November is Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month

Official logo of the Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month 11/11

Next month is Solo Tabletop Gaming Appreciation Month and me without a date for the prom!

When I first read about the idea back in April, the blueberry (my son) was not yet born and I had no possible way to gauge what life would be like once he arrived. So, other than an occasional thought here and there, I mostly resigned myself to waiting until next year to participate. 

But now that I've got enough of a handle on this whole parenting thing to know that I'll almost definitely be able to do something, I've made no effort, no plans, so what to do?

Given that I can't say for sure how much time I'll have available, I'm hesitant to truly "go big". So I turned to my extensive gaming related to-do list to see what modestly challenging tasks I could complete.

After whittling the list down, here are my front runners:

• Paint those damn Prussians . Not just the 10 figure unit I primed two years ago, but the officers, standard bearers, and the second 10 figure unit.
• Finish the last two 25mm cowboys (also primed two years ago) and base all 7, so that I can finally start in on the Wild West games I envisioned. I can do this along with any other choice I make.
• Prime and paint the seven 25mm pistoleros for the Wild West games
• Clean and prime and paint all 40+ USMC and 40+ Japanese so I can start in on my WWII Theater stuff  (this might be the hardest of all, as not only am I not a good painter, but I'm not fast either)
• Complete enough paper buildings and wall sections to make a nicely cluttered European-style block for WWII gaming. My concern here is having enough printer ink - unfortunately, my inkjet printer uses a rather expensive 3-color cartridge.
• Paint, cut and base my ~3mm Russian and French armies from plastic canvas
• Create two block armies per David Crook at A Wargaming Odyssey to fight out Tabletop Teasers. My local Target has generic blocks for around $5-$6 for 48 blocks. I'd need address labels and that's about it.

And now it hits me, maybe I should just see how much I can get painted with a minimum goal of 10 figures done. I realize that number sounds really low, but I've only painted maybe 2 figures in the last 2 years. That would be a 500% increase in productivity! Now that would be going big! See, it's all in how you spin it.