business out of doing something they love and are succeeding at it.
The Beasts of War - This channel has grown on me a ton as they've moved away from doing a lot of GW stuff and more towards many of the independent, awesome, cheaper games out there on the market. They're a great source (with really high quality) for interviews, battle reports, etc.
RubbishInRubbishOut - This gent is from Australia and does a great job making 'how-to' videos for terrain, providing overviews of games, and other great videos. I really enjoy his outlook on the games and he provides experience from running his own shop.
Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy - This company makes a high-quality, themed magazine that comes out six times a year. I recently subscribed to the print version after receiving the digital version for a year. They've been producing really effective, short videos on how to paint different troops. I've been using this along with Mick Farnsworth's guides to paint my 28mm WW2 troops.
Honorable mentions: Warlord Games, Hawk Wargames, Pezzapoo, Corvus Belli
Check back tomorrow for some more media - books and magazines. Wednesday I'll put up a podcast and blog review, then we'll move on to events, models, and games! Thanks for reading.
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