State of Play: Waterloo Solitaire Boardgame

  

 

 

I had a free hour-and-a-half on Tuesday, so I took Waterloo Solitaire Boardgame Edition (Worthington Publishing. 2023 – an unboxing can be found here) out for a turn. I haven’t played the Waterloo Solitaire Book Game (Worthington Publishing, 2021) on which this was base, but I understand it’s a pretty faithful interpretation of the original.

The Veteran Allied Actions card, mounted on its easel. I thought during the Kickstarter
campaign that it was a bit of a gimmick, but now I'm absolutely sold on the easel.

Let’s be clear from the start; this is not a faithful recreation of the nuances of the pivotal battle that conclusively drew a line Napoleon’s martial ambitions. Waterloo Solitaire is definitely positioned close to the “Game” end of the Simulation/Game continuum, and it makes no apologies for that. The original book games were conceived in the time of lockdowns and enforced isolation and brought a brief reprieve from ennui to thousands of people.

This was my first time out, so there were plastic bags to tear open and pieces to locate. I’d already split the single card-deck into its constituent sets of Allied and French cards. I’d settled on playing as the French because looking at the victory conditions, it seemed Napoleon would have a slightly tougher time of it. This wasn’t my first rodeo with a Worthington solitaire game, so I knew not to expect to win on the first time out (or the second, or the eighteenth, maybe). Even being the first time out, set-up still took less than ten minutes (probably closer to five; I didn’t check my watch).

The initial set-up and my opening hand; a good spread of options to start with.

The game has two adjustment points for difficulty, hand size (and what I think of as opponent-difficulty (each side has three levels of resolve; Challenging, Veteran and Tough). I intended to play the middle-path, but inadvertently make things a little tougher on myself, something I’ll come back to later.

Each turn, the player selects an Order Card to play from his hand, placing it face-up in a conspicuous place. He then rolls for the Bot action; on a 2-5, the Bot chooses an action eerily prescient of the player’s chosen order, seemingly calculated to mitigate or nullify the effect of the order before it can be played at least a third of the time. I know how this sounds; I don’t have the mathematical chops to model how this is possible. I don’t think Worthington solitaire games are somehow cursed. But a slither of doubt lingers. We'll have to see how a second game plays out.

Case in point. Three times in the course of the game I played a Fire Artillery order.
In response, the Bot "rollled" Reverse Slope Tactics for two of those orders,
nullifying those potential hits. It's like the game and the die are in cahoots. 

An inauspicious beginning

In my first turn, I decided to lead with the First Corps. Before the First and Second Corps can attack their corresponding Allied infantry Wings, they first have to deal with the garrisons at La Haye Saint and Hougoumont respectively, much like the British facing the Mill in Freeman’s Farm 1777 (Worthington Publishing, 2019). In that first turn I lost two blocks from the First Corps, one from a roll of five on the Allied Actions matrix – Allied Artillery Fire – and one from the stout defence put up by the 2nd Light Infantry Battalion of the King’s German Legion. This opening set the tone for what was to come. It would take assaults over four turns to clear the eastern chateau, and another two against Hougoumont, at a terrible cost in troops.

Combat is brutal in Waterloo Solitaire, and the odds are weighted against the player, or at least that’s how it seems when you’re the player. As a rule, the French score hits on low rolls, the Allies on high rolls. Add to this the nearly ubiquitous +2 modifier on many of the Allied orders, and in many cases the best the French player can hope for is a one-for-one hit exchange. This sounds like a complaint; it’s not meant to be – it’s just an observation. The game should be challenging (the lowest rated Bot matrix is called “Challenging”); if the game was easily won, you’d lose interest very quickly.

End of turn five. Already, things aren't looking good for the French.

The first Prussians arrived in turn four. The next turn, I sent the Reserves to check their progress, only to lose two blocks to the Allied cavalry (on a roll of the Cavalry Charge order, the Allied cavalry pre-emptively attacks whichever French formation has been ordered for that turn), then a third in an exchange.

Around the middle of the game – turn eight or nine, I sent the Old Guard out against La Haye Sainte, then again two turns later. The first time they were beaten back with heavy losses. The second – two turns later – they sacrificed themselves to clear the chateau in an exchange of hits. In between, Blucher had begun to arrive in force. If there are seven or more Prussian blocks on the board at the end of a turn, that’s an automatic win for the Allies. In the course of the game, I rolled a favourable one once. Every other one on a die roll came up on the Allied roll, and they seemed to come in pairs, inviting more and more Prussians to the party.

 

The end of the battle

Going into turn sixteen, having cleared Hougoumont and La Haye Saint, I was ready to make my final assault on the Allied lines. My Reserve and Imperial Guard had both lost all cohesion and withdrawn from the field of battle, both having sustained terrible losses at the hands of la belle Alliance. My First Corps was down to two blocks and my Second Corps had been reduced to a single block, but my two cavalry wings were both more or less intact; in the face of adversity, I thought a Je vous salue, Marie may just see the French carry the day. With three turns left victory was a tantalising mirage for a dying man.

I played a Cavalry Charge order. Intending to try to sweep up the Allied Right Wing and clear the way in the next turn to vanquish the Left Wing. Rolling for the Allies resulted in a result of one, followed by another one rolled on the Tactical Events table – Blucher Leads the Way. Two more Prussian units arrived in the woods, triggering an attack on the First Corps (the Prussians convincingly outnumbering the French). A To-Hit roll of five (with +2 modifier, of course) put an end to Napoleon’s Imperial dreams once and or all.

Final state. The Allies lose the game in a turn when two formations - Left Wing,
Right Wing or Reserves - are destroyed, but the French lose if either Corps is
vanquished, which is what happened, thanks to Blucher's (un)timely arrival. 

Mistakes were made

The hand-size difficulty adjustment is meant to limit player options in a given turn. The difficulty levels here are as follows; seven-card hand for Rookie, six for Experienced, and five for the Grognard. I didn’t check this when I set up for play, and misremembered the Experienced level being five cards, so I ended up playing a tougher game than intended, though I don’t think the extra card would have made much difference in light of my die-rolling and the lack of use of my Combined Arms option. This was another mistake. I declined from using the Combined Arms in the early turns, then I kind of slipped into a routine of card plays and ignored the option (this is the kind of mistake you make early and just once). Honestly, I don’t think they would have helped me keep both Corps in good order with the 5s and 6s the Wellington Bot kept scoring against my formations.

One game isn't enough to begin exploring strategies or testing tactical advantages, and it's easier to see mistakes after you've made them. The more time spent with Waterloo Solitaire, the better the odds of not losing so catastrophically. But that's what keeps bringing me back to games like this, the prospect or hope of not losing the same way twice. 

*****

So, the game was indeed an inauspicious introduction to Waterloo Solitaire. I expected to lose, but I’d hoped to lose in the last round, not two rounds early. The game is tough, even at a fairly moderate setting. Next time out I will stick to the Grognard (five-card) hand-size, but try the Challenging Allied order matrix rather than the Veteran. I’ll also make judicious use of the Combined Arms option, to cancel out the near ubiquitous +2 modifiers applied to so many of the French To-Hit rolls.

I only had enough time for a single game this time out; with every other Worthington solo game I’ve played, I’ve immediately reset it for a second inevitable loss straight after my first. I’ll be getting Waterloo Solitaire back to the table sooner rather than later, though There are other games also vying for my attention at the moment. But it’s a comparatively short experience, definitely playable inside of an hour, so I‘m sure I’ll be able to squeeze it in somewhere.

 

 

 

Blog Note: Rising to the (6 AAR) Challenge

 

 

Long time readers may remember that A Fast Game began less as a general wargaming blog than as a way to keep account of my progress on a wargaming program I had set myself. I’d intended to play six different wargames six times each; thirty-six games in all, which seemed like a surmountable challenge. Alas, it wasn’t. well, it wasn’t for me anyway. I managed not quite half the number of games, completing six plays at just two of the titles I’d chosen.

The following year – 2024 – I was still keen to try a regulated programme of play, but I scaled it back to a three-by-five – five games, three times each. The three-play target grew out of my belief that nobody should review a game on a single outing. I still think you need to play a game at least three or four times to begin to get to know it well enough to have a considered opinion about it. Unfortunately, due to a cacophony of influences, the three-by-five model, too, proved to be unworkable.

Around this time last year, after declaring that I was going to beg off setting myself any tasks or targets for the year beyond a review a month (spoiler alert: I managed five), The gentlemen of The War Room announced their Ten Wargame Challenge; play and document plays of ten different games of your choice (declared in a list at the beginning, along with two substitute titles, so a selection of twelve in all) before the end of December to go into the draw for prizes. I wrote about my hypocrisy in a previous post, went ahead and signed up for the Challenge. Not only did I only manage to write up four of the games on my list – I’d played a fifth but hadn’t documented it – by the time The War Room ceased to be.

The sad evidence of my first wargame challenge. I have since played Brief Border Wars
and Great War Commander several times. Alas, 1960: Making of a President
is yet to make it to the table.

So, at the end of last year I was quite vocal about not setting any kind of goal beyond playing more games in 2026 than I had in 2025 (achievable, I think – ’25 wasn’t a stellar year for getting games to the table). I was resolute in this; nothing was going to shake my resolve.

Then, about a week ago. Cardboard Commander posted to Facebook about something he was proposing for 2026. Jerry James – the man behind Cardboard Commander – is in the running for the Busiest Man in Wargaming. He has a YouTube channel with a handful videos going up each week, including a weekly live show, Zones of Control. He also writes a blog (there’s a link in my blog roll just to the right of the subject index). And on top of all that, he’s a funny, thoughtful, and gracious guy who is doing his bit to help build the wargaming community.

Last week Jerry floated the idea of people signing up for a Six Game AAR Challenge, inviting people to register to complete six After-Action Reports of games that they’ve played, either on the Cardboard Commander Facebook group or directly with him (via the blog). I wrestled with whether to participate or not for a while, but I eventually came around and have now registered with CC for the tour. I wrote about sixteen AARs in 2025, so I think I’ve got this. But the truth is, I like to feel like I’m a part of something bigger, however tangentially.

So, I don’t possess the level of commitment to finish stated goals or – apparently – to stick to not setting myself explicit challenges (or participating in presented challenges) after stating just that. This is obviously something I need to work through. I’ll get right on that. After this year.

If you'd like to join in the fun, contact Jerry through the links provided above. You have until the end of February to register, and have to submit your sixth AAR by the end of November. The parameters for accepted AARs are as follows:

 - Complete a game;

 - Minimum three accompanying photos of play; start, middle, and end;

 - An After-Action Report of a minimum 200-words to accompany the photos;

 - Send the whole thing (or a link if it's published elsewhere) to Cardboard Commander, or post it to the FB group;

- Repeat previous steps five more times.

Before you say it, anyone can write 200 words. Two hundred words is a thank-you note, or a sternly-worded Letter to the Editor. To put it in context, this "Quick Take " I wrote about The Hunt (Salt & Pepper Games, 2023) – five short paragraphs – came to just over 600 words. 

Just try it – the more the merrier. You might have fun.

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Waterloo Solitaire: Board Game Edition

 

 

During the lockdowns of the early 2020s, Worthington released their first book-games, Waterloo Solitaire (Worthington Publishing, 2021) and Bismarck Solitaire (Worthington Games, 2021). While not a new concept, Worthington was the first mainstream wargame publisher to bring the concept to market, brilliantly avoiding the shipping woes facing publishers, by making the books available as volumes print-on-demand directly from Amazon. These reportedly saved the sanity of hundreds of wargamers, and the line has gone from strength to strength, with the publisher now boasting thirteen titles in their book-game series. Their early success has also offered proof of concept for other designers producing games exclusively for this production model.

Two years after the book-game publication, Worthington announced a Kickstarter campaign for a Waterloo Solitaire: Board Game Edition (Worthington Publishing, 2023). I missed the Kickstarter for the boardgame version, but with the happy confluence of a windfall coming at the same time as Worthington offering a very good sale price on the game, I couldn’t go past it. I have a handful of solitaire wargames, and I’ve enjoyed every one of them immensely.

The box cover illustration captures the character of much of the Battle of Waterloo, It’s an extract from a watercolour painting by Denis Dighton, The Defence of the Chateau de Hougoumont by the flank Company,Coldstream Guards, 1815. Dighton painted the scene in the same year as the happenings; this is one of several paintings he executed portraying scenes from the battle after visiting the site mere days after the decisive battle, making extensive sketches of the buildings and terrain in order to accurately portray the scenes. The original painting is on display at the National Army Museum in London.

Box-back.

The back of the box offers a hint of what’s inside, with sample cards and pieces superimposed over the play-map image. It also offers a paragraph broadly speaking to the historical and social significance of the battle rather than the game-play, headed with the famous quote by Wellington about the battle being the “nearest run thing”. The other information is more forthcoming; a manifest briefly lists the components included, and the graphic indicators put the games difficulty at 2 out of 5 and the solitaire suitability (being a solitaire-only game) at 5 out of 5. The game is recommended for ages 14 and up, and the duration should be inside of an hour.

The rule booklet.

The rulebook for Waterloo Solitaire comes to just eight clearly readable and well-illustrated pages. Worthington prides itself on short, clear and understandable rulebooks, and this is a solid example. It helps that the play of the game is so straight-forward, sharing its genetics with the Great Sieges series (reviews here, here and here) and Tarawa 1943 (Worthington Publishing, 2020)

Sample page.

The rulebook is printed on a nice low-sheen gloss paper, presented in a very readable serif font (from the Garamond family). The illustrations are clear and useful, but all in all, Waterloo Solitaire should be easy enough game to learn through diving into a game and following the Sequence of Play.  

The board. As usual, my inferior photography doesn't do it justice.

The game board is 17” by 22’ and mounted. The art is reminiscent of the kinds of after-action maps of military engagements that inspired this kind of wargaming in the first place. Starting locations for the unit blocks are marked with a solid rectangle of the matching colour, while rectangles outlined in these colours denote the positions Reserve units (and when available, the Prussian forces) may move to via game functions. The whole effect is wholly engaging, and the map is really quite nice to look at. The board also incorporated a Turn Track and a separate Combined Arms track (I’ll talk more about this in the AAR when I get to it).

The board is probably most reminiscent of another Worthington game, Freeman’s Farm, 1777 (Worthington Publishing, 2019), in that there is very little movement of available forces. The lack of manoeuvre will, I’m sure, put some gamers off from the outset, but as I’ve written elsewhere, this kind of play can still feel dynamic and challenging.

Two of the three Order Cards. These all present clear instructions
for your inevitable defeat.

The Bot function is handled by a set of Action Cards. These consist of three double-sided boards, representing the responses by the opposing Bot to the player’s choice of orders. The responses are decided by a die roll. The three boards represent three levels of difficulty, Challenging, Veteren, and Tough. Normally. I try not to get too deep into discussing game processes in an unboxing post, but I think it would be useful to mention the sequence of play here.

In the course of play the player will have a hand of cards drawn from their Command Deck (I’ll come back to these shortly), and Order Card representing the opposing side set up for play. Each turn, the player will select a command card from their had and place it face up in front of themselves. Then a die is rolled and the corresponding opposing order in the lower section on the Order card is enacted before the command card is played; if a one is rolled, the die is re-rolled, and the player refers to the more challenging upper row – the Tactical Action table – which is then resolved. After the enemy action has been resolved, the Command Card is played (if still possible). In this way, play is similar to games like 1759: Siege of Quebec (Worthington Publishing, 2022).

The easel, as yet unsullied.

Waterloo Solitaire also comes with an easel, a jointed heavy-weight cardboard Action Card holder so you can position it next to the board and refer to it at a glance, without having to stop what you’re doing and pick the matrix up to check your die results.

This might be considered a novelty – I think it may have been initially added as a Kickstarter stretch goal – but in the past I haven’t been above using my wife’s recipe book holder for the very same purpose. I’ll keep it in the box for now, but it may end up too useful to confine it to just this game.

Tray and contents. The extra compartment lets you separate the Allied
and French decks (no fraternisation among the troops).

Worthington has been incorporating trays into their games for some years now. I’ve read that some folks rather they didn’t, but I think these six-pot trays make perfect sense for games with cards and/or wooden pieces. I still put light-tension bands around the cards to stop them from coming adrift, but these are super helpful for keeping sets of components together.

Sample cards. Many of there orders offer two or more alternative functions.
This won't necessarily make winning any easier.

Waterloo Solitaire comes with two twenty-six card decks, one each for the two sides of the conflict. Along with the three levels of Bot difficulty, the player can increase the game’s challenge by adjusting the hand size he has to choose from. The rules recommend a seven-card hand for a Rookie, six for the Experienced player, and five for the Grognard. Among the cards are a selection of orders, each specific in their function, with the exception of the Wellington/Napoleon cards which facilitate any single card order, and each limited in number.

The cards are printed on a good weight of card and each order boasts its own artwork. These are drawn from contemporary paintings of the battle, and lend another level of verisimilitude to the play.

Infantry blocks, uncomplicated and uniform.

Action in the game is abstracted to nameless Infantry (plain) and Cavalry (screen-printed with the traditional sash marking on one face) formations, represented by elongated wooden blocks, blue for the French, red for the Anglo-Alliance and green for the Prussians. The blocks are, in essence, casualty markers. They are chunky and tactile, identical to those used in the Great Sieges games. In those games, when your forces take a loss there’s a visceral sense of diminishing strength; the weight of the blocks lend a tangible presence, lending a metaphysical weight to their removal from the board. Several yellow cubes for use on the Turn and Combined Arms tracks also included, along with the single die required for rolls.

You can't see them all here, but the Cavalry blocks are all stencilled in like manner.
I'll get some better photos for the AAR. 

I'm certain the lack of detail in formation attribution will be enough to put some folks off the game. I can't speak to that; everyone has their own criteria for what they look for in a wargame, and I can understand the preference for granular detail. This game won't be for everyone, but I've had a lot of fun with similar games, and I expect to here as well. (And there I go practically reviewing the game before I've played it.)

I’ve been hoping to get my hands on a copy of Waterloo Solitaire for some time now. Worthington has produced a good number of my favourite fast-play solitaire games over recent years, and I expect this one to live up to my expectations. I anticipate posting an initial game report soonish.

 

 

Blog note: 2026 Prospectus

 

 

Planning for a brighter 2026.

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice."

— T.S Eliot, Little Gidding (Four Quartets)

 

Happy new year, gentle reader. I hope January finds you in good health and spirits, and that you find more than you lose.

My wife has been on leave the last fortnight, so I’ve taken a break from wargaming and (mostly) from posting to A Fast Game. We’ve spent tine walking, cross-quizzing (I feel like this is a peculiarly Australian pastime, crosswords where the clues are quiz questions instead of simple of cryptic cues), jig-sawing and generally abiding. I now feel refreshed, recharged, and ready to face the coming year.

As I stated in the Fourth Quarter report for 2025, I’m begin off setting goals for myself or for the blog this year. Think of it as a reset. My one ambition for the year to get more games played overall than last year. This has been thwarted at the gate; I’m writing this on Monday, and T is overseas (I knew they had a trip coming up but thought it was later in the month), but I have fifty-one weeks in which to catch up.

I have played one more game at the end of 2025, though not a wargame. A few months ago, we had dinner with friends, and D quizzed me about games he could play with his going on nine-year-old. I told hm I’d think about it. The next day I ordered a copy of Odin’s Ravens (Osprey Games, 2016) which I finally dropped around to them on New Year’s Eve afternoon, and we played a quick learning round. D picked it up straight away, but on reflection, their “I’m eight-and-a-half!“ year-old might need a little more time (and a primer in Norse mythology).

 

Short term and long term

Over the next month or so, I’ll probably mostly be posting unboxings. Today I received Waterloo Solitaire: Board Game Edition (Worthington Publishing, 2023) and notice of the imminent arrival of a GMT Games care package (three games from their November release). I still have one outstanding game from Legon Wargames to look at – A Glorious Chance (Legion Wargames, 2023), and Desert Blitzkrieg: Rommel’s North African Campaign (Compass Games, 2025), which I won in a lottery draw watching the last Compass Town Hall for 2025. Compass owner Bill Thomas usually gives away a copy of the company’s latest release at the end of the show, but this time, full of the Christmas spirit, Bill and the crew gave out a copy of practically every box title and issue of Paper Wars released in the year that hadn’t already sold out. I was lucky enough to score Mike Vitale’s new game (which I was going buy, but I put that money to another Compass game instead).

I tend not to post unboxings of second-hand games; I see less of a point in that, but I’ll continue to write up older games when I happen to find intact copies (like I did with Monty’s Gamble: Market Garden (Multi-Man Publishing, 2019) and 1914: Glory's End / When Eagles Fight (GMT Games, 2014) (you can find these in the index column).

When I play an interesting game, I’ll write it up. I wrote fifteen After Action Reports of games played across 2025. I think the number will probably be closer to twenty-five over 2026. Considering six or seven of those were write-ups of Commands and Colors: Medieval (GMT Games, 2019), I’ll try to offer a bit more variety, as much for my own sake as for subject diversity.

I have in mind some game reviews I’d like to write and post, but I don’t want to commit to a firm number because that never ends well. I only posted five reviews in the last year; I’ll aim to beat that number. I’ll try to look at newer games for review as well, or at least those still in print. I have some candidates in mind already.

I enjoyed researching and writing up an inquiry into the value proposition of wargame awards from the publishers’ perspective in 2025. If I can find another subject to get deep into the weeds with this year, I’ll take that challenge. Nothing is leaping out at me though at this point. If you’d like to suggest something, let me know.

I’m also hoping to continue the Not Created Equal series I started in June, then proceeded to ignore for the rest of the year. I’ve started sketching out two more instalments, and I hope to get one out at least before the middle of the year.

So, that’s a brief look at what to expect here in 2026. If you’re an old hand, thanks for sticking with us. If you’re new to A Fast Game, don’t try to read everything; most of the first six months of the blog was me finding my feet. It gets progressively better after that. And, thanks for coming along for the ride.

 

Here’s to more wargames played, and to having fun. In the end, that’s the point.

2025 Q4 Report: Full of Things

 

 

Sending season's greetings.

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”

– Rainer Maria Rilke

 

For a more complete picture of how the year panned out, I'll refer you to my previous reports for Q1, Q2, and Q3.

 

About this time last year, I wrote a By the Numbers post called What I did in 2024. I made a kind of checklist of general subjects that I could quantify, like the number of games I’d bought or played over the course of the year, and the kinds of things I’d posted to A Fast Game, and I also discussed some more qualitative stuff. Over the course of 2025, I’ve fallen into using this model for a more structured quarterly report, so no more “What I Did” pieces from hereon in, just the quarterlies. I will probably talk a little more broadly about some aspects of the year, but I’m not going to duplicate great swaths of previous reports. Here you’ll get the whole numbers for the year as well as the last quarter, but if you want to see how my collection grew over 2025, I’d point you to the links to the previous three quarterly reports for the year at the top of this post. You’re welcome.

2025 was a strange year in a couple of respects. I’m not going to get into a discussion about tariffs or shipping price-hikes, but there was all of that. 2025 was a year I spent much more time thinking about wargames than playing them. Part of this was circumstantial, part of it was accidental, but another part feels like it was avoidable, after the fact.

 

Games purchased

In last year’s What I did post I wrote that I gained 34 games in the course of the year. In my Collection-to-Games Played Ratio I said I’d purchased – or more accurately, received – forty-one games (actually forty-two, but I’ll come back to that). There are a couple of reasons for this discrepancy, but they all boil down to me being an idiot. The list I was working off for the Games to games played piece was an extract from my Owned list on Boardgamegeek.com; yes, I list my collection on BGG, and it’s public facing, if you’re at all curious. It also includes the family games we play, so the count blows out to over 300 titles. I’m usually fairly diligent about adding newly acquired titles to my BGG record, and I’ve come to rely on it as a single source of truth. Except the system isn’t foolproof and sometimes things slip through the cracks. While I was preparing the current list, I realised there were about three titles I’d neglected to add, including A Most Fearful Sacrifice: The Three Days of Gettysburg (Flying Pig Games, 2022), which I was certain had been on the list, but was not.

Fourth quarter haul. The Combat Commander Minor Nations folio with the extra
material included in the new combined Europe/Mediterranean box is missing
from the photo.

In the fourth quarter, the collection grew by six games (plus one extra, which I’ll get to) and an expansion (Combat Commander: Minor Nations. Three of those were Legion Wargames games I’d been keen to acquire for a while (I’m working through an unboxing sequence, starting with The Battle of Blenheim, 1704 (Legion Wargames, 2018), which you can read here), second hand copies of Charioteer (GMT Games, 2023) and Beware the Ides of March (Hollandspiele, 2024).

I’ve always maintained that I will not solicit review copies of games from publishers, but I attended the last Compass Games Town Hall for the year – Bill Thomas and this team do a live fortnightly show on YouTube, and give away a copy of their latest release via a lottery system. Except for the end of year show, Bill was feeling especially generous, and gave away about a dozen games and copies of Paper Wars that had been released in 2025, and I was lucky enough to have my name drawn for a copy of Mike Vitale’s Desert Blitzkrieg: Rommel's North African Campaign (Compass Games, 2025), which arrived today, in time for the 2025 count. Rest assured, an unboxing post and AAR will be coming in the new year.

This, apparently, is what winning looks like.

This was one of two wargames I won in tottery draws this year. Grant from Pushing Cardboard had a giveaway on his website, and I was drawn for a copy of Italy '43 (GMT Games, 2025). I already have a copy on its way (hopefully due in a fortnight or so), so I'm tossing up what to do with this copy. I may run some sort of competition on A Fast Game, but I'm not sure how that would work yet. Stay tuned.

Over the course of the year, I’ve received thirty-seven games* (and two supplementary materials, GMT’s 2024 Replacement Counter-sheet, and Combat Commander: Battle Pack #8 – Minor Nations (GMT Games, 2025). This is up three titles from last year (after me saying 2025 was the year I would wind back my game purchasing), and I’m expecting a GMT delivery (three games) and another game each from Sound of Drums and Les3 Zouaves early-ish in the new year.

We live in an apartment, and not a particularly large one. I’ve estimated previously that I can probably accommodate around 300 wargames before I need to start weeding the collection. Here, at the end of 2025, I’m sitting at 248; not “peak wargame” – well, not quite – but my buying habits will have to to adjust accordingly.

Addressing that in a small way, 2025 was they year I went hard on computer games, or more accurately, computer ports of existing board wargames. I bought Rebel Fury, Waterloo and Gettysburg (for a bundle discount), Saratoga (a port of the Battles of the American Revolution game from GMT), all from Hexes of War, and SpaceCorp (Logix Interatvive,2025), Britannia and Napoleon’s Eagles from Avalon Digital, and Bill Kalapoglou’s Arete (Molotov Cockatiel Games, 2025), all available via Steam.

 

Games played

I’ve posted a separate account of games played here. It turns out I had played more games through the course of the year than I had expected, but less than I would have liked. These weren’t all wargames, but engaging in any game is a chance to learn something new.  There were more role-playing sessions with the Wednesday group than last year, but RPGs are what brought that group together in the first place, so I can’t really begrudge that. I’ve been a part of the Wednesday group for seventeen years next March. In that time, we’ve played a number of wargames (mostly miniatures, but others ranging from The Grizzled (Sweet Games, 2015) to Here I Stand (GMT Games, 2015)), but it’s not a wargaming group, and I can’t count on getting my fix here. This year we played sixteen games (we played Border Reivers: Anglo-Scottish Border Raids, 1513-1603 (GMT Games, 2023) and Successors (Phalanx, 20, each over two weeks). Our host is an inveterate lead-pusher as well, and will often have a game already set up from another weekly game night, so I got to try three different, new-to-me miniatures rulesets; Lion Rampant, Second Ed. (Osprey Games, 2022) for Saxons and Late Romans, Pikeman’s Lament (Osprey Games, 2017) for the English Civil War, and Valour & Fortitude (Perry Miniatures, 2022) for some Peninsula action.

Long-time readers may remember I started this blog as part of a project rather misguidedly inspired by the War Room’s annual Ten Game Challenge. So, I thought it would be fitting to actually take part in the official proceedings.

I signed up for the War Room’s Ten Wargame Challenge for 2025; not only have I fallen short of playing ten of the nominated twelve games (two back-ups were allowed), but the War Room as a collaborative YouTube entity has ceased be. I’m not so narcissistic as to think I singularly brought on the institution’s end, but I possess enough inherent paranoia to wonder, “Did I jinx it?” When the War Room fell over, there was a lot of discussion on Facebook and elsewhere about whether people should still try to finish their challenge lists (a dozen or more had already ploughed through there ten, and at least one FB friend had actually played all twelve games on his list. I wanted to finish my list; it was furnished with games I’d wanted to table for a year or more in some cases. But internal and external pressures prevented me from getting past the five I managed to get played (I played a Rebel Fury (GMT Games, 2024) scenario Spotsylvania on Steam, but never got around to writing it up).

For fifteen years now, I’ve been spending a Monday evening – sometimes Tuesday (and since his schedule has cleared, occasionally Thursday) – playing wargames nearly exclusively, face to face with my brother-in-law, who I refer to here as T. In the past we played Commands & Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010) exclusively; after about the first nine years we branched out into other C&C flavours, and in recent years, I’ve got him to play other games as well, sometimes. In the earlier years we’d consistently play between forty and forty-five weeks out of the year (and usually get a Wings of War (Nexus, 2004) or a Trafalgar (Warhammer Historical, 2009) game in on Boxing Day. This year we only managed twenty-six games all up. The other twenty-six were lost to a combination of sickness, travel, and family commitments (T is now a doting grandfather). I don’t resent the lost opportunities, but it was another reason for my game count falling off this year.

Another reason was, I simply didn’t take all the opportunities I had to play a game when they presented themselves. Which segues us into the next section.

 

Games unplayed

This is a new subheading that will probably only appear in Q4 reports. Or maybe not; let’s see how it goes. Since the beginning of A Fast Game, I’ve always begun the year with grandiose plans of what I hope to accomplish, then it gets to the end of the year and what do I have to show for it? Admission is the first step to healing, so here is where I’ll fess up to all those things I declared I wanted to do but didn’t get done. Kind of a psychoanalytic version of a shelf of shame selfie.

The American Civil War remains under-fought in my household. I had planned to get By Swords and Bayonets (GMT Games, 2025) and A Most Fearful Sacrifice to the table as part of my Ten Wargame Challenge, and Flanks of Gettysburg (Compass Games, 2024) in 2025. This didn’t happen. I even told designer Herman Luttmann that I was finally going to play AMFS this year, and I didn’t follow through. This was why I had both AMFS and By Swords and Bayonets on my Ten Game Challenge list.

Our last Monday night game was Yorktown from the Commands and Colors Tricorne:
the American Revolution (Compass Games, 2017) The French and More! Expansion
(Compass Games, 2018). I'm embarrassed to say this was the first scenario
we've played from the expansion.

Crucially, 2025 was meant to be the year I learned the Great Battles of the American Civil War (GBACW) system, something I said I was going to do in 2024 as well. This didn’t happen, either. With BS&B, I now own four GBACW titles – the three most recent box games (BS&B, Into the Woods: The Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862 (GMT Games, 2022), and Death Valley: Battles for the Shenandoah (GMT Games, 2019), plus Wilson's Creek: The West's First Fight, August 10, 1861 (SPI, 1980) from Strategy & Tactics, issue 80), but all remain unpunched, glowering and taunting from their shelf.

This year, after resisting the siren call for some time, I finally gave in and bought my first Great Battles of History (GBoH) game; the one that started it all, The Great Battles of Alexander: Macedonian Art of War (GMT Games, 2015). A second-hand copy of the most recent printing (including the Tyrant expansion) came up for sale, mostly unpunched, and bearing a faint mothball odour. This was apparently enough to put one off, and when it was still available after about four months, I thought it was meant to be. This now sits on the shelf next to the GBACW games and is picking up their glowering habits. I’ve said for the last two years that this would be the year I’d crack GBACW.

Many of the games I didn’t get to on my Ten Wargame Challenge list because I was holding out to play them against an opponent instead of two-handing them, including We Are Coming, Nineveh (Nuts! Publishing, 2023 – this game actually come solitaire rules, so doubly no excuse), Waterloo, 1815: Fallen Eagles II (Hexasim, 2022), and Imperial Bayonets: We Were Not Cowards –Sedan 1870 (Conflict Simulations Ltd, 2020), when I really should have bitten the bullet and played them solo. This is what I did with Drop Zone: Southern France (Worthington Publishing, 225) when T cancelled our game that week at the last minute. In fact, I haven’t played that many solo games this year at all. In 2025 I played six separate times spread over four games.

This year I struggled to get motivated to play. Quite a bit, in truth. Some times when I had the oppotunity to play even something short, just setting up a game often felt insurmountable. This was a symptom of something else going on, unrelated to gaming, but that nonetheless affected this and other parts of my life adversely (I’m sure this was a contributing factor to my posting output slowing over 2025 as well). I wouldn’t say I’m much better than I have been, but I think I’ve turned a corner in this regard, and I’m looking forward to a more play-full coming year.

 

Blog matters

I have written quite a bit though 2025, though not quite as much as the previous couple of years. At time of writing, I have posted around 358,500 words to A Fast Game since its start at the end of January, 2023; If it were a novel, it would be longer than The Brothers Karamazov, nearly as long as David Copperfield, but a lot less compelling than either. This is in the space of a little less than three years. Not counting this report, I have posted sixty-one posts since February 1st. I haven’t written or posted as much this year as I have in either of the two previous years, but you have to keep in mind that the technical year-end for the blog is the end of January, so I may catch up a little here (check in again around January 31 for the third anniversary post).

In mid-October A Fast Game hit 50,000 views, and half of those came from readers over the most recent ten or so months. As I write that number is a little shy of 62,000. I’ve had various posts mentioned on The Armchair Dragoons and grognard.com, and the good folks at GMT continue to add my unboxing and review efforts to their product pages, alongside the work of more celebrated critics.

When I started writing A Fast Game, I was still finding my feet with the blog, after a long absence from writing anything consequential. Frankly, some of the stuff I wrote in the first six months is a little embarrassing, but You have to start somewhere, and I think I have become a better writer in the intervening couple of years. I made a conscious effort to post useful material. When the Charles S. Roberts Award nominees were announced, A Fast Game was the first (and so far as I am aware, the only) place on the web to post a complete list of nominees along with links to their respective BGG pages. This year I also published my first feature article, a survey of the value of wargame awards for publishers, which took time and effort and the good graces of many publishers who responded to my cold-call questionnaire. This was fun to put together and I would definitely do a research project like this again if I find an interesting enough subject. Suggestions for future feature subjects are welcome.

I feel like the writing and the arguments behind it have matured somewhat from that first year. I’m a little surer of what I mean to say, and more willing to not write about something unless I feel I have something to contribute to the conversation. I still tend to apply an irreverent tone to most subjects, but that’s just me, and it comes from a place of love and respect. That won’t be changing.

 

Extra-curricular activities

I did some scenario development and layout work for Ray Weiss’s Afrika Army Korps (Conflict Simulations Ltd, 2025), which was released earlier this year. Since then, I’ve backed off from pretty much everything wargame-related except playing, posting to A Fast Game, and engaging with the Pushing Cardboard Discord channel. Grant Linneberg has built a friendly, respectful, and welcoming community of serious gamers, and I feel lucky to have been accepted into it.

I tried out for proofing work with Decision Games (for their bi-monthly magazines, Strategy & Tactics and World at War), and with GMT Games, but didn’t get a guernsey in either case. I’m not all that upset about this; it would be nice to contribute to the hobby with more than half-baked opinions and the occasional rant, but doing this kind of work would seriously eat into my ranting time. So, for now, I’ll be sticking to A Fast Game as my sole avenue of contribution.

I posted a printable copy of the Scenario set for AAK on the game’s BBG page (it’s in letter – I submitted an A4 colour version as well, along with Printer-Friendly versions of both standard sizes, but only the colour Letter-sized version was accepted). I’ve yet to find a retailer in Adelaide that stocks Letter-sized paper, which is disappointing, considering A4 sheets don’t easily fit into American game boxes. If anyone can tell me where to get some (besides on Amazon with their extortionate prices), please let me know in the comments. I’m still thinking about some additional scenarios for AAK – it’s such a great sandbox game, it really deserves some more love. I’ll (try to) post each new scenario to BGG as they become available, and I’ll let the faithful know on this blog.

 

What’s next?

Last year said I wasn’t going to commit to anything gaming-wise, except maintaining work on A Fast Game, then I fell off the wagon and signed up for the War Room’s Ten Wargame Challenge. I’ve already talked here about how that worked out. I think I’ve finally learnt my lesson and so I’m not going to make any hard and fast declarations about wargaming intentions. Well, at least for this year -no challenges, not numerical goals. I’m going to make more of an effort to learn a handful of game-systems, and GBACW will be on this list. Given my limited storage capacity, system games are gaining in appeal. I’m hoping I like GBoH as well, as that’s a particularly rich vein to extract. If I settle on a short selection, I may write something about it in the new year, but it will be at best an intention, not a commitment.

Impending Allied assault on Sidi Barrani; Operation Compass scenario,
Afrika Army Korps (CSL, 2925).

Turning to extra-curricular activities, if I can get myself in the right frame of mind again, I'd like to write up two or three more short (four-eight turn) scenarios for Afrika Army Korps, including Operation Battleaxe (which was incomplete at time of publication) and a hypothetical of the planned, but never executed Operation Silk. I've been kicking around an idea for a solo print & play game covering a siege from the Thirty Years' War, but I wouldn't expect to see that in 2026. I wrote a solo journaling game about a secretive cabal a while ago on an interstate flight. It needs a rewrite, but I promised my wife I would finish it off and and send it out into the world this year. All of this is wish-list stuff, except for the journaling game (a promise is a promise), but I tend to get restless without a couple of things on the go.

As for the blog, I will keep doing what I’ve been doing with A Fast Game. This has become more important to me than I would have ever expected. It has garnered praise from people whose opinions I respect, and it helped a handful of people find new games and new experiences they otherwise may not have stumbled across. I would be open to trying new types of post, if anyone has any suggestions (I have done this before), but in the short term, I will be sticking to what I know works. Unboxings will often include art history lessons, and After-Action Reports will still highlight the mistakes that were made (we screw it up so you don’t have to). And I’ll try to knock out more than five game reviews over the next twelve months. No promises, though.

I began writing the quarterly reports for the same reason I began writing the blog in the first place; to hold myself to account regarding whatever goal or quest I’d set for myself. If I’m not setting targets, there seems to be less need for a status update every three months. But… I’ve come to look forward to writing these reports. They are way for me to keep in mind what I’m spending my hard-earned on, and where I’m putting my time. So, I think I’ll be sticking to these as well.

 So, that's the year that was, and a glimpse into what's to come. All that's left is to thank you, gentle reader, for persisting this far. I hope you've enjoyed the blog this year, and I hope you'll come back again in 2026. Happy New Year, and I'll leave you with a toast that a late friend was fond of giving:

We may not always get what we want, 

and we may not always get what we need; 

just so long as we don't get what we deserve.

 

*Make that thirty-eight games - I really wasn't expecting Desert Blitzkrieg to arrive before the New Year.