Review of 2022

A Very Happy New Year to all of you reading this!  2022 has been another very difficult year for many people: here's hoping that 2023 brings more peace, prosperity and happiness and less conflict and suffering. In the face of that, many thanks to all the bloggers and writers who have continued to inspire and entertain me in this hobby; and equal thanks to all those who have read and commented on the blog.

 

For myself, 2022 has been a very interesting year of transitions, involving two job changes within 10 months, having previously been in the same job for around 23 years.  My family feels like they are growing up fast too, in both the literal and figurative senses.  All this had an impact on my gaming but it also seemed to have an impact on my awareness: I felt less in touch with what is happening more generally in the hobby than I have for many years.  I think this is partly due to my wargaming social media consumption.  Some of the podcasts I listened to have stopped (Meeples & Miniatures; God's Own Scale) and others (Battlechat) don't really concentrate on that side of the hobby.  A lot of the bloggers I follow very much follow their own trumpet: that is great generally, but not for finding out what's hot and what's not.  It is only WSS magazine (and an occasional purchase of the other two main ones) that keeps me in touch but that doesn't quite have the immediacy, for want of a better word, of gamers conversing about it.

 

So what did I get up to this year?  Not that much in the grand scheme of things.  I played and completed the Too Fat Lardies' pint-sized campaign Kampfgruppe von Luck and I have started (and got about halfway through) their Gembloux Gap pint-sized campaign.  The latter needed some new forces, early war WW2 French and Germans that I acquired and painted through the year.  For the rules for these games, I have been playtesting a set of WRG-inspired rules being written by John D Salt: they are essentially the old WRG 1950-1985 Modern set retro-fitted into WW2 as 'the missing link'' in the WRG collection (WRG released three company/battlegroup level Modern sets but only two WW2 sets).  The playtesting has gone quite well although the reinforced platoon sized battles I have been playing don't quite give the rules the full workout they need with more troops on the table at once.

 

I played quite a few of the marvellous scenarios from Neil Thomas' book One Hour Wargames.  They are very simple but very playable and I have enjoyed using the Baccus 6mm War of the Spanish Succession(-ish) armies I put together at then end of last year for that purpose.  Most of the games were played using a lightly modified version of Neil Thomas' Horse & Musket rules published in Battlegames magazine issue 23 'Simplicity in Practice', although for the last game I used the Polemos set Ruse de Guerre to see how that would handle the small army/small table scenario. I managed to get a few good games of Ruse de Guerre using bigger historical scenarios in too: Pultusk, Golymin, Elchingen and Castiglione.  I tried to get two others to the table also (Eylau and Medina de Rio Seco) but was defeated by space and time issues around the house, so I have temporarily put them on ice until I work out how I can organize the storage and set-up issues so I can set up, play and take down this size of battle without being disturbed too much but without getting in the way of the rest of my family.  Maybe I need to hire the village hall out for myself?!?!?

For other gaming, I managed to get a proper game of Sharp Practice (First Edition!) played for the first time ever and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The setting of the game is a little unusual as it seems to be simultaneusly designed for 1:1 semi-heroic skirmishing and 1:5(-ish) commanding a battalion-ish force.  However, it seems to work pretty well and was great fun.  

 

One real blast from the plast was a refight of the old Rynn's World scenario from the original Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader book.  I used 6mm SF figures from Vanguard Miniatures but otherwise it was pretty faithful and reminded me why 40K was and is so popular: intuitive rules with engaging story around them can trump elegant rules. In any case, great fun.

 

I got a few games in with my old favourite Polemos General de Division, which remains very enjoyable and with a couple of very well-calibrated and period faithful mechanics in: the infantry combat sequence is a work of hidden genius.  I got Bob Cordery's original Portable Wargame rules for WW2 to the table and played out a mini-campaign based on one of his.  They worked very well, I was impressed, and feel much the same about his other sets: well-designed as a framework to hang one's own slightly more detailed treatments of a period on.  They have suggested some possibilities for future games and campaigns that I am quite taken with.  I got a couple of games in of the WW2 air combat game Lacquered Coffins as well.

One game and set of rules which was more labour than love was playing though the Battle of White Mountain scenario using the Twilight of Divine Right rules.  To be very clear, that is not a criticism of the rules, it was more finding a boundary case for these rules of where basing, which we are often assured does not matter, can in fact matter quite a lot. In essence, on a more crowded battlefield, the over-depth bases I use (relative to those suggested in the rules) created more congestion than the rules and scenario and terrain could really deal with. Since it is my basing, then it is my problem, but I have high hopes that I have solved this now. 

Boardgame-wise, I managed to get a game or two in of othe old Firepower boardgame, which was both interesting and enjoyable, at least of the Basic Game.  The complexity of the Advanced Game has scared me off, at least for the moment!  I acquired a copy of Squad Leader and the modules Cross of Iron and Crescendo of Doom.  I hadn't played Squad Leader for years, but I was pleased by how quickly at least the basic rules in Squad Leader itself (i.e. not the modules) came back and I have enjoyed replaying the first few scenarios.  I think that Norm Smith's coverage of these type of games kind of nudged me towards this.  I am hoping that it doesn't end up competing with miniatures gaming, rather it becomes a fun adjunct for those times when a boardgame might be workable in a way that figure gaming isn't always.   I have also made a little more progress on my adaptation and extension of the air warfare rules in Bob Cordery's Developing the Portable Wargame: I am hoping to put these up on my website soon.   I finally got around to trying Martin Wallace's Field of Glory and Milito card games: as you would expect, they are clever and well-designed and give quite an intense game in a short space of time.   Right at the beginning of 2022 I played several games of Europe in Agony, GMT's Thirty Years' War boardgame.  I really enjoyed this and think it will be entirely suitable as an engine for my forthcoming TYW refight.

Lastly, I also managed to get a few role-playing games in (Shadowrun and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) and a reasonable number of family boardgames in - my wife really likes playing Sherlock!  With WFRP, I played through the first part of the 'big' published campaign: the Ashes of Middenheim.  Although there were some bits which weren't that amazing, overall I felt it hung together quite well.  I have quite a few write-ups of various RPG things half-done for my other blog, but I have found that writing sensible things for RPGs takes me noticeably longer than for wargaming.

Hobby-wise, it was an odd year in that a lot of the stuff I painted up didn't seem to get to the table much, or at all!  I have some nice 28mm Dwarves from the Hobbit and some Gripping Beast 28mm Dark Age warriors which haven't seen any action at all, as far as I can remember.  The same applies for a big group of 28mm Skaven, although I had something quite specific in mind for them, which should come to fruition at some point this coming year.  I painted up some nice Stargrave figures, but they have gone to my 6 year old to play with at the moment, along with most of the rest of my 28mm SF figures.  My 15mm cold War Gone Hot/Twilight 2000 project has made decent progress: I have contingents of US, Soviet, British, West German and Dutch now, with some East Germans and some terrorists/insurgents in the pipeline.  A few 6mm Cold War British and Soviets haven't made it onto the painting table yet, however.  My new 6mm WW2 Early War French and Germans (with some little bits and pieces for the British) have seen a good few games, by contrast.  My 6mm Soviets (a mixture of Baccus and 2d6 Wargaming) haven't although I have pretty high hopes for these in the coming year.  In my defence, the ranges are incomplete here as much as my lack of willingness.  This is also true of the Baccus WW2 US, although in this case I think Iam closer and they should make a proper appearance in the first quarter of 2023.  One thing which has slightly gone wrong here is that I really wanted to concentrate of 1939-41 but a lot of the ranges concentrate on somewhat later time periods or are just incomplete. Of course, Heroics and Ros have everything you want but where there is a choice, I prefer the slightly bigger Baccus figures (to be fair GHQ do too but they are just very expensive in the UK).  In any case, most of my WW2 forces have a real mongrel appearance! I don't know whether I should try and do something about this (and sell/swap to get more consistent collections) or just roll with it.

In addition to the boardgames I mentioned above, I also got hold of a copy of the old Europa game module of Narvik and I am looking forward to exploring that.  The Norway Campaign really is fascinating in many respects!  I got given a copy of the Imperial Assault boardgame for Christmas which looks a fun game to play with the children.

Plans for 2023

I didn't make any proper plans for 2022 since I realized that with rapidly changing life circumstances then that was likely to be a recipe for disappointment rathe than a useful focus for action.  But even though I haven't long started a new and quite demanding job, and I have some demanding other commitments (lots of family things plus my reserve service) I am hopeful that this year will be more settled.  My financial situation hasn't been difficult but I did have to be more careful last year until the contours of my life going forward became more clear.  With a little more clarity I now have a little more confidence and I can afford to spend a bit more on hobby stuff - if I should want to: after all, the major blocker for most of us is time rather than money per se.  On the down side, and as I have mentioned in some previous posts, space is a real issue in my house at the moment so plans have to take account that bigger games will most likely be summer games, given that the (cold!) garage is the most suitable place for setting up and playing larger games at the moment. So, that said...

Playing:

 

1 - Finish the Gembloux Gap campaign:  ideally want to get hold of a few terrain items to make one of the scenarios look a bit better.

2 - Play the Caesar's Camp pint-sized campaign (think I have all the necessary forces for this).

3 - Play some more WW2 company-level games (have bought some Polish WW2 forces for this, with some French on the cards too. Other armies will get additions on an as-and-when-needed basis).

4 - Continue to play through the Neil Thomas' One-Hour Wargames scenarios. If I should complete this, then I will move onto Grant's Programmed Wargame Scenarios (I have all the necesary figures and terrain for this)

5 - Continue to play the same scenarios with the Napoleonic Historical Wargames Society of Toronto as far as I am able.

6 - Play the scenarios from the Twilight of Divine Right scenario books (I have all the required figures but need to paint up a few more Eastern European light horsemen.  I also need to make some new/additional earthworks for a couple of the scenarios).

7 - Play more dungeon crawls (THW Dungeon Crawl, Heroquest, Imperial Assault, Space Hulk)

8 - Play more WW2 air war scenarios (will use a mixture of models and boardgames)

9 - Get a 1/4800 Napoleonic naval game to the table (have the models, don't have the rules)

10 - Experiment with WW2 squad-level skirmish to determine best 'small-board' set-up.

11 - Continue to play RPGs with the bairns

Hobby:

1 - Paint up a few more bases of 6mm C17 East Euopean light horsemen.

2 - Paint up a reinforced company of early war WW2 Polish.

3 - Finish purchasing a reinforced company of early war WW2 French.

4 - Purchase and paint up some missing WW2 German elements (Panzerjager I, some aircraft, engineers, assault rifle-armed infantry, Volksturm).

5 - Purchase and paint up some WW2 US armour and artillery (Shermans, M10s, various artillery, som aircraft?)

6 - Purchase and paint up some WW2 Soviet artillery (and a 'maybe' for some Soviet Naval Infantry)

7 - Purchase and paint up some minor additions for WW2 British (primarily tank destroyers and artillery, perhaps some more transport and aircraft, maybe some landing craft); some Desert War stuff from 2d6 wargaming is a 'maybe' here.

8 - For the Age of Sail naval stuff, my new plan is to go back to first principles and buy a Featherstone book or similar and go from there.

9 - Purchase and paint up some 1940s-era agricultural, industrial and railway buildings.

10 - Build or purchase some more earthworks suitable for C17-early C19.

11 - Obtain and prepare a 3'x3' terrain board for some  'slightly bigger small board' games.

12 - Obtain and prepare a 6'x4' terrain board for some slightly bigger summer games.

 

13 - Purchase and paint a few more 28mm Napoleonics to build on existing forces (British, French and Austrian), in particular a few horseman and perhaps an artillery piece per side.  This is partly for Sharp Practice but also for some Neil Thomas' type gaming. 

14 - A couple of very minor additions for my 6mm C18 forces (including some more Lowland Scots, a few Cuirassiers, some small field guns and some siege guns)

15 - Finish off the lead-pile, including: some additional 6mm Napoleonics (mainly German state troops plus minor British Allied forces); early 1/300 WW2 aircraft; a few 6mm Cold War troops;15mm Cold War (East Germans and militia/terrorists); some 28mm fantasy/early medieval bits and pieces.

 

16 - Some touching up of my C17 and Wars of the Roses collections, which are looking a little scruffy. 

17 - Arrange my models and terrain more effectively to allow quicker set-up/take-down and thus more games.

18 - Arrange and modify some of my playing areas for greater ease and comfort in playing.

19 - Write an article for a wargames magazine.

20 - Complete my re-writes/amendments for WFRP, Shadowrun and Twilight 2000.

 

Thinking:

 

Almost as a 'memo to self', the following potential projects have popped into my head for due consideration:

6mm Chariot Wars

6mm Late Romans/Dark Ages

6mm ACW (Commission Figurines)

6mm Colonial (Sudan, NWFP/India being most likely) 

6mm Pony Wars

C20 Naval

Baccus have mentioned that Byzanties are a possibility this year, as are Italian Wars: both of these would immediately make it onto the list.  So would any Desert War WW2.

So wish me luck in my projects - and best of luck with yours, whatever they may be.  I feel very hopeful about the possibilities for 2023!