Anniversary – OITNW 1 year on!

It has officially been a year since my first post on this blog. It of course has been a bit longer for my gaming, but I did just want to write a brief review of the year. I have had some highlights and lowlights, of course. So to get it out of the way, I had some severe medical issues that needed taken care of, and the heat induced allergic reaction is finally fading, after 9 months! So except for that extended period of time (Which was 22+ weeks - Over 5 months) where I was not posting, I have been trying to get at least a post up every week.  With30 posts and 22+ missed weeks, I’d be at 52 with this post! Anyway here are the basic stats:

Posts: 30 (Or about once a week except for 11/8/2014-4/14/2014 where I was in the hands of the mad-docs!)

Pageviews: 13,634

Most visited month – August 2014 -3,044

Most visited post: Aurumina Demonicus – The David Soper interview (2^nd – Warband Creation for Oldhammer Days in the US!)

Most visited series: Rusty’s Corner, Building the Warbands table

Entry points: #1 Realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk, #2 Google (.com and .co.uk), #3 Facebook

Common Search words: all Oldhammer + in the old world (#1), + blog (#2), + in America (#3)

Audience: 50.2% from USA, 12.9 from UK Surprise here was 3.3% from China and Turkey, larger than Canada, Spain, Australia and Germany! Either I’m getting hacked or we need more blogs from there!

Followers: – Direct 27  and Google+ 33 followers

Comments: 75

Of course, stats are always interesting, and China and Turkey did surprise me, but I figure that is not too bad for a first year (really half a year blog). Most important of course is our upcoming Weekend in Baltimore on Oct. 25^th. Rusty’s corner and the Warband creation posts being the biggest driver of views for the last two months is no surprise with all of the people who are letting us know they are coming. Thank you very much to Rusty – I can’t wait to get on that board and throw-down! I promise lots of pictures! Also, Rusty and I have been talking over the phone for over a year and a half about the Oldhammer Weekend (and great deals for Oldhammer stuff, of course). It’s been a heady time, and this blog is really kinda both Rusty’s and mine! So thanks, buddy! And get me the river and monastery pics – everyone wants to see em ;)

Lets hope someone solves this mystery this year!

Also, a big thanks to Orlygg at Realm of Chaos 80s fame, for the mentions of my blog and our event! I know probably half my views are because of his mentioning my blog. I know he does this for many others as well (And I follow them all!). His views and posts are huge and help people find our little community, not to mention preserve some incredible stories and information on our favorite era. His biggest contribution actually centers on this blog and our Oldhammer event. For the blog, he continually encourages us to start our own. This is to see out community grow of course, but I think it is also driven by a large want that most of us share: seeing great minis, great games and great collections around the world. For our event, he told me to just pick a date and run with it. We cannot schedule “perfect” for all of us, but once we have an established date, then we can just try to get as many there as possible. So after checking with a core group I knew could help out, we established our day. Whatever happens on that weekend, or however many people can show up and game, without that great advice the answered would be no one and nothing!

Also, thank you to the whole Oldhammer Community, it has been great just talking to all of you on facebook, your trades (followed normally by a healthy dose of jealousy), reading about your games (again, some jealousy…), and seeing bits of your collections (of course, even more jealousy ;) ). It is just fun to be somewhere, even if online, where most people “get” your passion. If I only have one request (besides staying the great community that you are) it would be that more of our friends in the US would start up blogs, showcasing their hobby. So please do, I promise if you let me know. I’ll follow, and get you mentioned on here! Orlygg’s advice is awesome here as well. Both for your gaming – just set a date and do it, and your blogging – just share it!

Come, our church is cool, so start blogging and share your views with us all!

A lot of the views are coming in just before the Oldhammer USA event, whether that is more people getting ready, more people discovering it, or what, I am not sure. I can tell you that the Warband Creation post is the most viewed over the recent months, and should be my most viewed post (passing David Soper interview) sometime before the Oldhammer Weekend! So that is exciting. We still need more pics of your warbands though!

Future's so bright, we gotta wear shades.....

For the future? Well, The biggest event this coming year is the Oldhammer Event in Baltimore, but as soon as that is done (and the flurry of posts that I will be doing starting tonight), I am going to dedicate myself to some old-fashioned battle reports, as well as some posts on Heroquest, the boys favorite new game! We are even going to break out all of the expansions! But number one is to get more hobby in. Now that my health issue is hopefully behind me, and life is settling down into the normal chaos of the kids, I want to get more painted. To a better standard than I normally rush to. And I want to build some old-school terrain out of the mountains of odds and ends I have for that purpose (Some of which I have dragged from college till now!) I’m encouraged by Erny to do my mighty fortresses justice, and Steve’s challenge to paint better. So hopefully that will be shown over the next year.

But my firm goal is to upgrade to 2 posts a week, 1 gaming, 1 hobby every week from November on. Hopefully it will all be of interest to all of you!