Dang 2026, Please Slow Down

 

Well, it's been a heck of a week to kick off 2026. Not going to lie, it has knocked me back a bit from all those new routines I thought I'd kick the year off with. But! Let's proceed assuming that the world isn't going to end in the next few weeks. What are my goals hobby-wise for 2026?

First up, it is my aim to get to at least 12 in person gaming events this year. One per month seems like an achievable goal, and I'm off to a strong start there! I am heading to the Across the Bifrost Team Tournament this weekend and will be enjoying two days of gaming alongside my teammates in the Thunderbolts! I'm excited to see if I can make my janky roster sing, and it'll be great to get some Marvel back on the table with some cool people who share my gaming mindset.

I have also booked in a meetup with gaming friends in February where I'm hoping to play some Trench Crusade and test out the squad I painted over December. In March there's a Malifaux tournament I am hoping to get to, April brings us the annual trip to Salute, and the UK Games Expo is in May, where I'm hoping to take part in the Marvel tournament again. That's almost the first half of the year covered, so fingers crossed I can fill out the rest as we go.

I have a pretty significant backlog of miniatures to build and paint (which is putting it mildly). There are a few releases I'm considering picking up - most notably at the moment the Spectrum and Blue Marvel box for MCP. Captain Marvel is one of my favourite Marvel characters (right behind Ms. Marvel) and I'm one of the three people who actually enjoyed The Marvels, so if I can build a team around Carol, Monica and Kamala I will be extremely happy. That's where I envision myself putting my MCP energy this year, but we'll see. There's so many cool options in MCP and I'm excited to see what they come out with for the next crisis pack, which may change my thoughts.

Malifaux 4th Edition has absolutely reinvigorated my love for that game. Marvel Crisis Protocol is a game I enjoy playing a lot more in person than online, but Malifaux is likely to be the game I play the most this year because I intend to keep playing in the Malifaux World Series and any more casual leagues the Pack Mentality crew put together.

I wrote before about my enjoyment of Amalgam, and I have the second box for that crew now which I'm looking forward to building and painting. I've started putting Resurrectionists on the table though, and I had an absolute blast with my first game of Forgotten. Because of the way the game works, I don't need to pick up many boxes to finish off the whole faction. If I have the urge to buy more miniatures for Malifaux, I'm going to try and stay focused on them; I have no idea how well that will work out but that's the intent.

I also intend to write up one blog post per week to keep this online diary rolling. Will that work out? No idea! As mentioned previously if it does happen it will likely also include talking about other forms of media and gaming which I enjoy. I've been running Pathfinder 2e for a year and I have a lot of thoughts about TTRPGs, so look forward to that.

The main thing though is that I need to keep doing all of these things as a stress relief valve from the mounting horrors in the world. Last year was hard, and this year is already looking to be harder. It's important to remember to make space to do more than work and stress. Here's hoping that even if I miss every other goal, I manage that one.

Good luck out there everyone!

HONK!