What's hobby equilibrium? Well, clearly a term I just made up, but in essence it means finding a nice balance. I'm primarily a painter, so I'll focus on that more here, but it can apply to a lot of things. With no event to prep for in the foreseeable future, I feel a lot more free in what I spend my hobby time doing. In the lead up to Adepticon before it got cancelled I was spending all my time working on Nurgle stuff for AoS since that was what I was taking. Before that I had the Rend 4 Winter Event, where I also took Nurgle, so again, a lot of time on that. I got a lot done, but it was a lot of the same, and I was starting to feel the burn out. I think this is something a lot of us are familiar with, especially if you go to events. You often come home a mixture of even more enthused about the hobby, but also a bit tired of working on whatever army you were taking to the event. Even if it's your most favorite army ever.
For me, the start of the lockdown let me explore some more Nurgle stuff that wasn't going to be taken to the event, like the Plague Toads and a long gestating conversion idea for the OG Herald of Nurgle, Epidemius. After I finished him I decided I was done with Nurgle for a bit. I was Nurgle'd out.
This is when I switched to working on Underworlds stuff. It started out as just deciding to quickly paint Rippa's Snarlfangs, as I was a fan of those models and figured they would be a fun one off project. That quickly turned into spending way more time on them then I originally planned. Then painting 3 1/2 more warbands (I still need to finish the Wildhunt) and picking up all the season 2 warbands I had missed out on so I could play some more games.
Then 40k 9th edition arrived, and suddenly I had Necrons to paint. It's been a long time since I've done anything for 40k besides a random model here or there, but these robot skeletons had me hooked. I love the new aesthetic and a new edition seemed like the perfect time to jump in. I'm almost done with the Indomitus models, at which point I have some Immortals lined up, but then it's looking like nothing new for them till October. So what next?
Well, I'll probably finish off the Wildhunt warband next for Underworlds. After that I have a Fomoroid Crusher all built and ready to be painted for my Warcry warband (and also now solo Underworlds!). I'm starting to feel the Nurgle bug again and might try and finish off the few demon units I have left, especially since this will work for both 40k and AoS. On the other hand, I also have some Imperial Guard conversion ideas I want to test out, and lots of scenery to work on, as well as some Death Guard allies for my demons. I kind of want to make some Necron scenery too. By the time that's all done it will probably be October and time for more Necron models! Let's not forget the last two season 3 Underworlds warbands set to come out sometime in August, and I've even been thinking about painting more of my Lord of the Rings models I've had since the movies came out in theaters.
This is all to say, I feel a bit more balanced now. I'm definitely going hard on Necrons at the moment, but I can easily switch over to another project, and even an entire other game system whenever I start to feel that burn out coming on. It's nice not having a looming deadline of some event and just having the freedom to work on whatever is catching my attention the most at the moment. I'll definitely be happy for events to come back, but at this point that may be a year away with the way things are going. I think another part of this for me is just coming to an acceptance that I'll be playing less games. I definitely still like to structure my collections around being able to use them on the tabletop, but who knows when my Necrons will actually face down an opponent?
There's a lot of chaos in the world right now, so just find your hobby equilibrium and do what makes you happy.
Until next time,
Tyler M.
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