This is my hit parade, 50 years of wisdom distilled 

1. Research.
Used to be difficult, requiring access to an extensive library (British Library scale).  Nowadays with the iternet, much easier.  I can and do spend hours chasing things down.

2. Planning.
What figures, paint, bases.  Again much easier with internet.

3. Organizing.
Once the blighters have been selected, how do they go together to form units? This is relatively straight-forward if vendors have illustrations of their ranges.  I'm a 1/72 plastics fan, so a site like Plastic Soldier Review (PSR) is golden.  Cut/paste and it's possible to more or less see how a unit will look.

4. First Paint Run.
When all the colours have been applied to the appropriate places and you get an idea what a finished figure will look like.  The final point of direct involvement of real interest

5. Paint Finishing.
Fixing all the overpaints and runs, tedious.  Especially as once photographed they still look as though they haven't been touched!

6. Basing.
What a bore this is.  Nowadys everyone expetcs every base to be a mini diorama.  In the good old days the base got painted green and that was it; perfect.

7. Gaming.
Lifetime soloist. My attention span is fleeting at best.  Hate rules and using them, all that fuss and bother.  The best days were hordes of Airfix hoover-fodder being mown down on a carpet battlefield by match-firing artillery. Oh the joy!  Yet I'm still interested in wargaming goings on, collecting 'armies', watching games at conventions, reading (short) AARs and generally looking at what people are doing.

8. Model Preparation.
Flash removal, filling, sanding, etc., etc.  What a waste of life's most precious resource - time.

This is a light-hearted contribution, please keep it that way 

1- The history and research of a period, army etc.

2- Planning. Can be fun but often I've moved on to another project by the time the figures have arrived !

3- The game. Mostly solo these days, so hard to get motivated to get the toys out onto the table given the pressures of real life.

4- The painting, but only when the Muse is upon me, which is sadly quite rare these days, again due to the pressures of real life.

Gazing upon the slain body of my enemy, beholding the humiliation of his tribe, and hearing the lamentation of his women.

Quote from: Steve J on 08 February 2019, 01:07:00 PM
1- The history and research of a period, army etc.

2- Planning. Can be fun but often I've moved on to another project by the time the figures have arrived !

3- The game. Mostly solo these days, so hard to get motivated to get the toys out onto the table given the pressures of real life.

4- The painting, but only when the Muse is upon me, which is sadly quite rare these days, again due to the pressures of real life.

Same things, same order, for me, apart from the solo gaming, most of mine is still with other people.

1. Fellow gamers and banter round the table

2. Gaming. Solo if necessary but preferably multiplayer

3. Planning the next big thing

4. Research

5. Buying stuff, half of which will never get painted ... doh!

6. Cleaning, converting, painting, basing, varnishing - mind numbingly dull but essential

1. Research and planning an army. 

2. Trying out different rule sets.

3. Shopping - great therapy, but horns having to be pulled in quite severely these days

4. Basing - I have tried many methods over the years and have now hit upon one which is perfect for me - having had a great deal of help from El Mercenario and Fat Wally

5. Applying the final wash

6. Painting the base colours and highlighting them

7. And now the WORST and least enjoyable aspect of the hobby - painting straps, belts and reins. Tedious and usually the major contributory factor to my figures not looking as good as they could. 

Playing - especially The Recrimination Phase and saying to your opponent no later than half way through the game "I'll tell you where you went wrong"

Fraid you would not leave the table without an axe between your eyes. Sure fire way to ruin a game. Enjoy your win, but smug comments lead to death - at least of playing live opponents.

The joy of multiplayer games is the knowledge that your side's victory was entirely due to your brilliance or that your loss was entirely down to the ineptitude of your fellow generals

Funny how playing the actual game didn't even make my list. Probably because it can swing between the most fun you've had in a while to the most incredibly crap three or four hours in a long time. This has nothing to do with the result but usually to do with either who you are playing or the set of rules being used.

Finally finishing a unit (hate all the painting and basing beforehand).

Rules that move along swiftly and don't give me a headache.

Wot the moggy said...

1) Research
2) Planning
3) Varnishing ('cos I've finished painting)
4) Gloating over my hoard
5) Gaming
6) Painting
7) Putting together tiny artillery pieces
Painting horses

1) Gaming. I am blessed with having found circles of great like-minded gaming buddies who always guarantee good times.

2) Research. I love the voyage of discovery to learn about a historical battle, and then the challenge of translating that into a tabletop game that is both historically accurate (usual caveats and parameters apply) and entertaining to play.

As for all the craft elements of the hobby, I virtually never do any painting or modelling any more. This for both positive and negative reasons: the negative being that I just don't have the time, the positive being that between me and my mates we have plenty of armies and terrain already.

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BBB_wargames/info
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/

1 Taking the p*ss of FSN or Techno
2 Figures on the top totty page........ Oh sorry you mean actual  wargames figures.

Ok start again

1 Gaming
2 Planning what I need to buy
3 Buying stuff
4 Painting
5 basing, Cos this means it is finished
6 The satisfaction of putting stuff on the table for the first time
7 Taking the p*ss of FSN or Techno

Quote from: FierceKitty on 08 February 2019, 01:54:57 PM
Gazing upon the slain body of my enemy, beholding the humiliation of his tribe, and hearing the lamentation of his women.

Going by your AARs isn't it usually your partner who gazes upon your slain body...

Quote from: Orcs on 08 February 2019, 06:23:28 PM
1 Taking the p*ss of FSN or Techno

Isn't that more of a vocation than a hobby though?

It's hard to say which I enjoy most and that is one of the things I truly love about this hobby

Research
The Internet has made this so much easier and allows us to go as far down the rabbit hole as we wish
With my Free French Flying Column, March 1943, I went from one mentions of French Foreign Legion (wrong, it was the 1 BIMP), armoured cars and tanks to identifying each crew member of the tank squadron (Crusaders and Shermans) and a potted biography of each officer. Plus discovered my favorite Frenchman, Sgt Fred Moore, born in Paris after his father resigned from the Royal Navy

Modeling
I really enjoy the almost meditative nature of painting and the creative side of painting and basing
The planning of the force and your orders is another delight
The preparation can be a little tedious but the quality of Pendraken castings reduces this

Playing
I'm fortunate to have found a group of like minded players and we have mostly settled on the rules we use for the periods we play
For King and Parliament has allowed the recent addition of ECW
We also interact with both the local clubs which adds welcome variety
The discussion and banter that surrounds the game is almost as enjoyable as the challenge of a well designed scenario or trying to rescue a plan from contact with the enemy

The insights into history and the understanding gained both in playing and in research is also fascinating

1. Research.
Yep.

2. Planning.
What figures, paint, bases? I feel more a hostage to this than it being a 'enjoy most'  item!


4. First Paint Run.
Yes, like to get the block painting complete

5. Paint Finishing.
No, this is the point that i ruin the figure and 3 times as much work goes into the rescue ...... my problem is dipping / inking.

6. Basing.
I like this bit, it means the (expletive) painting is finished.

7. Gaming.
The whole point of the exercise surely! And yet I find too many of the steps to get to the gaming point actually get in the way of playing!

8. Model Preparation.
This is why I need to be a millionaire ...... so someone else can do it!

9. I do like the internetty thing, blogging and all that ...... but sometimes I feel it contributes to getting in the way of just plain old gaming.

Well the politically correct answer would, of course, be 'all of them" because they are all (even basing!) essential to my hobby! But actually I would come down in favour of research, because it contains as a subset battlefield walking. I love walking battlefields, and I have never been to one without being astounded as to how different it looks in real life, as opposed to the clinical clarity of a map. In particular you come to realise that contour maps are not produced with combat in mind, as the difference between contours is always too large to show militarily significant differences in height between positions! It is amazing how often seeing the field instantly answers those nagging questions as to how and why a particular battlefield incident occurred. But no battlefield walk is complete unless it has been well prepared in advance.  The culmination of all this is the fun of meeting with like minded friends for a day of gaming. All in all, a brilliant hobby!