For the last article of the year (though you are probably reading it in the next year) rather than review something, it seems a good time to look over the events of the year 2024. What stands out for me in media, games and the rest. I mean, it’s just as valid as any awards show. At least I’ll admit to my bias. 

In a year overview, I sadly admit for the most part my memory for the first half of the year is a little blurry. An event in the summer rather overshadows most of the year resulting in making it hard to recall what happened before that. But there was the convention in Aberdeen in the spring. Comic Con Scotland North East or Comicon Aberdeen if you prefer. To get there means taking the boat so I’m in Aberdeen for a few days. I tend to then have to find ways to burn time especially on the first day while I wait for check in time at the hotel. But I had a plan. Dune Part 2 had just come out and the new Ghostbusters movie was showing the very next day. Unfortunately I mistakenly ordered my tickets as 4DX not knowing what that was. So I ended up seeing those two films while being thrown into the air and squirted with water in my face.

The convention itself has been covered before but the main thing for me was getting the autographs of the actors who played Billy in Power Rangers and Théoden in Lord of the Rings. But sadly seeing the actor Bernard Hill coming out to sign, I felt something was wrong, and in a month’s time he was dead.

The latter part of my year was busier. Taking care of others plus events in the isles. The Model Show and the Northern Invasion were the events I was building the whole year towards. After them, well things were quieter .. outside of the depressing news of elections both here and across the sea. So it was mostly bunkering down, and preparing for what I plan to do in the new year.

For movies, well I don’t normally go to them these days but there were some that got me to visit the local cinema and a few on streaming services. It was a good year for Tokusatsu material. This year I watched Godzilla Minus One, an absolute masterpiece. But it wasn’t the only Godzilla movie I watched as with friends I went to see Godzilla x Kong The New Empire. While not the emotional thought provoking film that Minus One was, it was however a fun monster mash that I was seeing with friends. The other film I saw this year that relates to these was the Netflix release Ultraman Rising.

The other big film I saw this last year was Transformers One which despite its poor box office (I still blame Paramount’s marketing and the shadow of the terrible live action films for that) I expect it to end up as a well remembered classic and the best Transformers movie.

Similarly I continued my new trend of getting comics physically, the benefit of that is I can choose which covers I like. Initially it was just Transformers which has continued to be amazing and emotional, but it has since been joined by Space Ghost a comic based on the old cartoon by Hanna Barbera and recently now Power Rangers Prime (will see if that last one remains on my purchase list as I’ve only gotten the first 2 issues so far).

It was this year that I pushed hard back into Warhammer. While last year I gave myself the challenge of completing my T’au Boarding Patrol box and gave myself the challenge of expanding and fully painting it into a 1000 point army before the new launch box featuring Kroot came out. Should I succeed I would get myself a Barracuda, a Forge World flier for the army. Something I’m happy to say I succeeded in and my Barracuda is painted with the rest of the army… which was handed a bitter pill as it was moved into Legends’ rules but worse, is no longer available from the online store, meaning I can’t get another.

I also had a few games with my army, using the Combat Patrol rules, against friends. But as I looked at the releases of 40k I noticed how bad they were getting. The imaginative and diverse looks of the game had been replaced by what I’ve referred to as “woops all Space Marines” as a game with numerous imaginative factions have aging models while loyalist Space Marines get multiple releases for the most bloated faction in the same edition.

But that’s just Warhammer 40k – its side game Kill Team and sister game Age of Sigmar with its side games like Warcry. These games had far more inventive, dynamic and importantly diverse models. While I haven’t yet played a game of AoS I have an army growing, but I have played Warcry with my army and had good fun even losing.

What to do with my next year ? Well I plan to continue with that AoS army I’m building. With just one model before I can play the small games and 3 after that to get a 1000 point force I’m looking positive. But I don’t expect to spend too much on Warhammer next year. While I plan many games with the Path to Glory mode next year, I have lots of unassembled Seraphon to add to the army as my year goes on. No, what looks like something I will be getting more of next year are Transformers as recent reveals have had the “buy me, buy me, buy me” siren blaring in my mind.

It seems silly, selfish and out of touch yes, but with all that is going on in the world, all that I expect to be happening next year as I see horrors going on without any sense of justice in the world. A convicted felon elected to high office in America, the complete corruption of the Labour party into the red Tories in the UK, and of course the continued genocide in Gaza and now regions around it by Israel, I need my silly little things to keep going. I need a promising trailer of an optimistic Superman by James Gunn, that or continue with another show I got into this year from Australia, about a family of dogs. That ending to the “baby race” episode helps ease my pain.