The one with Painting-challenge -25 1-3, and a snippet from another hobby...

 ... of mine.

First, let´s start with the paintingchallenge I set up for myself for 2025.
I ended last year by challenging myself to paint one element per week to get finished with all the models I had laying about for my Gepid Kingdom army. The challenge went ok, but was a bit stressfull in that I felt the need to be constantly painting instead of enjoying the hobby in stints when I feel like it.
I am usally very productive when I have a hyperfocus on a particular project and it feels like an incredible drag to constanly be powering thru with stuff I got bored with, even to the point I just can´t stand a particular army or hobby anymore. Yeah, it´s textbook ADHD if anyone wonders.

So for 2025 I have changed the conditions a bit and will challenge myself to paint 52 elements for DBMM over the course of the year!
The army of choise is I/43 Kimmerian, Skythian or Early Hu. 750 BC- 50 AD
Specifically I will make a Massagetae army. So Skythians. Loads of LHF, CavS and a handful of PsO with optional BwO and AxO/HdO.
Obviously I will paint stuff on the side, on the table at the moment I have the 15mm skirmish project of Norwegians for the Battle of Narvik, some terrain for 28mm and in the Factorium there are some rather angry men and women being cooked for Trench Crusade.

For the meantime I will paint the LHF  for the challenge and have started the year with a few proof-of-concept paintschemes that I may or may not keep. I will do the same as with the Gepids, base the models when I have enough variation among the models to mix the force nicely and create a sense of individual riders as opposed to a coherent mass.
I will try to make the 2 commands of LHF unified by having the headgear in each command be the same color across the board. For now, I am using purple hats. Some models come without hats, they will not have purple hair tho...

I have also made the descision to paint the whole army with acrylics which is different from the past couple years where most of my painting has been done with speedpaints. Takes a while to get used to again, ngl. I will figure out what workflow suits me best eventually, with these I kinda washed one step to early.
But it´s all good. Mixed in with another 100 light horse I probably wont be able to find these 6. 

Speaking of hyperfocus..
I was chatting with my buddy Jonas about how fun it would be to run some proper hexcrawls and what format suits them best. We both really enjoy them as a concept for rpg´s, the main issue is that the rest of our gaming-circle are kinda lukewarm about the minutia and book-keeping required.
The conversation eventually steered over to other things and we chatted away while playing Valheim (3rd or 4th run together, our wives and another buddy onboard aswell). My thoughts kept puttering away in the background and I just couldn´t shake the desire to have a proper hexcrawl.
Later that evening I came across a new PBEM-magazine called The SEA of Nyx, as you do when going down rabbitholes on the Internet.

One hour later I started writing.

I mixed and matched old ideas for rpg´s, a handful of known mechanics, inventing a few of my own, creating some RNG-tables and decided on alot of miniscule things with the clear goal of making a consice and easily digestable primer/player rule book.
Fast forward 20 hours (with a bit of sleep and alot of coffee) and I had produced v0.5 of 
The Vagabond: A lonely PBEM journey across the dark reaches of space.
Today, a few days later, I am about to post v0.6.1 for my beta-testers. 

The game is essentially a PBEM-game with one player and a GM (called Moderator) that focuses on charactermanagement, journaling and hexcrawling in a vast region of space where the player has the opportunity to shape the setting as they wish. Players who wish can share the same universe and meet, but it´s first and foremost a "solo" experience with a player and Moderator.
There is a long list of things that inspired the game, but obviously classic Traveller is a huge part, even tho I really haven´t played it, and just small snippets of the modern version.

The WIP cover for the playerbook you wonder? 
A homage to the aforementioned game of course, there could be nothing less.

I will probably write more about the game and how it progresses later on during the year, but it feels really good to have created something tangible when it comes to gamedesign.
Really fucking good.

Cheers!
/Fred

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