The New Year is here, and for me that signals one really big change . . . it’s time for a new army!

Like many of you, I started this game a long, long time ago. Back in 2005, I picked up my first battlegroup, the Protectorate of Menoth, and I’ve been hooked ever since. I was exclusively a Protectorate player for about five years until the bug hit me in early 2010. You know the bug I’m talking about—it’s the one that crawls into your ear and whispers things like, “Man, look at all the sick stuff their warcasters can do!”, “Those models are so cool; why don’t you own some of those?”, or “Sure would be nice to give ’em a taste of their own medicine . . . wouldn’t it?” It’s that little bug that makes you decide it’s finally time for a new faction.

That little bug can go wild sometimes; it stops whispering and starts yelling instead. “You love playing aggressively, so get some Butcher lists! No, wait, let’s swarm ’em with dead things! You know you want some Cryx! Hold up, hold up . . . I meant Legion of Everblight. Dragonspawn, bro!”

Before you know it, you’re staring at a product wall at the local hobby shop trying to figure out which two or three factions you’re going to start. It happens to all of us at some point; we get bit by the bug and there’s no turning back. I got lucky, though, and figured out how to control my bug pretty early on.

I decided that each year I would focus on a different faction. That didn’t mean I would never play other factions I already owned, but for a full year the vast majority of games would be dedicated to playing a specific faction. You can get a lot done in a year. Personally, I find I’m playing somewhere between 150 and 250 games and collecting around 100 new models a year with the faction I’m all about. Go back and figure out how many games you played this year, and how many models you collected. I bet you’ll be surprised.

Now that 2014, my Minions year, is coming to a close, it’s time to figure out what I’m going to focus on next. I’ll be celebrating 10 years of playing WARMACHINE & HORDES in 2015—maybe I should go back to Protectorate. The new Minions battle engines that are coming up look awesome; perhaps I should give Minions the nod for two consecutive years. Then again, I’ve had a crazy itch to collect some Khador lately, starting with an army list for each incarnation of the Butcher. Actually, I haven’t played an army with serious ranged firepower in a long time. Now that I think about, Cygnar or Retribution could be a lot of . . .

Damn it. The bug is back.