November last year I wrote this little doozie about game play. I was correct, reduced available time was what transpired in 2015! But we hung in there and and cranked out some fun solid game plays of nifty systems, and encountered only a few stinkers.

Looks like the Year will end up with 91 plays in total +/- this is an old image from September [above]. This pales to many hard core gamers, why just today I saw someone say they played 246 games!!!…but there were a lot of Euros too!

This year has been comparatively lean. The problems have been numerous, mainly self inflicted. A fresh approach for 2016 is going to be undertaken so that I derive more satisfaction AND a higher rate of play of un-played titles…Well that is how I felt until I did some analysis and looked at my rate of play in 2015.

In 2015 I actually played the most ‘new games’ ever if you look at the raw stats. Those stats hide a minor fallacy. Two series games – Ancient Wars and Third World War were both played and I counted each of the modules for each play. that is a bit of a hack as the games were campaigns not discrete run thrus of the separate modules.

All the components were used so it makes sense to count them I think. Backing those out of the count is what then makes me think gee! I really did not play that many new titles/systems. The count would drop from 38 new to 32, more than last year but a lot less than 2012-2013 [37]. All in all not bad. It is one thing to play 40 sessions of the COIN system another to grok 20-30 new games in a year. No wonder my head hurts.

Level of satisfaction:

Overall it appears I was pretty satisfied with most games I played:

Unplayed and unloved:

The number of un-played games has grown to nearly 54% of my games owned, up from 36-40% last year. Which is due in part, to the collection growing to 315 [what the actual F$%^k] total titles owned!

This is despite selling more than 40 titles this year.

Does anyone recall me saying last year – NO MORE THAN 250 GAMES in the collection!!! ???..yeah right!

In a more positive vein if the items up for trade are removed that brings  the un-played percentage down to 35%!

Part of the high number of games in the door is due to a plethora of magazine style games acquired and 5-6 titles from Tiny Battle Publishing, GMT Games, Paper Wars, OSS etc. A minor few were nostalgia buys and nostalgia ‘keeps’.

Interestingly I seem to rate what I own and have played harder than the average BGG rating giver:

 

Lets recap the various projects we having going :

The Chronological Walk thru WWII, Ancients theme based play, playing all my modern war titles (Post WWII) , some tactical modern combat [LNL], and the exploration of Napoleonic titles. Those were the big buckets of concepts I was using to guide my game play. I’ll touch more on these in a moment.

You can read about the 1942 efforts here.

Things I’d like to get back to:

More side by side comparisons, where we play two titles about a similar battle/operation and compare them.

Do you guys like those?
Some more stop motion narrative ‘music videos’  with the right platform (game), they are time consuming but fun to  create. I have yet to find another game like WaW that I can use this for.

Tentative plans for 2016:

I would love to do one solo monster in 2016 {maybe US Civil War}? I really like doing these monsters, but it has to be just the ‘right’ scenario. In a recent video I talked about most anticipated games and wanting to play Tank on Tank Eastfront [DONE!], thats one down! Other titles I would like to try:

• Band of Brothers [I am t’ing up a session with an experienced player],
• Decision at Elst as a historical tactical exploration,
• Rommel at Gazala LNLP,

• Ardennes from Compass Games as well as Wif ‘Blitz’,
• Empire of the Sun [Got give some Herman love],
• Pacific War [more Herman]
• Ukraine ’43,
• In the Modern era, Next War: India Pakistan, and Light Division,
• Back in the Ancients theme – Genesis, and finish up the Ancient Wars Series scenario.

• Revolution Games- Gazala Cauldron,
• The Greatest Day  (GTS), and some TCS from the 1943,1944 era.
• Plus a mess of magazine games when I have nothing to do!…

 

Chronological walk thru of WWII update:

I am now past the Coral Sea time period [Flat Top], and I played the Eastern front Battle for Stalingrad by John Hill, but was scared off of Streets of Stalingrad. So the walk thru sits in late 1942-Early ’43 in the chronology [you can see the major battles and operations of ’43 here]. There is an operational scale game from S&T 114 called Fortress Stalingrad. That might be cool to give a run [UPDATE – currently in Turn 5]. On a side note the game play of Ardennes ’44 will be added to the Chronological log, even though it is out of sequence (nice game).

Modern Tactical:

My game partner availability for a play thru of modern LNL has been hit or miss as have I, so that mini series is sort of on a back burner.

Lots going on and lots planned besides the tactical efforts, for there are many modern game titles owned that need to be played and the list  grows and grows…In 2015 the lure of GDW/Chadwick’s Third World War has been too powerful to let go of. The next game in 2016 we [Steve and I] are to play on VASSAL in the modern era will be a combined Central Front Series [see solo game play link ] play from SPI’s S&T magazines, I have a friend working on an update to the module with revised counters!

As mentioned above I will be diving into Next War:India Pakistan and The Light Division in early 2016.

Ancient Era

Using Marcus Aurelius as the foil we are exploring Ancient Wars Series of games. This system has same truck sized holes, but I hope to persevere with the effort and get thru a few years of turns to see how it all hangs together.

Genesis is on the list along with a incremental play of GBoH as the mood strikes. The Genesis title should be fun as a multi player with the group in Austin.

The collection has burgeoned to over 300 titles…the madness must end!..or NOT! I’ve recently sold off a few games and have 90 others up for trade. That would skinny things up a bit! Please take a look and make some offers.

Napoleonic

A friend gave me a copy of GMT’s Austerlitz. it would be fun to compare it against my previous play of The Gamers NBS title by the same name. With the arrival of 4 battles of Spain from Pratzen Editions it is time to explore that system again. I’d love to try a full0 Fallen Eagles campaign also if I could squeak it in! Several other titles in this era are also anxious to be played but may have to wait awhile..poor things.