I was not going to pop this up, as frankly the stat keeping thing is pointless especially when you start playing longer games such as Case Blue and Carthage. That said, it is interesting to see the spread of games, scales played and new versus old.

I have yet to workout how to accurately calculate exactly how many games I acquired and disposed of. I do know that i purchased about 50 titles and sold/traded 34. With a  total of about 259 owned at the moment excluding miscellaneous games double copies and dubious items.

So lets look. Hmmm first off seems BGG is missing records (i.e. I screwed up ). Some plays are not here, nor are the rest of the Third World War modules. Pfft.

Overall the year was well spread across themes, scales and eras. I just wish I had the time to play and write more…but we all say that right?! Last year saw just 27 new games learned versus 35+ in previous years. But lets take a look at what was played.

 

Post WWII

At first glance lots of WWIII hypotheticals. We however need to combine the SPI Central Front titles into one combined play and the same with the ongoing Third World War from GDW, I am playing all the modules from TWW so it counts as a play but it is just one scenario.

A partial play of HoC, in progress TWW, loved the Play by Poll of- NDC, Storm of Dien Bien Phu(fun Beer and Pretzel game), The Final Gamble and Angola + the CFS series mean Modern combat was a significant factor last year. Despite what BGG thinks I did not play Fulda Gap in 2014. I did play WaW Eisenbach Gap Deluxe twice.

 

The biggest let down was Breaking the Chains, what a total bust, sexy but not fun and the systems just are…ugh and ick..see the comments in AAR.

Ancients

In the Ancients theme two sessions of Hannibal Rome v Carthage kicked the year off, 4 plays of Carthage scenarios, lots of Hoplite and 3 sessions of SPQR in my Magna Graecia campaign scratched the Ancients itch but less so than other years. I only had 2-3 turns of Xenophon on Zun Tzu it was a bit of weak game and hardly engaging.

WWII Tactical

I repurchased all the Combat Commander modules….damn it. I am so weak willed. Got in some play test sessions of Heroes of the Pacific and that was it for tactical WWII playing!…..oh well lets talk tactical for a second. I did play Panzer and the new expansion. SUPERB. It might be my favorite title at that scale for WWII. A late surprise to 2014 was Thunderbirds at war, a light highly narrative driven B-17 Queen of the skies. Very very well done.

Modern Tactical

While we are on tactical of course LNL featured heavily with H&P, ANZAC Attack, Ring of Hills Day of Heroes, and Heroes of the Gap.

Napoleonic Era

A very very frustrating year for Nappy. C&C, TCS (The coming Storm), COA’s Talavera, Aspern Essling via Jours system. I dont seem to be able to identify a solid Grand Tactical system I like.

Operational  & Strategic Games

Lots of OCS. Case Blue & GBII partial campaign completed solo. Three additional sessions executed with other titles online fun stuff!

The Dark Valley, maligned for ahistorical results, but a great playing game I want more! SPI’s Desert Fox was interesting but failed to really grab me. I think I was in a bit of a funk, so it will come back out at some point. INS or It Never was Serious…It Never Snows, I’m potentially done with SCS as a series, more on that another time. Coral Sea Campaign Commander. I am due to start or restart a VASSAL session of this game. The miss steps have me entirely not interested however. So I hope to re kindle my interest in 2015.

Finally The Supreme Commander. Likely due to the fact that I won so handily, I really had a blast playing with some alt history with this title. Those that followed the story know the ending!

 

My favorite game from 2014 I think was The Dark Valley, followed by Carthage and HOPLITE and an oldie -NATO Division Commander. The Supreme Commander, Panzer and other minor titles bring up the rear. I leave Lock n Load’s LNL out and MMP’s OCS out as they are just favorites in any case and will always be on rotation I hope.

 

In 2014 Hoplite, was a big surprise. I expected to like it. But not like this. The game was not what I was expecting! A superb melding of Men of Iron type system mechanics with SPQR ancient history flavour. I know folks will scream at that. But Berg has refined and honed his approach to Ancients. The results are superb. Get a copy and go play it is not hard, it is fun and the history leaps at you like brazen Macedonian Hypaspist in full charge!

 

Overall the year flashed by, I had a lot of down time, a lot of lost time and really feel like I neither worked hard enough professionally nor played enough in my hobby.

2015, will be different on both fronts.