2025: Year in Review

2025 is nearly over! It has been a year of many firsts for me.

Beep the Troll, leader of the Beeps of Jimbus warband for Cauldron

First year working full time in the board game and miniatures industry. First time meeting a huge amount of my online friends in person. First year of being a home owner. First time solo traveling and first time designing my own miniatures game. And so many new tattoos. I didn't think I would be experiencing so many new things as a 34 year old. There are so many things that happened, its honestly hard to remember everything.

The Art Goblins

I got to meet so many of my online friends this year and they became real life friends. Some traveled through NJ and we got to meet up for a game. Others I flew to Milwaukee to meet and others I got to meet up with on the east coast at CT. All of them were just as kind in real life as they are online. So many of them inspired me to keep creating in all aspects of my practice. Adepticon was one of the highlights! A bunch of my friends traveled from abroad and we got to kit bash in person. A bunch of them even had their own games to play! I played Fiver's Snak28, Clay's Threnodessy and Steven's Bloodwork. I spent hours kitbashing and chatting with everyone around the Grim Dark alley. I even kitbashed my first Missile Toad that led to the creation of the game. I also got to meet up with Gage a few times to play some Games of Forbidden Psalm. At Pax U, I played against Ben in Cauldron (my warband was way to overpowered). In between all the events, I played games with my local crew of Dellon, Mikey and Ant. I also attended Under the Dice Fest in CT. Alot of the people I met at Adpeticon were at this event too. I watched the Mordheim open while walking the floor to visit the vendors and check out the Rusted Demon entries. Also hung out at the HiveScum studio while Trent casted up some miniatures. Played some games of Cauldron, Ballad of Blades and introduced Missile Toads to new players. 

Forbidden Psalm with Mikey and Gage

The founding of the Jersey Girls has been one of the best things about this year. It originally started with 3, grew to 4 and now the group has 15 members all over New Jersey. It has been great to bring players from all over the state together to connect and play indie games. We also get to support our friend's shop Sanctorium Games where we have plenty of room to spread out and purchase all the miniatures, paints and supplies we need! 

Anthony hacked Cauldron to run an RPG. I of course played Beep 

The year in Numbers: 

Game Days: 25

Different Games Played: 17

Most Played Game: Cauldron

Miniatures Kitbashed: 110

Miniatures Painted: 290 (so many Skaven and LoTR Rohan army)

Conventions attended: 3 (Adepticon, Under the Dice Fest, and Pax Unplugged)

Events participated in: 4 (Ent Moot, Monster Bash, Festival Rumpus, Kijune Kitbash)

Missile Toad Game at the First Jersey Girl Hangout

Next year I hope to do more traveling, work collaboratively on projects with more friends and spend lots of time playing games. We already have out first event for the Jersey Girls next month! If your in the tri-State area, drop by and play some games. I also want to release the final zine of Missile Toads. There are a few changes to make to the game and layout before printing. Once that is done, I'll have the printed zines available through my web store. Other Goals for 2026 is painting all my Middle Earth miniatures, finishing my Age of Sigmar spear head of Chaos Giants and my Lobster Pot 28 warband. Work on more Tyranids for my fully kitbashed army, I'm sure this list will grow quickly!

As we go into the new year, I hope we can all show more kindness to other's and ourselves. This hobby is about uplifting each other. If you are alienating people because they might be a little awkward or weird, GTFO! We got all types of people in this hobby, it's what makes us one of the best communities out there. Intimidation, gaslighting and harassment has no place at my table. If you ever feel uncomfortable at an event, come chill with me. 

Have a happy and safe New Year!