The Present Posting Rate: A Mea Culpa and Some Introspection

This is going to be one of those posts that isn’t posted to Reddit, under the assumption that if you’re not actively following this blog one way or another, the posting rate of this blog is something you couldn’t care less about.

If you haven’t noticed by now, the posting rate for Variance Hammer has utterly tanked, and is currently dwelling in the “One post a month” pile, which is not something I’m happy about. I’m definitely taking some steps to fix that, including hammering out some posts that are currently sitting at 70-80% done, but I thought it was worth talking a little bit about why I’m struggling as well as just that I’m struggling.

As with many things, there’s a mix of both good and bad causes of the current slowdown:

The Good

Work: Work is busy. The good kind of busy, but that still means busy. Some major things have happened recently that are super-exciting, but they’re not the kind of things that result in tons of free time to work on hobby stuff.

Travel: Compounding the work thing is a pretty brutal travel schedule – I’ve crossed the Atlantic and the continental U.S. four times in the last three weeks. #firstworldproblems I know, but it is draining, and unlike a lot of travel I do where there’s actually ample room to work on posts while sitting in airports, hotels, etc., these trips haven’t really allowed that.

Also, I discovered in at least one airline lounge Variance Hammer is blocked as inappropriate content.

Actual Hobby Time: I’ve actually gotten to do a fair amount of hobby stuff despite this – gotten a solid few games in, like this one:

and my brother came into town for what was dubbed “The Great Fabrication” that culminated in a Knight Acheron getting assembled along with basing some Custodes, and the beginnings of several squads of converted Aspect Warriors.

All good stuff, but combined with having less time overall…you can see where this is going.

The Bad:

GW’s Relentless Pace: This is a good thing for the hobby. It’s just a bad thing for Variance Hammer. For example, I have most of a Space Marines codex review worked up, but with the currently brutal release schedule, the Space Marines are…old news. Basically, given some struggles for time anyway, the current release schedule means no breathing room for “I’ll circle back in a week or so”.

The Current Fluff: I’m just not feeling it. My post on the Primaris Marines should give one an inkling for why this might be, but generally…the new stuff is falling flat for me. I’m hoping this improves over time, but combined with some fairly lukewarm feelings about the 8th Edition ruleset, it’s proving hard to really get into things in the way that’s required to spend several hours crunching the numbers on them.

So What Am I Doing About It?

Now that my travel schedule is marginally less insane (only marginally…) I’m going to try to work on Variance Hammer more. Particularly, I’m going to start working on some longer-term projects I’ve been meaning to touch on that will, hopefully, let me carve out some narrative space for my own games that’ll build some enthusiasm back up.

Beyond that, I’m just trying to make a commitment to thinking about writing less, and just writing more.

Finally, I think that 8th Edition has had the time to “shake out” more than enough so that the tournament results we’re seeing accurately reflect the state of the game, so we should be seeing more of those kinds of articles returning.

TL;DR: Hang in there ladies and gents, there’s stuff in the pipeline, it’s just been a very busy summer.