The Risk of Burnout

Can too much Shadespire be bad for you?

As some of you may know, I’ve hit the Shadespire scene pretty hard. I’ve been going to as many event as possible since January of this yeah. No store has been too far in my attempts to get Shadespire experience and loot. I’ve travelled to new places, locations that I didn’t even go for when playing Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar. But there comes a point when playing so much can cause you to burnout and run short of energy.

So, how does one go about dealing with such a thing? Normally people get burnout in the miniatures hobby via painting, although you can get the same with the gaming aspect as well but it’s just not widely reported. For painting, a simple break or painting something else is recommended. With gaming, I’ve gone with the options of a break from tournaments/events as well as playing other game systems.

This weekend past I took part in Age of Sigmar Heat 3 at Warhammer World. It was nice to play a full tabletop game again after months of Shadespire but I did miss the compactness and size of the game (carrying around a huge army case is never nice).

I played 5 games over the 2 days and did pretty well, managing to qualify 40th for the Grand Final in October thanks to all my favourite game votes (something I’d like to think was helped by all my experiences with the Shadespire community). It keeps my 100% record of qualifying for every Grand Tournament final as well.

Although I was not entirely Shadespire-free. I did play at the monthly Bugman’s gaming night where I went undefeated but, more importantly, had 3 great games. It’s something I’d definitely recommend you try at least once if you’re free and in the area.

All-in-all, the good thing was that I kinda re-ignited my spark for big tabletop gaming, although now it will be a more casual affair than a competitive focus. My Shadespire break continues, however, so I probably won’t be going to tournaments till July (gasp!).

Finally I’d like to give a shout out to the amazing John Bracken. This weekend gone marked his last time as head of events for Games Workshop (don’t worry, he’ll still be around at head office 😉). He was always the best part about GW events. His enthusiasm and passion for TO’ing can’t be matched. It was always a pleasure to see him at GW events since I started traveling out to them almost a decade ago.

Till next time, as I continue my time of trying to cope without Shadespire events. Hopefully my crits stay with me…