So, 2024 turned out to be a good year for gaming for me as you can see from the table of plays logged on BGG below.
|
Game |
Qty |
|
61 |
|
|
28 |
|
|
22 |
|
|
12 |
|
|
8 |
|
|
7 |
|
|
5 |
|
|
5 |
|
|
5 |
|
|
4 |
|
|
4 |
|
|
3 |
|
|
2 |
|
|
2 |
|
|
1 |
|
|
1 |
|
|
1 |
|
|
1 |
|
|
1 |
That's over 100 games logged using 17 different rules sets. The surprise hit of the year was Dorfromantik. I found a friend here in Stavanger who enjoys the game and the majority of my plays were with my friend, although I did play an entire solo campaign too. I just find it so relaxing to play. It's a beat-your-own-score game, so won't suit those that prefer defined victory conditions, but it does have a nice achievements element where you get to add new elements to the game as you score high enough or advance along the achievements track
I also had a friend visit me and we played Firefly and Chez Geek together, which was nice. Firefly worked two-handed but Chez Geek could really have done with a couple more players to make it interesting.
I am surprised that I have only logged one game of Wingspan, because I am fairly sure I have played two or three games of the physical game. We have environmentally themed boardgames nights at the university here and I usually wind up playing Wingspan at those, so there should probably be more plays logged. I don't log plays of the digital version or the count for Wingspan would be a lot higher. It is one of my go-to games for when I have 15 minutes and don't feel like doing anything else.
Beyond that, the poor long-suffering Steve endured a game of Dreadball against me, and I played an ASL scenario against my brother, but all the rest of my plays were solo games.
Five Leagues from the Borderlands and Rangers of Shadow Deep both provided engrossing campaigns in two completely different ways. I love the story of Rangers but I also love the sandbox nature of Five Leagues. If I had to pick one of the two as my preferred rules, it would be Five Leagues though. The combat is less swingy and the sandbox nature of the game offers much more replayability at the cost of having to develop the narrative yourself. Anyone who has read all my posts about the Thrappled Lemmings in Five Leagues will know that this is not something I struggle with. I would love to get my sci-fi figures and terrain moved out here, and start a Five Parsecs from Home game, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Warfighter has a respectable number of plays to its name too. I like the standard game because you get to blow things up, and I like the Shadow Wars version because it rewards being sneaky. Both games are nicely cinematic and in my head I am an action hero when playing them.
Western Front Ace was a great game, and I am glad I have it. It's another game that relies on narrative to join your sessions together, but I got too attached to my last pilot and have not picked the game up again since he got shot down by a Hun pilot whom he never even saw. Perhaps enough time has passed now that I can pick it up again.
Oathmark turned out to be really good fun too, and I enjoyed the games I set up using the Charles Grant Programmed Wargames Scenarios book. I would like to do more with this, perhaps even setting up a solo campaign where I combine the scenarios in the Oathmark rules with the programmed options from the book.
The only game that was a bit dud for me this year was Nothing Gained But Glory. The theme of the Scanian war fits my interests, and the components and maps are lovely, but I tried it solo and it just did not work for me. This is a game where I would need an opponent to play against. Hopefully I can ask for one of those for Christmas.
A late contender was Kinfire Delve: Scorn's Stockade. I picked it up early in December and logged 5 plays in quick succession. It is not as quick to play as the small box suggests, but it works well solo and I am tempted to buy the other scenarios on the basis of enjoying playing this one. The game is billed as a dungeon bash, but is really a puzzle solver. In this, it reminds me of Gloomhaven. You have limited resources to get you to the end and to defeat the bad guy, so you have to maximise the effectiveness of your card use. While possibly not a game that will fit on the tray on a flight, it does not have a huge footprint and the box is small enough to carry with you while travelling and it will get you away from the screen for a while.That is always a bonus. I have way too much screen time at work, so playing analogue is always welcome.
In addition to playing boardgames, I have also managed to paint quite a lot of miniatures. My Vikings and Normans that I bought in the 90s are now mostly painted. I only have around 20 more infantry and 15 more cavalry left to paint and then I shall have painted all of those figures. it only took me 30 years or so! Should I catalogue them and realise that I am missing crucial figures for very limited and specific games that I could mostly avoid?
I've made good progress on my fantasy figures as well. These are newer, so I should probably let some of them age and ripen for another decade before painting them but I intend to expand these armies and I have a large Unpainted Lead Pile lying in my attic in the UK, so perhaps it is best to keep going.
So, that is my year in gaming. I have had a good time playing all these games and am delighted to have found at least one regular boardgaming partner here. It would be nice if there were 15mm gamers here, but I have seen no sign of them. Given the fun I am having playing solo, I don't really see that as a problem.
What will 2025 bring?
I imagine that 2025 will continue much as 2024 has, barring major upheavals in my life. I would like to get as many of my 15mm fantasy figures painted as possible and to play an Oathmark campaign.
Similar to the above, I would like to get all my battlemechs painted, my 6mm sci-fi figures rebased and many of those repainted, and I would like to use them in a campaign of some kind. I have a lot of different rules that would permit a solo campaign, and I am looking forward to seeing what the solo rules in Battletech: Aces are like. Hopefully they will be released in 2025 and I can try them out.
With the release of Mortal Enemies for Frostgrave, my final potential goal is a Frostgrave mini-campaign using the rules from Mortal Enemies to control enemy warbands. I have all the Frostgrave supplements to date, but no opponent in easy reach, so I have been thinking of adapting the Rangers of Shadow Deep bot to Frostgrave. The difficulty with that is the spells for the wizard and their apprentice, but Mortal Enemies offers a way round this problem. Rather than generate a single mortal enemy for my wizard, I can generate two or three enemies and dice to see which one turns up. This could be a fun way of playing the early campaigns that were published without needing an opponent.
Miniatures rules I would like to play in 2025 are:
- 5150: Mecha Warfare
- AD&D Battlesystem 2E
- Battle Suit Alpha
- Battletech
- Blood Eagle
- Frostgrave
- FutureWarCommander
- Hardwar
- Horizon Wars
- Oathmark
- Sellswords and Spellslingers
- Thud and Blunder
In addition to the miniatures games, it would be great to get more out of my boardgames collection. Specific games I feel I would like to focus on are:
- Barbarossa to Berlin
- Solitaire Advanced Squad Leader
- Space Empires 4X
- Terraforming Mars (especially with the new solo Automa expansion)
- The Dark Valley
I'm not adding War Without Mercy/Struggle for Europe series to this list because I have singularly failed to get it on the table for several years now, but I would love to give it a proper shot at some point.
It would also be fun to return to the adventures of Broneslav in Mystara. I need to get the maps made for the next story arc before I do that. Sitting at a computer at home working on maps is not my favourite thing after working on a computer all day at work, so we shall have to see if anything comes of it.
Obviously, I have a tonne of other games and figures stashed in my attic that I would like to play, but they are 1000 miles from me at the moment with little chance of getting them shipped over. One day they too can be taken into consideration when I plan my future gaming, but in the meantime they are there to ensure that I have something to do, if ever I can afford to retire.
With that in mind, the real goal for the year is to continue 2024's theme of focusing on one rules set at a time and playing it properly so that it feels like I am getting real value and depth of experience from these games instead of flitting between games at random. This is so much easier when I play solo and do not get caught up in other people's enthusiasms! There is still room for pick-up games in my life, but I want to prioritise depth over breadth as much as possible. I would also like to continue the weekly blog updates. How well shall I do, do you think?
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