NYE 2025 - Looking Forward to 2026

 

It's been a bit since I did one of these so I don't have one from 2024 to look back on but things are a little calmer this year and this kind of post helps me collect my thoughts for the future, so here goes ...

I ran 32 sessions of Tales of the Valiant in 2025, wrapping up in mid-November. My plan in 2026 is to run zero. Not because it's bad or we don't like it but because that particular campaign is done for now and it's time to do something else. 

The main focus for '26 is going to be Mutants and Masterminds. I plan to start with the oft-started Time of Crisis adventure and finally finish it this time, this year. It should only take 5-6 session at the most. Then I plan to roll into an ongoing supers campaign with it and run that as far as my players are interested. The main theme there will be "comic book type stuff that I like and that I think my players will enjoy" which is all I really need right now. 

I haven't done a real ongoing superhero game with this group of players so it's time. I've been reading a lot of Champions stuff lately as far as rulebooks go and it's tempting to use that for a campaign but they are more familiar with M&M and with a new edition on the way I want to get some good time in with it anyway. There are a lot of other good supers RPGs out now - with even more on the way - but I want some crunch and some easy supporting material and M&M has both. I would like to run it in my own city setting but today I am leaning towards using Freedom City and just tweaking and focusing on the arts I like - I'm not set in stone just yet on this.

I considered a few others - I really thought about  Necessary Evil as another campaign that has a beginning/middle/end but I'm going to hold off on that for now and stay with M&M.

I'm sure a few other games will work their way in at some point during the year as one-shots or tryouts with a starter set but this will be the main game. I may end up running DCC (a zero level funnel) this weekend as not everyone may be available for the M&M kickoff and I'd like them to be. Just have to see how that goes. 

I'm sure I will have no need of this ...

Beyond the new campaign I have also acquired a projector and so we will start trying out that whole projecting-the-map-onto-the-table thing. If I'm going to have a laptop at the table anyway for HeroLab, why not try some other new approaches? More on this as it develops.

That's also a lead-in to another potential change in how I run things as Blaster may be relocating for Career Opportunities this year which -if he does-  will be a good reason to run an online game for the first time ever. I figures I might as well start getting familiar with some digital map tools so we will go projector for now and then see about the rest later. 

So while 2025 was pretty stable I'm not sure 2026 will be but we will roll with it one way or another

40K Friday: End of the Year Edition for 2025

 

Well I did get in some games this year so that was nice. Not a lot ... probably not enough to justify the amount of money, space, and time it takes up ... but it's not going to go away any time soon. I managed to paint some more miniatures too. The Blood Angels, Orks, and World Eaters all got some things actually finished and a whole bunch more got base coated, if not finished, but there is plenty of work to be done ...

I also kept my "mini-moratorium" going to the end - no new miniatures acquired. I bought some parts to help finish some up, I bought some bases (though I mostly 3D print those now), and I bought plenty of paint and glue but no new boxes of plastic joy. I won't keep that at 100% for next year but I will try to limit it to "armies I am working on right now" and not "armies I might want to theoretically work on someday" or even "completely new armies I could start without making any real progress". 

The state of the forces report for this year:

Marines - for the various marine armies progress was decent but slow. Lots of building, lots of base coating, lots of "almost finished" but not enough "actually finished." There are plenty of dreadnaughts and vehicles in this state too, not just infantry. The focus is still Crimson Fists and Blood Angels as far as finishing new units, with the Black Templars still sitting in a pile of sprues and boxes. I agonized over my Dark Angels once again, possibly pulling them back from OPR-land to make a Ravenwing/Deathwing force. Still not sure if I'm going to commit to that. The other chapters remain unchanged.

Imperial Guard - I finally settled in on a rough structure for my long-developing Praetorian Guard army. I had been picking up options for a new guard force all through 2024 but I finally went through and worked out which of the new stuff fit and what could be used as what and which units could be reallocated from the main guard force and have something I like - now I just need to paint it, including 100+ guard infantry! And this is of course separate from the generic guard army - generic gray-painted Cadian tank force -  I have built up over the last ten years which has a lot of painted vehicles ... but in the wrong scheme for Praetorians ... which means I built up a second tank force to go with the new infantry force because I like tanks ... 

I'll have more about this in future posts but you would think I would be better at this by now and not build redundant army types ... but I am not. The one bright spot is that the tank force is largely built and base coated so it is actually usable in a game. It is on my mind that this should be a top-3 priority for next year but we will see.

Other Imperials - I made no changes to the Grey Knights, Custodes, or Imperial Knights this year. I didn't even get the codexes for some of these. 

Chaos - I mainly played and worked on the World Eaters this year and I have a few more things to work on for them. It's a nicely focused army and I don't really feel like I need to add much of anything to it. The rest:

• For the Iron Warriors I base coated some Venomcrawlers and a Defiler (just in time for a new defiler, according to rumors - of course). There are things I could work on here but I have a solid army already done. It's really just adding seasoning here until I decide to start rolling in the new, larger marines. With rumors of them getting a primarch model in 40K they might get some attention in the near future.
• For the Death Guard I painted some units - plague marines, bloat drones, helbrutes, etc. but I didn't finish anything but one bloat drone so I have a lot of things in that familiar middle ground of "kinda painted but not finished" that I really need to start avoiding. I had to rediscover my plague marine paint scheme and then re-locate the paints I used for it which I did manage to do! Knocking out a few more units would at least give me a core force that was finished. 
• Daemons - I didn't really do much with these this year.  I just sorted through them, gave each of the 4 powers their own shelf so I can easier see what I have and what I don't. The only real change I've considered here is moving some of the old ones back to square baes to use in Old World but I'm not taking that plunge yet.
• Knights - I have a lot of finished knights with a lot of unfinished magnetized gun options. This was true at the end of 2024 and it remains true at the end of 2025. Maybe 2026 will change that.

Xenos

• The Tyranids got a lot of attention this year as I realized I had plenty of stuff - I just needed to get them built. I had been paralyzed by trying to nail down a color scheme. It's a big deal to me when starting a force from scratch as I don't want to have another Guard-type situation where I have either a split force or have to repaint some painted models. So I had to get that settled to be able to move past the "building" stage and I did finally get there earlier this year. so now I have built and base coated:
• The Swarmlord
• 2xHive Tyrants
• 3xFlying Hive Tyrants
• 3xTyrannofexes with the big gun + 1 with the big flamer
• 1xTervigon
• 1xHaruspex
• 10xGargoyles
• 30xGenestealers (I like genestealers)
• 3xBroodlords
  
  So that's plenty for doing a "big bugs" army right now (+ genestealers) but I still have almost all of the Leviathan sets to get to this state and that means a lot of little bugs to build and spray to get everything to this level. This is my current project - my warriors are on the workbench now - so I hope to have it all "playable" in the very near future, ideally in January.

• Necrons - I did very little with this force in 2025 and I'm kicking myself because this is probably my best bang for the buck option time-wise here. They don't take long to paint, I have just about everything I could need for the army and the only things that are not built and sprayed are one old monolith and the Kill Team sprue which I'm not sure what I want to do with yet. I really should get these finished up so I can take them off of the to-do list completely. 
• Eldar - My Eldar did get used in a game earlier this year by one of my new players and I do like them still but with around 8000 points painted and another 2000+ floating around the house I don't feel a lot of urgency to work on them. My old metal dark reapers work just as well as the new plastic dark reapers so I don't really feel a need to replace or update them. The one area I want to work on is the jetbike contingent, which, while not being very on-theme for Iyanden, is still a very Eldar thing and with Blaster out of the house I'm not stepping on his toes by building a bike force. With the wraith units and aspect units largely handled this is the one area that's thin for my army and I picked up a bunch of them in late 2024 that are still sitting there a year later, including some Shining Spears I'd like to inflict on someone else. We will see how quick I get to them.
  
  Honorable Mention: Harlequins - they did get folded back into the Eldar book this edition, but I have a bunch of old metal ones from the RT days and I could add a few skimmers and bikes to that to have an interesting side force with these guys. Something to think about. 

• Dark Eldar - I've had some form of dark eldar kicking around since the 3rd edition starter box but I've never really prioritized them as an army either to build or to play. When they were redone for 5th I started picking up a unit here and a unit there every year and I've played them a few times but they've always been "extra" - now it's 10+ years later and those units are starting to be replaced and I really should have done more with these guys. Looking at the ridiculous amount of units I have for an army I rarely play and has always been kind of third string I am almost embarrassed. I do like the lore and the style - it might be time for a concentrated "get them all built and basecoated" program here like I did with the necrons and am working on with the 'Nids. It would be a little bit down the road but it would certainly be doable. 
• Tau - I decided last year to make a Tau army. I picked up a bunch of stuff including a lot of 3D printed battlesuits and vehicles just to have something different. Since then I have done zero with it - the entire force is still on sprue or in boxes or bags on a shelf in the closet waiting to be brought to life. It's dumb - don't do it this way kids.

• Orks - ah one of my favorite armies and supposedly one of the poster armies for 11th edition coming next summer! I have a -lot- of orks, and quite a few of them are painted - but so many are not! Or at least not finished! But so many are on the verge of being finished! Just finishing up a unit here and then another there, just going one unit at a time, would add so much to the finished pile. It's not even really the boyz at this point as so many of them are in good shape - it's more the bikes and buggies and 'nauts and vehicles in general. These are definitely a priority for this year. 

Almost forgot - terrain! I finally got the 4 Imperial Bastions and the Landing Pad to built and basecoated status which I feel pretty good about. Now on to the ruins!

So for 40K, after writing this up, I'd say my Top 3 for 2026 are Tyranids, Orks, and Imperial Guard. get those to a minimum "built and basecoated" standard and then see what targets of opportunity I can get to "finished". Necrons are probably a top target for that and then Dark Eldar are probably #4 for the B&B effort. 

Another Weird Little Thing After Playing These Games for Decades

 

I'm reading some reviews of an RPG and someone says something like "I've been playing RPGs for over 15 years so I know a good game when I see it" and all I can think is "15 years? My kids have been playing longer than that!"

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Most-Anticipated RPG of 2026

 

EN World is doing their annual most-anticipated poll right now and I figured I would post some thoughts about some of the entries. Many of them I have no real opinion on but there are a few worth mentioning. It's a long list so let's just go alphabetically ...

• 7th Sea 3rd Edition - I always wanted to like this game but I've bounced off of it hard every time I've tried it. I owned 1st edition for a while but it's one of the few RPG's I've sold off after realizing it was just never going to work for me and my crew. I know 2E had a disastrous crowdfunding situation that hurt it badly from the start - maybe this one will set things right. I think my biggest problem is that the setting is super close to history, but pushes itself just far enough away to make it weird for a history buff (that would be me) but doesn't add enough fantastic elements to make it feel truly different. Something closer to, say, "Warhammer Pirates" for a setting would grab my attention, or strongly historical pirates, like Pirates of the Spanish Main for Savage Worlds, is viable. Right no I probably would just use Savage Worlds for something like this. I wish them luck on it though and I'll keep my eyes on it. This is easily the most I have ever written on 7th Sea on this blog so I have to watch it now.
• Apocalypse World Burned Over or "3rd Edition" - I have been interested in this game since I first heard about it and I have played -briefly- some other PBtA games but I'm curious to see what the originators of the system do with it now. It's definitely one of the most influential systems of the past 20 years so I want to check it out. I backed the Kickstarter- one of my few in 2025 - so we will see how it goes.
• Dark Conspiracy - I really liked the 90's version of this game, especially once they went with a d20 over the original d10 approach - but I'm not sure I really liked Mongoose's multi-era approach so this is another wait and see for me. Could be a lot of fun with an updated approach using new/old Traveller mechanics, could just be an excuse to dust off the original version.
• Diablo - Is there really that much demand out there for a tabletop Diablo RPG? Aren't there a dozen other systems out there that could do this without a licensing fee? 
• Discworld - love my Pratchett books but I've never felt the need to run it as an RPG. I suspect most of these will be shelf-dwellers for Discworld fans but hey, if someone can pull it off more power to them. I just don't see how one could capture the energy of the books short of having Robin Williams GM your game and, well, that's not happening anytime soon. 
• Dungeon Dwellers - yeah this is that one from the Kickstarter I backed in 2023. I have the PDFs. No I'm not particularly "looking forward to it" at this point.
• Heroes of Might & Magic RPG - I love the early versions of the computer game but I never really felt it was all that compelling of a setting on its own, especially for a tabletop RPG. There were very take-able ideas in them - monsters, etc.- but so much of it came from D&D that I don't know what it adds as a standalone RPG. Maybe if it emphasizes building/running/defending a kingdom as its main differentiator it could stand out but short of that ... I don't know. 
• Horus Heresy RPG - I'm a huge fan of 40K but I don't know what they're going to do with a HH RPG game line. The era certainly has potential but I'd say it needs to be designed as a war story from the very beginning and that could be tricky. I'll watch it but I'm probably not a day 1 guy here.
• Indominant - this is a superhero RPG that might be below a lot of peoples radar but it does look interesting.  I do tend to pick these up as I am a sucker for a new superhero game. They do seem to think they are doing something really new and different but ... we will see. 
• Invincible Superhero Roleplaying - well I like the show.  I've not read the comic to avoid spoilers for the show. There's really nothing in the show that would make me want to run an extended RPG campaign in the setting as it all seems to fit in pretty easily with any superhero system. I'm also not sure Free League's system is one I would have picked for a supers game but I should probably play around with it more to get a better feel for it. The weird thing here is that in interviews the people working on it keep referencing TSR's Marvel Super Heroes. Now I love my MSH but a lot has happened with superhero RPGs in the last 40 years so I wonder if that's really their primary reference point? Anyway it could be interesting so I'll be watching it.
• Justice League Unlimited  - yes, three superhero RPGs in a row! This is an odd one as there is not a ton out there about it yet and I suspect a lot of that is because it's being developed by a Brazilian company. I'm not sure it's even going to be translated to English or sold in the U.S. but I hope it does come here at some point. The other oddity here is that despite the name it's not based on the animation - it's tied to some kind of crisis event in the DCU and then the game picks up after that. I want to see where it goes but I don't read Portuguese so I'm going to have to rely on others to keep up with this one.
• Oath Hammer might be an interesting take on the Fantasy RPG using dice pools and it also sounds fairly Warhammer-ish so it could be fun but it's another fantasy RPG when I am feeling overladed with fantasy RPGs so I'm not going to make this one a priority.
• OSE Updated and OSRIC 3E - It's weird that these things start out wanting to be a reorganization or re-presentation of an older D&D rulebook but they just cannot resist the temptation to start modifying said rules. I don't get it but it keeps happening - Labyrinth Lord just came back from years of silence and is doing the same damn thing too. Not my cup of tea at this point and I have my originals if I want to go retro.
• Pioneer - It's Expanse-level Traveller, early tech, single solar system. I'm sure someone could make a really good game with this ... but it won't be me. I'm curious about how it will do though.
• Storypath Ultra - well I did the Kickstarter on this one in September 2024 because I like the modern Trinity system and figured I should keep up with a revised version. Not sure I still feel that way but one of these days it will show up and I'll take a look at it.
• WFRP 5th Edition - I played a lot of 1st, own almost all of 2nd, skipped 3rd, and held off on 4th as I just wasn't feeling it, but I have brushed up against this RPG multiple times in the last few years so I am interested in this one. I will probably end up with it and with The Old World in spite of the likelihood being that only one of them will get played but that happens sometimes. Actively watching this one.

One thing that struck me going through this list is how many of them are crowdfunded - it looks like most of them. Given my recent experiences with Kickstarters and Backerkits and the like that does not thrill me. I know it's just how a lot of this works now but it's still disheartening in some ways. There will be a lot more "wait and see" here for this kind of thing.

The other thing I realized is that no one nominated Mutants and Masterminds 4th edition! No one! Not even me! I'm on this site pretty regularly and anyone can nominate but it just never occurred to me. Maybe because I already had the playtest document? Not sure but that's a huge miss for a lot of us as this is my most-interested-and-anticipated RPG release for 2026! 

Anyway there is my take on the list! Here is last year's top ten list if you want to compare.

Wrapping up the Year

 

Note - I will get back to posting the rest of the Temple campaign soon - it takes a while to sort those out and edit them and with a week off for the holidays I wasn't going to burn all of that time doing it. At one point I had a plan to get it all posted up by the end of the year but that will probably shift to "End of January" now. 

2025 was a good year here. I wrapped up a great campaign, worked in some other game time here and there, got some mini's painted along the way, read some good books, and watched some decent shows. What more can you ask for? I also spent real time with the wife, the kids, and the grandkids, along with most of my friends.  

Most of my gaming hobby time was spent on the ToEE in ToV campaign which was a lot of fun all the way through. There is always another game though, so I'm happy to be prepping for the next thing. More on that later. I think the only other game I ran this year was a Cyberpunk Red try-out game and that's unusual for me - I usually manage to work in multiple one-shots or some short side treks into something but this year was all about completing the temple so it was pretty focused. I need to think about that when planning the new year's objectives.

I will end the year having read about 60 books this year, about the same as last year, but only ten of them were RPG rulebooks which is low for me and roughly half of what I did in '24. Maybe it matters less when you have a set campaign going the whole year. 

Over the course of the year various Kickstarters came in so I added Adventurer-Conqueror-King 2E, Dolmenwood, and 13th Age 2E to the "need-to-read" shelf - which is a  pretty huge pile of D&D-ish fantasy RPG stuff, probably more than I needed to have coming in all at once. I do pick up smaller games on DTRPG pretty regularly and I did get Lancer, though I have yet to read it. I should probably talk about those more here but my preference has always been that I'd rather talk about a game after I have run it, at least for a session, as herding some players through character creation and then through an introductory scenario of some kind will tell you a thousand times more about a game than just reading it. Sometimes that takes a while though so maybe I should at least write something up about the read through and then refer back to it when I do run the thing. Sounds like a good policy for '26!

There were other RPG acquisitions - more for the 40K RPG, more Marvel, I'm catching up on Pathfinder 2E rulebooks, and I should probably fill in the rest of the 2024 D&D 5.5 books though my enthusiasm for it is at an all-time low. Not RPGs in general - just D&D. I liked Tales of the Valliant's take on an updated 5E so I'm not really feeling the need for another version of it which is why I haven't felt the need to dive into the other alternate takes on "updated 5th". If I run anything fantasy next year I'd say the odds are it will be 13th Age's new edition or the aforementioned PF2E, or possibly The Old World RPG. Odds are better though that I won't be running anything fantasy, at least as the main campaign. More about that later.

So so-long to 2025! I'll have some thoughts about the year in miniatures here tomorrow and then a look at plans for the year ahead as well.