FTGT Turns 5

Facing the Grey Tide has now celebrated its fifth birthday (as of a couple weeks ago). As I mentioned in last year's birthday recap, we still have no intentions to close up shop. Even if we're not as active as we would like in getting content out, our attempts to face our Grey Tides have not stopped, even if sometimes it feels like I'm going backward.

As with last year, I still have a fairly healthy docket of larger events lined up for the remainder of the calendar year, with four GTs planned:

• Warzone: Atomic Empire: 40k Tournament - May 19-20 - Durham,NC
• ATC: 40k Team Tournament - July 13-15 - Chatanooga, TN
• NOVA - August 29 - September 2 - Crystal City, VA
• Warzone Atlanta: 40k Tournament - November 10-11 - Atlanta, GA

As is tradition at this point, I do a summary of my collections and try to walk through any progress (if any) I make. It was the very first post I did on the blog and I try to update my tally each year, even if systems have changed, making evaluation a little fuzzy.

Army	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Tyranids /GSC	4-5,000	5,500	9,000	9,500	9,600	12,400
Aeldari	5,500	6,500	6,500	6,500	6,700	9,500
Orks	3,500	4,000	3,000	4,100	4,100	4,400
Tau	2,000	2,000	2,500	2,500	1,200	1,400
Necrons	1,000	1,500	4,750	5,600	6,200	7,500
Space Marines	500	1,500	1,000	2,500	3,500	7,300
AdMech	-	-	-	-	4,200	5,900
Chaos	-	-	-	-	2,652	5,200

The above table is by Points, so there's some variation because of the edition change. For example, I don't believe I added any Orks or Tau to my collection, but those totals went up slightly. I also don't believe I added 3,000 points of Tyranids (and Genestealer Cult), though I did add some models to the collection after 8th dropped as I sought to redirect my collection.

The biggest jump is in Space Marines, as I have a Blood Angels army planned which I've recently (as in, in the last week) gotten the models for. The fact that I just added to that army is shown doubly so in the breakdown of the collection percentages, below.

Army/Faction	% of Collection (by model count)	% Painted (by model count)
Tyranids	31.6% (+1.3%)	28% (+1%)
Aeldari	13.1% (+2.0%)	33% (+2%)
Orks	13.3% (-3.5%)	26% (+4%)
Tau	3.3% (-1.0%)	26% (-)
Necrons	9.1% (-1.7%)	70% (-7%)
Space Marines	10.5% (+1.0%)	3% (-22%)
AdMech	7.7% (+3.2%)	4% (-3%)
Chaos	11.2% (+5.2%)	14% (-)

As mentioned, the influx of Blood Angels models looks pretty bad on my ledger. Meanwhile, my progress on painting models has slowed nearly to a crawl. Between commissions and my own collection, I painted 101 models in 2017, compared to 144 in 2016. Since last April, I've painted 88 models to completion, which just isn't going to cut it.

The decline is most notable in the last six months, having only completed 23 models. In September I went back to full-time work and between that, being a parent, and helping my wife run her new business, I just don't have much time to paint. As such, I'm actually in the process of farming out some of my models (while still knocking out the last couple commissions on my docket that have been languishing - ironic, I know).

In particular, those Blood Angels I mentioned earlier, are going to be nearly entirely painted by someone else. Not to count my eggs before they hatch, but the current plans would change my Tyranids Painted to 33%, and my Space Marines Painted to 49%.

My goals last year were to continue making progress on commissions and my own collection. I did complete a handful of models for my Tyranids to bring them up to snuff in the new edition, and also completed second installments of two of the commissioned armies I've been working since the beginning. I definitely would like to have done more, but that's nothing new.

As for the blog, my goal is to be more active than last year. I don't see a situation where we'll get to the same rate of posts we were in the beginning, but just being more frequent overall. That said, we also love hearing from you - how has your grey tide been coming along? What are your hobby and gaming goals for the future? Are you going to any of the same events I am, or have suggestions on events to look into?