One year on…
I can’t really believe that one year has been and gone already!
The fact that a year ago I started writing this blog/website and over the course of that time its grown in scope and following is something of a wonder to me.
In the last year (and with the support and blessing of my loving wife – more on her later!) – Objective Secured has achieved a lot… More than I honestly thought to be honest!
- I posted 105 different things! While my goal was one every three days – this is damn close!
- I covered a multitude of topics as well – Terrain (my bane!), Horus Heresy, Eldar, Tournaments, Painting and more.
- I now have 2 co-authors – My wife (who while firmly a non gamer at this stage) gave us 2 of the most well received and thought provoking posts of the last year and DangerRod who has started to cover stuff that is outside of my army collecting pool.
- We have hosted 5 events to date with 3 more to come this calendar year already – and in my own opinions, everyone has been a success though each for a different reason
- I published an E-book on event prep (found here if you are keen!) and got some wonderful feedback about my experiences that after a month of hounding (again from my loving partner) finally ended up available to the public.
- I learned a lot about website design and the back end of the site – a little coding, a little cross platform interaction… not huge I know but it made me happy to know I could do it myself!
- We developed and released version one of the Objective Secured Scoring App on iTunes. This was a major thing to get done and one we are continuing to work on with updates and android support a definite thing in the near future (again from our feedback from the users)
- We produced A LOT of terrain – so much that despite my ever living hatred of the stuff, I can now host 24 players anywhere and anytime – I have all the boards, mats and terrain for that! Given I had NEVER had a fully painted table of terrain in the last 25 years I had done all myself and now 12 and more on the way is something akin to a miracle!
- Most importantly – we interacted with and helped foster and grow my local gaming community. This is perhaps my proudest achievement. 40k is dead! I heard that a lot. Given the likes on facebook, followers of the website, mailing list subscribers, event attendees and so on – 40k is alive and going strong locally! I like to think that coming together after a fragmented couple of years is at least in part attributable to our hard work.
I am sure there is more but these are the tangible things that stick out.
I have a few people to thank for all this so I hope you indulge me a little here…
- To all my gaming buddies – probably too numerous to name but who turn up to events to play and help me set up and pack up every time without needing to be asked. This community spirit is awesome to behold and one I hope continues
- To Will – my weekly helper and “intern”. Teaching him all the little things about painting I have picked up over the years and seeing him get better has been so rewarding – as has the terrain he has been working on!
- To my close friends – Brett, Pete, Mitch, Sam, Tim (if he ever gets off his damned PC to play again!) who tirelessly encouraged me, play tested missions, helped rally players to events, proof read players packs and more. Your support means so much to me.
- To Richard aka DangerRod– who falls into the above category as well but also has helped produce so much of the awesome terrain our events are held on as well as starting to post on the site as an author. I genuinely appreciate everything mate.
- To my kids – who put up with Dad being busy on weekends, who help me with terrain (yeah – help!) and are just awesome at reminding me this should be fun!
- Lastly – and by no means least – to my wife Emma. Anyone who attends our events here in WA will meet her I am sure and agree with the following and I hope those who can’t come to an event can recognise from her couple of posts here that she is, to use a singular word, amazing. She is my single greatest supporter and believer. She picks me up when things get tough, she pushes me to do better, she does everything she can (except learn the game!) to make our events and all the stuff I do better. You would not be reading this now were it not for her. She deserves thanks from every event attendee but mostly she deserves them from me. Thank you my love.
What’s next?
Plenty actually! We have 3 more events this year (at least!) with a Horus Heresy event now only 48 hours away, a double event in August and then the big one – WA Masters 40k 2016 in September. Then I am off to Sydney as captain of the WA ATC team for the 3rd year running and we have yet to hit the last quarter of the year! I hope to get back to regular posts here and we have a few products in the works now for gamers and the ever understanding spouse!
So here’s to the last year of Objective Secured! Thank you for your support and here’s to many more!
Cheers
Mike
Aka Massasen