Quite the start to the year, in particular. It's felt hard as both myself and my wife Sam caught COVID for the first time, and it was, and still is, awful. For myself, COVID was a day of aches and headaches, followed by a head cold. And for Sam, who suffers from Endometriosis, it was more the pain and how that interacted with her chronic pain. Even three weeks on, I still cough at times, and Sam still suffers from symptoms. Despite what people may think, COVID is still out there, and despite having private healthcare through work, I am angry that I can't get vaccinated again or even anti-virals.
While COVID has meant time off work, there has been some positive progress over the last few weeks.
Freelance
This month saw Gehenna Gaming bring Eldritch Automata to Kickstarter. Unfortunately, it didn't get funded, but it did reach over £29k of funding, almost 2/3rds of the target. Bringing a game to market is hard, especially if it is your first time so that Gehenna Gaming will be returning to Kickstarter with the game with revised goals, more examples of the game mechanics and art, and a renewed campaign.
Also coming soon to Kickstarter is the next Iron Kingdoms book by Privateer Press. This time, the book is a DnD 5e standalone book, meaning you won't need the previous books from Iron Kingdoms Requiem, as this book presents how you can run ghost and spirit hunting in the Iron Kingdoms as players take on the roles of members of the Strangelight Workshop. In the latest episode of the Privateer Press Primecast, Iron Kingdoms lead developer Matt Goetz explains what is in the book, and I am glad to have contributed to this new addition to game line. Primecast Episode 24 - Privateer Press
Also on the freelance front is some more writing (can't say what), and some other freelance work that is not writing, that I can't speak of right now, but very soon.
Hobby
This month, of course, due to COVID, has meant no gaming in person of any type. But I have been catching up on some painting.
First off, up top, you can see that I painted my Necromunda Enforcer Tauros, which is a great little kit and which was the first model I have painted using my Sparmax Flyer SR - an airbrush that is single action and allows hot-swapping of vials of paint. It's less fiddly than a regular airbrush and easier to clean out.
Also, I finally finished is 50pts of Cygnar for Warmachine. I am working my way through my Khador and hope to finally start playing the new edition of Warmachine just in time for the release of the Cryx army (though the Khymaera army also looks great).
On Darker Days Radio we have just started our new series of mini-series called Deep Dives where we look at a particular game for three episodes, looking at the setting, character creation, and gameplay.
Work
So I had my Full Year (I know I haven't worked there yet for a full year, but I still do one with everyone else) Performance Review. Wow, is it different working in a company with a structure for how employees develop and are assessed and rewarded vs. life in academia? A lot of my review commented on my approach, attitude, and drive, which clearly all are rooted in that academic background, which made me start thinking a lot about how relaxed I feel in my current role vs the constant stress I felt in academia to get results, and publish a paper, and apply for funding, without much support, compared to now where I really do feel part of a team, and that my contributions help the team, and in fact lead the team. I have some solid plans in place, and nothing but good things have been said about my work, even by other higher-ups who I don't report to directly but are on the same project as me.