I tend to avoid miniatures and such on my little amazon christmas list these days. Books are it for the foreseeable future.
It's always a nice surprise too, I'll add 10 or so to the list knowing family will pick from it at random.
The Art of Magic the Gathering series is priceless in my opinion. This year Ravnica came out, and with this I'm up to date with all 7 books published so far. It's not just art though, the text within the books is also substantial in content and quality, a huge amount of world building and storytelling goes into them. It will likely take me a month or two to read through it and enjoy it all.
Osprey Myths and Legends books will be inspiration fodder for future miniature sculpts, and they're all nice tellings and interpretations of the timeless stories. Great little reads with a cup of tea on weekend afternoons.
Frostgrave perilous dark rounds out the Frostgrave collection, I think I'm fully up to date with all the publications now. I've only casually skimmed through it, but it's a neat addition and provides a ton of new gaming opportunities. Solo play, co-op play and also dungeon crawling are discussed - making the entire series (I include Ghost Archipelago and Rangers of Shadow Deep in there) a pretty sizeable, varied and interesting gaming experience... one that really appeals to me.
After a lot of food, booze, and contemplation over the last few days I'm leaving 2019 with a few thoughts:
- Warhammer Age of Sigmar pales in horrible irrelevance when you experience the worlds of Magic the Gathering. Artwork and fluff are infinitely superior. I played MTG once about 22 years ago, that was it, and I own both Age of Sigmar starter sets. I've not really followed the 'plot' that everyone keeps talking about 'advancing', nor have I purchased any gaming books for it even after flicking through them. I'm therefore picking and choosing miniatures and world building on my own with them.
- The Renaissance Troll is producing stuff that seems just right for this era. I'm sure it's not just me but when someone creates stuff you also like playing, you automatically feel a kinship and camaraderie - this person likes the same types of games as me, this person has a similar amount of gaming time, this person is probably the same age as me, etc. I look forward to Oathmark coming out in 2020 because it's more than likely going to deliver for mass battles what Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow deep delivered for small scale skirmish narrative gaming. Combining it all you have the framework for everything from dungeon crawler to mass battles, each with their own campaign system, which I'm sure won't be heard to interlink.
- His blog is also very good, check it out and follow http://therenaissancetroll.blogspot.com
- There's a wealth of world mythology that's not making it's way to the gaming tables. Were still in the western medieval period on the whole. There's a few little sets and factions I want to sculpt in this realm, but I'm way more interested in designing brand new stuff that's never been seen in miniature form before, or isn't terribly popular at the moment.
Going into 2020 then, with all that in mind, I've got a few new project I'll be unleashing on the world. I just need to figure out in what order to do them...
