This year was a bit of a wild one. Coming off the back of the lock downs, suppressed economy, high prices for games and crazy shipping stories we are finally at the tail end of 2022.

I had a pretty tumultuous personal year, starting with our youngest graduating from High School, who we then booted out of the temporary accommodations we were in, as they were sold from underneath us.  We had planned on moving out to Kerrville and leaving Austin late this year not June! With a mad scramble we punted the youngest to Grand Parents ‘granny flat’ down the street for the summer, moved another child down to campus and bought a small pre fab on our property for the third one, While we scrambled to finish closing in a barn/shed to live on our property while we sorted out construction, loans, design and site prep for our eventual future world HQ of BigBoard Gaming…I kid. while we build our future home scaled for 2.

Professionally I made what I thought was a clean exit from my role in a company, only to face some complications. But now we are deep in starting a new business after a few former partners and investors approached me to help them. This has consumed an enormous amount of time! So much so that There have, including Scott’s posts just 165 posts this year, and we will end up around 170-175. That is a huge 50% drop in content. The other aspect here is my interest in writing more narrative and carving that out of the blog here and providing that inspiration with its own place to reside see below for more on that.

So we are officially empty nesters!

We made it just! We have a lot of stuff in storage, and are learning about purging the unneeded.

The Mrs has been a champ, all my important bits are in the barn with us, lining the walls in book cases. I even get 1/2 the dining room table to leave stuff set up. She is a keeper!

I also wanted to give a shout out to Scott who has been an avid poster this year. Generating his own insights, views and comment on his wargaming journey. Its wonderful to have more voices. I know there are several of you out there that like to guest post on this site. Don’t be shy. Come join the fun. The more the merrier.

With that context, what did that Big board guy play this year?

This is the 2022 plays record on BGG.

Update 4.. I missed a play – Quatre Bras OSG Nappys Last Gamble.

Much improved 2nd edition. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/174298/napoleons-last-gamble-battles-hundred-days

Update 3: As of December 13th I have OCS The Blitzkrieg Legend set up. Enjoy a smaller scenario -#6.4 and focussing in on Rommel’s exploits.

UPDATE 2:  December second!

I quickly setup WAW 85 and ran a huge 3 mapper multi battalion attack. Scenario 17 is very, very interesting. It was a metric butt load of fun!

Update 1: As of November 21st where I am setting up Auerstaedt from the Trois Batailles en  Allemagne from Legion Games

for play upon my return from Thanksgiving, there were 67+ discrete plays, but not a lot of net new systems. Looking at play we covered on the Big Board a lot of Lock n Load Tactical with 8 plays across several modules including the new Valor of the 13th expansion, four different sessions of BCS from Multi man [though given the heinous play in LB you would think it was my fist time!] , Quite a bit of Mr Simonitch and his ZOC bond system [three plays started] four plays of the rapidly growing in popularity The Long Road from Flying Pig Games, multiple hits at The Last Hundred Yards for the awesome Mike Denson and GMT Games, it would not be a year of playing with out at least one play of Tactical Combat System from MMP also. GBOH [Great Battles of History] figured twice, and we spun up multiple sessions of other games, in some cases due to erroneous play, other, just ’cause it was interesting.

Winners for me in 2022:

The Long Road

This years winners for me and new to me games were in no particular order – The Long Road, from Flying Pig Games a platoon scale WWIII tactical game with a supernatural twist. Moe, Nate and I played a 3 way game set against each other, and Zombies and Vampires. It was a hoot. I love the smart combat resolution system using net attacker-defender ratings and then a roll for # of hits which are then saved against the ‘morale’ rating of said units. I like that I can play with or without paranormal stuff and the hero aspects and their influence a a nice touch too. Cards draw for use per turn add flavour ad depth with manpads, airstrikes, extra opp fires and moves etc. This cuts down on rules overhead a lot!

Sacred Oil

I played a smaller session of Sacred Oil [SO] and a larger DNL (from Thin Red Line games) scenario this year also. With SO coming out this year, it reminded me of why I enjoy the system so much. The expanded ‘off map’ actions and deeper naval game are a blast. While the standard “SPI Next War” model of warfare is still present, its all tweaked up to represent the importance of the air game. No one is doing anything unless they carefully think through the exercises of how to get what they need, where they need it with the right level of supporting assets.

North Africa:

Another winner for me this year was SCS North Africa from Multiman Publishing. We had a knock down drag out war that accurately captured the theatres action. Of course there is a distinct lack of unit differentiation in the SCS system, and no penalties for slapping units all over the place. However the mindful structure of the Supply system really drive cadence and game play action, which was excellent.

A Most Fearful Sacrifice, Kharkov Battles, and a notable mention – Hue were also excellent for me in 2022.

I wont go on about AMFS, its been covered so thoroughly by so many people, suffice to say the second printing is underway and Hermann has out done himself. The only downside  I see is that this is a massive game and its often a bit tricky to get even the smaller scenarios placed on smaller surfaces with the stunning mounted map. – First world problem. Kharkov, as a system is really coming along and I had the chance to play again and test play a new module also this year. Mr Blanchett is on a winner there with Compass Games.

I gave WAW85 a heart also, as with a new module coming out and the current one deeply on sale I wanted to revisit and make sure it is all that still and a bag of chips. It did not disappoint. One more game I forgot to tag was Solomon Island – Mike Denson’s Last 100 Yards system A revisit to this was very rewarding also.

There were also several reprints this year that I played, Eastern Front System, GBOH, Vietnam, The Third World War, NATO[though I think NATO is remake not a reprint. A significantly different game and not necessarily for the better] and MOI each had modest to great improvements and updates that made the purchases well worthwhile.

Disappointments:

 

Radioactive symbol on image – avoid, but hey YMMV: Combat Veteran [COP Keating]  and Assault on Tobruk were very significant let downs. AoT could have been a fine game with just a little forethought and updating and modest map enhancement, instead the same flawed game featureless map and un fixed errata was shoved out the door. Sad.

Combat Veteran. Well that is just a joke. Avoid, un tested, poorly thought through and ultimately a poor game. It merely reinforced why I was not buying S&T magazine games. More so now that they have universally raised prices for all magazines, including already printed editions in stock. Not worth the pennies spent. Indian Ocean Region was a finely produced game, it just felt all a little too bland. I think more play is required but I will probably move that system along to someone who might enjoy it more.

Three stop signs-

ATFT, Death Ride and to a certain extent even the reboot of Pacific War all could use more work and better developer oversight. I’ve held off on writing my  Death Ride notes up on the game play from our 4 player, and my 2 player experience as I had wanted to go over all of it with Chris Fasulo. That interview at CSW never happened. I need to get back to just releasing what I have. The TL:DR version is its a system with a lot of potential that lacks refinement and development as far as game play goes. There is also a distinct lack of support when it comes to PDFs for charts etc, and the errors in scenario setups, map allocations is a huge miss. As for the Art and production values they are a solid 4.1010101 out of 10 at best. 🙂

Despite all that I of course purchased the 2nd Salerno module in the vain hope that I can make something of this despite the shitty graphics and murky DPI on every letter and number. Please see our guest writer Scott B’s thoughts and comments on DRK system, which are markedly different from mine! – He appears to love it.

Another stop sign, be forewarned. Pacific War is seeing a lot of community play which is great, but the number of apparent errors and  misses continues to grow. So much so that C3i mag is now releasing a significant counter add on for their next issue. The list of questions expands daily on BGG. Good news is Herman is patiently explaining and answering, mostly. From names missed on maps, to counter confusion, and scenario errata its clear that our God of Design had not released a major hex and counter wargame in a long time, and was clearly taken aback by the ferocious nature of the feedback.

This is no Churchill or Pericles with a few blocks and cute stratagems. You got 1,000’s of counters, and hundreds of pages of rules across three booklets [why three booklets???] and then 1,000’s of players stretching the system and asking a lot of questions that appear to be referenced at unclear sections in the rules. Some are very much noobie style questions and we can forgive those simply enough but wow. Rules questions: 414 of them in an astonishingly short period of time.  I suspect while a massive improvement this was a missed opportunity to nail the project down more tightly.

The good news is the player community has rallied around this title to provide enhanced play aids, video tutorials and significant examples of play as well as chip in answer questions. It will all sort it self out, but a lot of this could have been avoided with either more developer time, or more significant playtesting. Interestingly, my plays of it in 2022 all went pretty smoothly, but I have so far stuck to mostly smaller scenarios.

A Time for Trumpets [ATFT] secured a Red Stop sign [either needs more work, or I need to do more work on it]  as its rulebook, layout, scenario setup and early campaign game play need a lot of patience I just did not have. Once you get past that the game play is very simple [Think Bitterwoods, move and combat mechanics, though combat has a nonsensical number of DRMS for combat that run for subtle to silly] and it can be enjoyable. I ran through the Bastogne scenario and was a bit underwhelmed.

A Time for Trumpets, has shown me that I dont like bullet point rules lists. This chrome heavy beast will require more time from me, and I just wonder if a different approach to the rule writing and explanations could have been taken. I find the Scenario layout, set up, and look ups for everything to be all a bit too much for this highly play on rails game for the opening days of the Bulge for me.

New bits….

I did start a new writing project on Substack: https://bigboard.substack.com with the idea being that I would write up narrative content there and use some of the features of that site to build a little bit more of an intimate community going forward. I’ve enjoyed doing that for the last few months and the response has been positive.

The WordPress site here will continue to be for AARs, video links and other reports and news etc. Same bat channel, and mostly the same content.

With our living arrangements, live play is not an option really, nor are larger games, that’s something that is pretty different at the Big Board this year.  It has given me an opportunity to get through a lot of magazine titles and add to a growing sale pile once we move in at some point to the new pad. I did a quick look at the collection according to BGG which is ‘mostly accurate’. I have owned at one time or another 923 titles, magazine games, boxed games and ziplocks. I have removed all the postcard games and some of the goofier ‘yahtzee’ style games.

Of those 923 I still own 359 games. I have played 535 games that I own or have played that friends own since recording time.

241 of the 359 I possess have been played or about 67%. So knocking out some of these smaller titles has paid some dividends!

I trust the new year will be awesome for you, that you will MAKE time to #rolldice , that you will enjoy exploring history, enjoy your time with the cardboard and spend more of your time doing that than reading my blogs!! 🙂

Thanks for all the wonderful support this year, and I look forward to a bright New Year in 2023, with a new gaming pad sometime around September…ish… 🙂