We can discuss 'motivation' for next year this weekend.
When we all played Frostgrave a couple of years ago there was a sort of 'theme' for the trip - maybe we need to choose such a theme each year.
Given the origins and history of the Bash based on Warhammer Empire, I have been considering having a serious look at 9th Age.
There are some whingers, but WHFB always had those, and reports of balance and how you can use pretty much all units have me interested.
Furthermore I have just discovered that Bugman himself is part of the set up and his endorsement is another strong plus.
Imagine dusting off the old Empire army and taking to the field at next year's Bash ..................
................... if I start next week I can probably have the army list written by Christmas.
I think with fantasy fracturing it is a big problem with what you end up mandating.
I didn't feel like playing Frostgrave last year, so didn't bring my models/books. But I do also think it is potentially helpful to do it as well.
I find this generally true for all my Hobbying, since fantasy died i've branched out and tried a few different things but nothing has really grabbed me.
40k has been consistently enjoyable, even when the general community was decrying it as broken I enjoyed my games.
I've also tried other games and while I enjoyed playing them, they didn't grab me enough to want to carry on with any great passion (frostgrave, DropFleet more serious attempts, shadowar, star wars, and a boardgame/mini cross i tried with Matt)
In terms of my participation, I hopefully won't be on strike for a month next year, which has hit my financials enough (combined with my trip to the US) to make it not feasible this year.
Also I end up on 2-3 personal mini break holidays each year, which my wife doesn't do, which I felt was getting harder to justify in terms of money and time with 3 kiddos and the wife's work incredibly busy- it's certainly not my intention to never come again, but it might swap to every other year instead of every year nailed on.
but having said all that.... I do actually have a hankering for lining up a load of halflings/dwarfs in a tray and shuffling them around a board next year!