The State of the Nation

...or at least, the state of my gaming life!

Primarily I enjoy wargames, but I also play and enjoy some boardgames and computer games.

My main wargaming interest is in the Napoleonic Wars. I mostly play battles with 6mm figures from Baccus 6mm using their Polemos Napoleonic rules. I also like:

Horse, Foot and Guns by Phil Barker of WRG/DBA fame
Grande Armee by Sam Mustafa
Napoleonic Wargames for Fun by Paddy Griffith
a set of free rules by Paul Leniston
and a set of free rules by Steve Jones

I have three Peninsular War armies: an Anglo-Portuguese Army, a Spanish Army and an Imperial French Army. This year I hope to add Dutch-Belgians, Brunswickers and Hanoverians to this. I'd like to add Russians and Austrians too, but that might be asking too much of my painting time this year.

I'm always on the look out for more however and I'm certainly interested in many other periods. I have played and enjoyed some Ancient, Marlburian, ACW, WW2 and Vietnam games in the past couple of years.

I have sizeable 6mm British and German WW2 armies, as well as the same armies in 15mm. I have 6mm Roman and Celtic Armies painted up as well. And, like many wargamers I suspect, I have lots of odds and ends lying around, especially 1/72 plastics for various periods. I also have some 28mm fantasy and SF figures.

I love playing face-to-face with others, but I also love playing solo. I find them very different as experiences, but enjoy them both.

So where do I want to go with all this year?

I want to play more WSS games against my semi-regular opponent Tim this year. He has some lovely armies from Baccus and we use the Polemos WSS rules. We've had some very close, enjoyable games last year and I'm hoping this year to get some more in. We've even briefly talked about doing some campaigning...

I want to play lots of Napoleonic Games using a variety of rules. I aim to use some scenarios from the Polemos Companion, some from old wargaming magazines and some designed by myself. I want to play a full Peninsular War campaign. I'm stll not sure how exactly to best do this.

I want to play more WW2 games with my 6mm stuff. Off-hand, I think I have the following rules lying around:

Spearhead
Flames of War
Firefly
Tactical Commander
Troops, Weapons and Tactics

I've played them all except Firefly at some point, but I haven't played WW2 regularly. I'm hoping to play them all a few times this coming year. The armies seem pretty complete, I don't envisage any large-scale buying of WW2 stuff of this size this year.

I have a 6mm Roman Army and a 6mm Celtic Army, which I have used to play the rules in Neil Thomas' Ancient and Medieval Wargaming and I hope to use the same armies to play Polemos SPQR this year.

I am busy painting up a 6mm Norman Army and I hope to get a Saxon Army, and maybe a Viking Army too. I'm not sure yet which rules to use for these.

I'm hoping to get some modern skirmish gaming in as well - Vietnam and Cold War mainly. I've got two forces for Vietnam, which desperately need re-painting, but that shoudn't take too long. As for rules, I've got Force on Force and Firefight, but I may also use the rules from the RECON and Twilight 2000 RPGs.

I want to build a couple of small forces from the plastic mountaion this year: British and French forces to play Sharpe Practice and two C17 forces to play Once Upon a Time in the West Country

However, who knows which miniatures games I shall actually end up playing...

As for boardgames, I'll probably get some of these games played with my wife or with friends:

CSI Boardgame
Yahtzee
Heroquest
Ankh-Morpork
Waterloo
Cat Attack

Plus lots of Orchard Games with the bairns, too numerous to mention!

And I hope to get one or two games in myself with some of these:

Tomb of an Empire
Achtung Spitfire!
Whistling Death
Bag the Hun
Ambush!

Naturally these plans will fail - the only questions are in what way and to what extent...