Out With the Old, In With the New Year - This Patreon in 2021 and 2022 (Patreon)

So first of all, to everyone who has joined this year and those of you who have continued to support throughout the year. Thank you so much for your support; it's greatly appreciated - especially in such a lean time for content. We've pretty much had bad news one after another where the Kingdom Death kickstarter is concerned, I went back through it all and the last time I got new game content from that kickstarter (as opposed to stuff I had to pay extra for) was back when I was still living in the UK. Which in retrospect seems absolutely insane; I'm still waiting for my Mountain Man and Abyssal Woods - which were the only things I backed for on a personal front.

Now when it comes to the Legendary Card Pack review; I'm going to drop out an early access semi-rough draft on Friday, because I'm still waiting for all the extra equipment to arrive in order to be able to take the comparative photos and footage I need for the full released review. I could keep delaying on that front, or I could give you all a look at the rough draft with the raw thoughts. So you'll get that on Friday - with the proper review coming whenever my ordered lights and other sections finally turn up (they're in postal limbo at the moment after an original delivery date of Monday). 

For myself; it's worth noting that my health has deteriorated further; but the multitude of doctors I've seen have no explanation for it. It's kind of like having to live with Fibromyalgia and Chron's - except it's been ruled out as being either of them. So all I can do is keep pushing on from one day to the next and let you all know when/if things take a turn for the serious so you're able to make informed decisions. Mystery Illnesses are the best, I'd try and see Doctor House, but then we'd have to deal with the 'is it lupus?'

As for content in 2022. I have the visual guide for the Sunstalker to sort out, full deep dives into the Dragon King, Tyrant, Watcher, Gold Smoke Knight, Lion Knight, King's Man, Hand, Green Armor to do at a minimum. Plus hopefully this Dark Herald + Beta releases should give us a lot to discuss and dissect over the coming months. (I've attached all of the visual guides released so far to this post, so you can see where we are with them and get up to speed if you only joined the patreon recently).

Honestly it's going to be a lot of fun to dig through these monsters, because even the ones which are not mechanically as good as the rest still have some amazing nuggets in the narrative/lore and sweet things you can find/craft. It's just heavy lifting to do the deep dive stuff, especially now there's a bunch of new gear cards to consider into the variables. But hopefully we can keep up the hype until the Gambler's Chest arrives.

Those of you who are continuing to try and keep the release schedule honest, keep it up!  I'll also keep working on cleaning up the tags and reducing them down so it's easier to find everything linked to one subject.

 The Last Standee at the moment is still in the 'making a loss' stage for me personally and board game related stuff always takes a long time to gain an audience. One of main issue there is we still don't have enough to pay a professional editor every episode; which means Alexis is having to do all the editing work himself. However, we did manage to cover hosting costs this year, which was a relief! (Patreon for TLS here, there is free extra content occasionally, so you do get stuff just for following).

I've never made enough through this patreon, and due to a need to at least double my income so I'm able to actually save for unforeseen circumstances (and pay into a pension) I have to widen my avenues and aim for something with a bigger audience.

This means I am going to be embarking on a new content creation project; it's not going to be posted here on the patreon because it's a new direction for me. The simple truth is; energy costs on Gotland are climbing in a crazy fashion, our car had to be replaced and costs are just spiraling. I took a look at the areas I have skills in, and I keep drawing a blank in respect of getting to write for other sites on a subcontracted basis. Likewise; while I'm a relatively competent and experienced Roleplayer/Games Master, finding a place where that can do anything for me is very difficult.

So; in 2022 I am going to be launching a Magic: The Gathering Commander focused channel with a format I've spent time developing (I'm still working on learning the skills needed). I've got a great deal of love for Commander, and the potential audience is absolutely massive. So I'm going to give it a go for a couple of years. I'll announce the launch here on the patreon for those of you who are interested, or want to share it with people who may be interested - and we'll go from there.

If the format works well enough I'm going to adapt it for YouTube Board Game reviews and Kingdom Death Monster Breakdowns. So; your support in spreading the word would be absolutely fantastic - magic cards are not cheap, though I can recoup my investment if things do not work out (a bit).

The big thing here is; because this is physical recording; it means that further on - when I can afford a proper gaming table to go into the gaming attic (and also decorate it properly), I can adapt the equipment and record sessions of games like Kingdom Death, Townsfolk Tussle or other suitable solo games - perhaps even with some live streams (no promises, I find live streaming tiring - even recording the podcast episodes exhausts me sometimes).

Additional bit of bonus content this week; tomorrow or Thursday I'm also going to do a quick run through the best of games (video, board, roleplaying) I played this year with around a paragraph or two  on each. These will be the games I didn't manage to get into The Last Standee this year; and hopefully I'll get to them next year. 

Last of all; I'm looking for people to play Magic Commander with via this patreon's discord (join here); we can do it on Tabletop Simulator so you don't need to own the cards, but you do need to be familiar with the rules of the game and the format, have a suitable schedule and be willing to play at a reasonable power level. Also, please be aware that I'm on Central European Time so if you're in the Americas timing might be a little rough. How often we play depends on how things turn out - I'm very easily overwhelmed by meeting new people and I'm quite idiosyncratic when I'm not 'on' for presenting, hence why I've not done this before now.

If there is enough interest on the discord expressed I'll set up a dedicated Magic section on the discord. Likewise if this is a success I'll probably look at doing a once a month board games day; where people announce a game they can host/run on TTS and then others join if they're interested. 

So to recap; in 2022 the goals (health depending) are in rough order of priority:

Kingdom Death 

• Content continuing with a once a week release (Fridays); covering many of the outstanding monsters, Dark Herald posts and beta miniature content.
• Possible video channel; depends on the success of the Commander Channel format.

The Last Standee

• Continues with a twice a month podcast release (here); I am reviewing games when I can get a slot, but there is six of us, so most of the time I host and then 'fill' with a review where the numbers are needed.

Magic: The Gathering

• Eventual launch of a commander specific channel; using the style I have for deep analysis here but putting it into a video format.
• Possible Commander Games via TTS (and eventually Spelltable if there are enough physical decks owned).

Board Games

• Exploratory consideration of a games night once a month hosted via discord and TTS.
• Possibility of video reviews on a dedicated channel - depending on the success of the commander channel below.
• Continued written reviews when I have the time.
• Townsfolk Tussle will be arriving in Europe sometime in 2022, as will Aeon Trespass: Odyssey, Oathsworn and Sankokushin plus Kingdoms Forlorn should be launching (I have no information on the actual launch dates for these, do not take this as anything other than speculation). Which means 2022 may well become the year of the Cooperative AI Boss Battling (CABB) Genre! Expect content here on any CABB game which lands.
• Vagrant Song is an amazing lighter CABB, I can't recommend it enough. Even writing about it here makes me happy, I just LOVE the bindle mechanic - it absolutely deserved my Game of the Year for 2021. (I just wish I'd remembered to give Detective: City of Angels an honorable mention in the podcast).

Painting

• I'm getting close to being done with one commission that's been eating up my time. I then have to paint my own personal collection because it's mostly back to being grey plastic. I still do not have the emotional capacity to paint miniatures for others going ahead - so I can't say what I'll be doing with that in the future. Perhaps offering pre-painted commissions, we'll see.
• Expect to see the odd bonus 'here's some miniatures I painted' post on here. I'm waiting on my KDM bases order before I can get some new stuff completely finished.

And there we go; a lot of stuff to aim for; I have the time, but we'll have to see if I have the health and finances to make it work. Again; thank you all for your new or continued support, I am always grateful that you allow me to do this thing I do.