2026 Q1 Report: Supplies and Demands

 

 

9th Division Army Service Corps, Tobruk, September 1941
(Courtesy of the Australia War Memorial).

Three months into the new year, I find myself feeling like a bit of a fraud. A Fast Game began a blog about playing wargames, but there hasn’t been a lot of games played lately. Life, family illness, and associated stresses intrude on plans, or weariness overtakes the planner. Either way, I’m left with feelings of guilt over missed opportunities. This leaves me in a funk, a little black terrier growling and pulling at my trouser leg.

Writing is the best salve for this funk, but I’ve been wilfully ignoring this avenue out of Achillean stubbornness (I’ll come back to this later in the post). I think I’m digging my way out of that funk now. The terrier is in the corner, chastened but alert.

Overall, I’m a little disappointed with my written output these last three months – the quantity thereof, of the quality I’m quite chuffed – and dissatisfied with my own participation in the hobby. Through the course of preparing this report, my view of the last three months of A Fast Game has softened a little; I do feel like I’ve achieved some joy in some areas, in spite of not meeting my own expectations in others. On balance, it hasn’t been a bad quarter.

 

Incoming

In previous quarterly reports, this section has been called Games Purchased, but most of the arriving games in a given quarter have been ordered and paid for in advance, sometimes a year or more earlier. So, I’m changing it to “Incoming” partly in keeping with a martial theme, partly because some quarters it can feel somewhat like a barrage.

Overall, I’ve received twelve wargames and two expansions/supplements in the last three months. Q1 2026 was the Quarter of Big Boxes. No less than three games arrived in 12” by 12” shells (see the photo attached). A GMT P500 order arrived with two Mark Simonitch games (and a mounted board for Italy ’43 (GMT Games, 2025)) and Unconditional Surrender! Western Campaigns (GMT Games, 2025). I also received Battle Commander, Volume 1 (Sound of Drums, 2026) and its first expansion, and Gallipoli: Ordered to Die (The Dietz Foundation, 2025), both crowdfunded through the usual channels. 

Q1 haul. Not pictured; Bansai 28, Paper Wars #84 (Autumn 2016). 1846: The Race for the
 Midwest is an honourable mention. I've never played an 18XX game, and the price was
very good, so I grabbed this and 1777: Year of the Hangman (Clash of Arms, 2002)
as a job lot.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Brian Train’s latest COIN game, China’s War (GMT Games, 2025) was subbed-out for another title I won in a raffle draw. I was particularly heartened to receive a contributor’s copy of BonSai Games’ Bansai 28. I’ve bleated about this enough – you can read about it here – but, but by happy coincidence, it included a a revised edition of the game Balkan Gamble, also designed by Mr Train. He was kind enough to forward me the English language rules and scenario details (the game covers four planned but unexecuted invasions of Greece/Yugoslavia between 1943 and 1950). This is near the top of my to be played.  And as if the gods themselves smiled down on the exchange, a copy of Mr Train’s Finnish Civil War (Compass Games, 2016) in issue 84 of Paper Wars arrived (with Battle Commander, but that’s a story for another time) on the same day as Bansai 28. China’s War arrived the following week.

The others were opportunistic purchases, on my part – get ’em before they’re gone. I've already posted an unboxing of War & Peace, Seventh Edition (Avalon Digital, 2025); the others will be forthcoming.

 

Games played

This will be short. And embarrassing. In the last three months I think I’ve played maybe nine games or less to completion, depending on how you define complete. When I’m playing a game two-handed, I’ll sometimes stop when a probable conclusion is clear, when it would be impossible for one side to make it out of the hole they’ve dug, and those last three or so rounds would just be a slow attrition, delaying the inevitable.

I’ve also played out the first couple of rounds of a handful of games, only to pack them up again before I’ve reached the meat of the game. These last three months have been a season of disruptions. This happened twice with The Battle of Blenheim, 1704 (Legion Wargames, 2018), and twice again in the last several weeks, with Battle Commander, Vol 1.

French Regulars and Guard advance on brittle Spanish militia (Valour and Fortitude).

T and I haven’t met for a game since a couple of weeks before Christmas. We thought we may be able to squeeze one in tonight (the last day of March), but circumstances would not permit. The reason for our extended break is also the cause of much of the stress across the extended family these past months, and a big contributor to my not clocking more games recently.

Something I have played quite a bit these last three months is minis games. I participated in a couple of miniatures games using the Valour and Fortitude rules (Perry Miniatures, 2022), which is fast becoming the go-to rules for a sweep of periods. This quarter we’ve played an American Revolutionary War action and an early Peninsular War game.

Not quite a free-for-all (Jugula).

We also had two consecutive weeks of Gladiator games, Spartacus: a Game of Blood and Treachery (Gale Force Nine, 2012), which was mechanically elegant and a brilliant engine builder but didn’t blow my socks off, and Jugula (Studio Tomahawk, 2014), which did. Spartacus is more about building your ludus and stabbing your competition in the back, and the side-spectacle of the gladiatorial combat almost a distraction. Jugula is all arena combat, with a brilliant card-based system where the deck both offers advantages and determines your fate at each exchange of blows. If swords and sandals are your thing, hunt down a copy of the Jugula rules and decks (you’ll need one deck for each team, but there are lots of options for your team).

We who are about to die... (Jugula).

 

Blog matters; or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the box

This Quarter I’ve posted just nineteen entries to A Fast Game (including this one). In my last Quarterly Report, I mentioned I was hoping to improve the posting count from 2025, but that Quarter I put up twenty-two posts all up. There are a lot of little contributing factors at play here, but I want to look at one here in particular.

Like I said at the start, I started A Fast Game to talk about playing games. In spite of barely getting any table-time in the last three months, I still think of myself as a wargame player rather than a wargame collector. So, it wasn’t much of a shock when I realised unboxing posts made up a third of the entries posted in the last three months (compared to just two AARs), and three of those went up consecutively. This isn’t really a problem– I treat unboxings like a community service and try to make them informative and entertaining – but lately I’ve been hyper-conscious of A Fast Game starting to look like a big advertisement. Or the online equivalent of a used car lot.

I have about four unboxing posts in various states of completion and could probably have upped the quota for Q1 so something like last year’s levels, but I realise now I’ve been self-editing my posting. I’ve got four games that arrived between January and now that I’d like to write up, as well as another eight or ten from last year. If I had pushed through and finished some of these, I probably would have felt better overall about the blog, and would probably have written more overall, not just the unboxings. I hope I’ve turned a corner with actually playing games, but I’ll also try not to let my embarrassment form not posting AARs get in the way of posting unboxings.

Another thing regulars may have noticed is I’ve added a new, if infrequent, feature to A Fast Game. Q1 saw two short-form interviews, with designer/publisher Yasushi Nakaguro and social media impresario Grant Linneberg. This is something I’be been thinking about for a while. I want to present short interviews with a relatively concentrated focus on a given subject. I’m still finding my feet a little with it, but the reception so far has been encouraging. I’m currently lining up another interview and have a few other subjects in mind. It will stay an infrequent addition to the stable, but expect to see more of these.

Early action in the Battle of Montebello (Battle Commander).

The other big news is that just yesterday (at time of writing), A Fast Game passed the 75,000 visits mark. To put that in context, starting out I just about reached 500 views in the first six months of posting (and I think about 10% of those were me making sure all the links worked live), and about fifteen months all up to get to 10,000 views.

The view count is a pretty high-level metric and doesn’t mean much; in a previous job I was responsible for reporting on a handful of metrics, and the Marketing division was in love with the overall site visit metric because it just kept going up, in spite of the fact that the actual number of visits per month was circling the drain.

I don’t know how many of those visits result in the reader glancing over what’s on offer and digging further or just bouncing off and checking out YouTube videos instead. A Fast Game isn’t monetised, and I don’t want to pay for Google Analytics, so I can only extrapolate from the meagre data provided in basic Blogger.

The simple analytics you get with Blogger show you the Top Referrers and Top Referring URLs – who is sending readers your way, and how they are getting there. These usually pick up less than ten percent of the overall visits for a given duration (I have it set up for the last week’s activities). So, while I get readers from recommendations on other websites, the majority seem to come through the front door; that is, the come to the general blog address and see whatever I’ve posted most recently, then sometimes they’ll go rummaging through the back-catalogue.

Traffic report.

As I’ve said previously, I’m really appreciative of the mentions I get on other blogs and elsewhere (you know who you are), but the bread and butter of the blog is people who presumably have A Fast Game bookmarked and drop in every other week or so to see what’s going on. In this case, the referrals are gravy, and I return the favour when I can. Referrals must be how most people find A Fast Game in the first place. A Google search for <”a fast game is a good game” blog> brought up half-a-dozen links each to old Armchair Dragoons’ Tuesday Newsday posts and GMT Games’ product pages, but no direct link to the blog (I’m sure this would change if I turned on Adsense).

I mostly write A Fast Game for myself. I go down statistical rabbit holes and chase down obscure facets of art history because that’s what interests me. But the knowledge that people are coming back to read what’s on offer, and occasionally even comment on it, brings its own reward. Thanks for coming along.

 

An international audience.

Extracurricular activities

Nothing to report on this front. If I haven’t had the time or opportunity to play wargames, I certainly haven’t had the capacity to play-test anything. That may change in the future, but I can’t promise anything.

 

Next steps

Last year I wrote the first part of what I envisioned would be a three-part exploration of Block Wargames, why and how they do what they do. It started as a two-parter, but after rethinking it, I edited down the second part and posted it under the title Not Created Equal: a Block Wargame Primer, Part 1 – Commands & Colors; an odd place to start, but there you go. I’ve been meaning to get back to it for a while, but I’ve finally started to sketch out a couple more chapters (to make it a four-part series in all, maybe five if I can maintain the momentum), and I hope to get at least another one up on the blog before the end of June. I may even rework the first chapter to bring it more in line with the others (no promises there, I hate reworking old material).

I’d like to do another research article as well; I have an idea of what I’d like to look at, but I’m struggling with the methodology. If I can crack that nut, you may see another long-form piece later this year.

In the meantime, expect to see more unboxings, hopefully some AARs, maybe another interview or two. I especially can’t make promises when other people are involved – I’m at the whim of their schedules and commitments. The interviews are fun to do, and after I fire off the first batch of questions, I can get on with something else until I get a reply.

So as always, expect more of the same. Thank you for reading this far, and for coming back to A Fast Game if you’re a regular. If you can keep showing up, I should be able to keep it interesting. And I’ll try to be less morose this quarter.

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: War & Peace, Seventh Edition

  

 

Mark McLaughlin’s War & Peace (Avalon Hill, 1980) is something of a legend in the wargaming world. It’s one of those titles that has stood the test of time, being reborn in successive editions over the last forty-five years, each time maturing, streamlining, and growing a little in its scope. I really thought when it came out that War and Peace: Game of theNapoleonic Wars (One Small Step, 2020), with its gorgeous presentation and mounted boards, was going to be the final word on the game. This was the sixth edition of a really well-regarded game, and with a single print-run, that edition became a collector’s item really quickly, and the price went up accordingly.

At 4 1/4" deep, it's nearly as thick as its namesake novel.

I was hunting around for a copy of the One Small Step version for a couple of years when a War & Peace, Seventh Edition (Avalon Digital, was announced. Avalon Digital released a computer version of W&P, which they had to name Napoleon’s Eagles, which is pretty much a straight port of the One Small Step game to the online environment. To be honest, I was a bit sceptical about a computer game company producing a print version, but some early pics assuaged any fears. So, when a FLGS (one state over) had about a dozen boxes arrive, I knew I had to grab a copy.

Before we get to the cover illustration, I have to talk about the box.  Have a growing collection of the 12” square boxes favoured by European publishers (the Conquerors series from Shakos and the recent Second Edition of Unhappy King Charles (Phalanx, 2024) feature this size of box, but Compass has also gone this way with Burning Banners (Compass Games, 2024) and Engine Thieves (Compass Games, 2025). I don’t have anything square boxes in principle, but they have proven to be a little more difficult to shelve. Now I have more than two or three, I can probably devote a single bottom shelf to elephantine boxes and just let them stick out an extra inch or so.

This is the deepest 12” square box I’ve bought, coming in at a tad over four inches in depth. In truth, an inch could have been shaved off this depth and it would still accommodate its contents, though thinking about it, the extra height may be to allow for the punched counters in their baggies, but we’ll swing back around to these later. The box itself is of solid construction, with a nice seal between the two shells, but so tight at to be difficult to open, but not given to slippage either.

The box cover features a painting called Bataille de Friedland, 14 juin 1807, by French artist Émile Jean-Horace Vernet in 1835 (the same illustration adorns the cover of the Rulebook). Vernet, a noted painter of martial scenes and patronised by Napoleon III, would have been about eighteen when news of the battle filtered back to France. You can see the original if ever you visit Paris; for the inconvenience of a half-hour train ride, and another hour or two queuing, you can glimpse the painting hanging in the Galerie des Batailles in the Palace of Versailles.

The box back offers a capsule history of War & Peace, along with a component list and some sample cards and counters. The complexity of the game is rated in the low region of High (about a seven out of nine on the familiar GMT scale), and solitaire suitability is rated at low Medium (about a four out of nine). I think I’d quibble with both of these; While I haven’t gone through the entire rules thus far, from what I’ve seen, I’d place the game at a solid five (a little lower perhaps if you ignore all the optional rules), and I can see the game playing quite sell in a two-handed solitaire mode (not ideal, but practicable. Player count is advised to be 2-5 and appropriate age is 14+, which sounds about right, and playing time is given as 2+ hours (dependent on the scenario chosen).

The Rulebook.

The rule book comes in at twenty well-illustrated pages, though not all of these have been utilised. The cover incorporates an easily navigable Table of Contents, and the basic rules come to barely more than fifteen pages. The game’s optional rules (which I’d be reluctant to leave out except in games teaching complete novices), come to barely another two pages.

The Rulebook - sample pages.

All the booklets included in the game are printed on a nice weight of gloss paper – not so glossy as to be difficult to read under overhead lights – and are presented in about a nine-point Garamond font, facilitating ease of reading and comprehension. All are set in a two-column format, and the light buff background colour also adds to the readability.

The Standard Game Scenario Book.

The Standard Game Scenarios booklet offers the details of the games thirteen stand-alone scenarios. The booklet shares the same production properties as the Rulebook and comes in at twenty-four pages.

The Standard Game Scenario Book - sample page.

Presentation of the scenario information is standardised and each includes a historical introduction, a list of required game equipment, Victory Conditions, Special Rules pertaining to the given scenario, Initial deployment of forces, a schedule of Reinforcements and Replacements, and other scenario noted (provided by that scenario’s designer).

The Grand Campaign Scenario booklet.

The Grand Campaign Scenario gets its own booklet, which is only appropriate given the scope of this particular undertaking. Covering the duration of the war from 1805 to 1815, this will not be seen out over an afternoon, or likely even a weekend. To be honest, I doubt I will ever attempt the Grand Campaign, but one should never say never.*

The Grand Campaign allows for the involvement of two to five players, though I’m not sure I’m convinced the player controlling Russia would have as rich a game experience as the other players in a five-player game. But I haven’t played War& Peace in any iteration yet, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too quick to judge. This booklet is the longest of the quartet, running to twenty-eight pages.

A Soul for War & Peace booklet.

The One Small Step edition of War & Peace (the 6^th Edition) was the benchmark for the game when it arrived, and many of the same people have been involved in the further deluxe-ification of the 7^th Edition. This edition introduces two new components to the game; a deck of Event Cards (which we’ll come back to) and an extra booklet, A Soul for War & Peace.

A Soul for War & Peace - sample pages.

Also twenty-four pages in length, the booklet offers the optional rules for the use of the Event cards in both the scenarios and the Grand Campaign, and a brief catalogue of each card’s properties. This takes up the first eight pages of the booklet.

The remaining sixteen pages offer no less than eleven new scenarios, including a couple of pre-Napoleonic scenarios covering the early conflicts of the revolution and the Polish Russian War of 1792. This makes for a total of twenty-four scenarios, mostly playable in an evening or afternoon. For me, that alone justifies the price on the sticker.

The Operation Methods pamphlet. Good reading (don't show your opponent;
better he learns by example).

The last of the paper items in the manifest (and first out of the box) is the Operational Methods pamphlet. This is a small, four-page leaflet outlining Le Bataillion Carré, an operational formation that can be replicated in the game to good purpose. The pamphlet outlines the uses and benefits of this manoeuvre in play.

The shrink-wrapped counter sheet set. Ten sheets in all.

The Seventh Edition boasts ten sheets of counters. All of the game’s counters and markers are pre-rounded counters. The count comes to 1,210; there are no blanks, so I assume there is some redundancy built in. Come to think of it, this may be the reason for the extra space inside the box.

Sample counter sheets. You get the idea.

The counters are very nice, printed on a heavier weight white-core cardstock than I would have expected, given there are ten sheets of them. The unit counters represent various Infantry, Cavalry, Naval Squadrons and Transport fleets of the combatant nations. The background colour denotes the unit’s country of origin (some smaller principalities, seventeen in all, are tied to larger nations; these are referred to as Satellite Powers and are identified by a one- or two-letter initials on the counter, e.g., H for Holland, Pm for Piedmont, Sw for Sweden). For a grand tactical level game, War & Peace offers an extraordinary level of detail. Cavalry units are divided into three types – Regular, Guard and Cossack – and across the various nations’ infantry, no less than five types are identified. The named infantry types are all essentially militia-grade units (exhibiting lower Morale ratings), but it's a nice historical detail that adds a touch of jouissance to the proceedings.

Sample Infantry, Cavalry and Naval counters. The yellow stripe indicates these
are troops related to Minor Powers.

As mentioned, the counters are pre-rounded, and about 9/16” (roughly 14mm) in size. Each unit counter has a Morale rating represented in pips above the national flag (top-left of the counter), an initial to confirm its type (I for infantry, C for cavalry, etc.) and a prominent digit in the bottom right corner identifying the unit’s strength. This may be 1, 2 or 5, and larger units can be broken down to multiple smaller units as need be.

A sample of French Leader counters. The Portraits are remarkably effective.

Leaders are represented by separate counters. These counters feature a portrait (remarkably recognisable for the size in many cases), the Leader’s name across the top of the counter, and a numeral that represents the Leader’s Command Value. This number will modify roll results on the Combat Results Table.

The game map (taking up one end of my 8' by 4' dining table) a slightly better picture
of the map can be found here (picture courtesy of Robert Carrol).

The original Avalon Hill release of War & Peace included four mounted map sections covering (roughly) Spain, France and Italy, Prussia and Austria, and Imperial Russia (incorporating Poland). This allowed for shorter campaign scenarios to be played out on just one or two maps (though its debatable if this was intentional of merely a happy accident; Avalon Hill games of the time all came with sectional mounted maps). With the One Small Step edition of the game, the map was redrawn for a more thorough and geographically accurate representation of the European theatre, with a mor familiar (less elongated) view of the Continent.

The Seventh Edition map is close to the Sixth Edition, but with a couple of differences. The map proper appears to be generally rendered a little lighter in hue compared to the Sixth Edition, making it a tad more readable at a glance. Looking at pictures of the Sixth Ed. map on BGG, there seems to have been some minor changes made to the non-cartographic elements on the board, but the map has been essentially retained, which is a good thing; it’s a really gorgeous map.  The map board also incorporates the Year and Month Turn Tracks (turns in War & Peace represent a calendar month), a Production Track, two Combat Boxes, check-boxes for Foreign Wars, Current Weather Chart, Naval Economic Warfare (by percentage of impact), and an Alliance Display for easy identification of pro-, anti- and neutral nations. These are all tucked up in the top left-hand corner of the board. Elsewhere located on the board are a track for the state of progress of the Spanish War, an inset map of Egypt and Palestine – covering the range of Napoleon’s early Oriental adventures – and a map of the world marking the centres of overseas trade and sea routes for the Naval component of the Grand Campaign Scenario.

Player's Aid Card - front.

Player's Aid Card - verso.

War & Peace, Seventh Edition comes with a single Player’s Aid. This is a three-panel PAC offering an abbreviated Turn Sequence (front panel), an Expanded Sequence of Play and a Campaign Turn Sequence (inside the first fold), complete Combat related tables – Combat Sequence, Combat Results and Combat Loss charts, and Optional Tactical Matrix charts (for use with the optional Tactical markers). Naval Battle and Damage tables, a Weather table, Attrition Table and Terrain Effects Chart also feature. Two would be nice, but the game is already loaded for bear, and the decision to go with a single PAC may have been related to weight as much production cost.

Allies Leader Display.

   

French Alliance Leaders Display (left) and French Allies Leader Display.

There are two sets of Leader tracking displays, an elongated (one and a half panel) card for the Allies Leader Display and two single-panel cards for le joueur français; the French Alliance Leader Display for the permanent French Leaders, and the French Allies Leader Display, representing those Austrian, Prussian and Spanish generals who may, through the course of the game, be serving under one of the various alliances France managed to force upon their conquests through the extended war. These are used in the Grand Campaign Scenario.

The Force Pool Display; handy for acquainting yourself with the minor powers
and their affiliations. Also crucial to the Grand Campaign Scenario.

The Force Pool Display is also used exclusively in the Grand Campaign game. This is a pity, because it’s packed with really useful information, listing all of the vassal principalities of the various powers (i.e., the Western, French, Prussian, Austrian and Russian Minor States}. If you never play the Grand Campaign – and to be honest, I think I’m unlikely to ever experience that particular pleasure – it would be useful to consult this chart as a PAC for keeping track of all of the lesser allies.

The optional Card Deck (use of the card deck in the game is optional;
the cards come with the game regardless).

The Random Events Deck has been introduced in this edition, and its use is purely optional. While you don’t have to play using them, the deck will offer some extra frisson and unexpectedness to the conventional game. Presented as a deck of playing cards, each also offers an Event that will adjust some factor of play. The two black suits are side-specific – Clubs are pro-French and the Spades anti-French in their respective events, and the events of the two red suits are more generally beneficial to whichever side happens to draw them. When the cards are in use, if a player draws a card that benefits them, they may choose to play it immediately or to hold on to it, undisclosed. If a card beneficial to the other side is drawn, it must be revealed and played immediately.

Four decades of players have enjoyed War & Peace without cards, so presumably this Is why they are one of the optional rules. There’s obviously enough game here to keep people enthralled, even with the two-colour maps of the original edition (simpler times), and for my first time or two out, I’d like to try the game as it was originally intended, but I do like random events in play, whether from cards or a table, so I’m keen to try these out as well.

The cavernous box, treasonous dice (just give them time) and a truly
numerous bundle of baggies.

Two dice are included with the game. These are white with black pips, and they will provide the illusion of chance in my inevitable failing rolls. The game also comes with the largest wad of baggies I’ve ever seen in a single game, twenty-eight in all, not counting the enclosure bag.

-----

War & Peace seem like a pretty straight-forward game. As I said at the start, it’s remained in print, off and on, through multiple editions over forty-five years. People have fond memories of playing Anzio (Avalon Hill, 1969) or Storm Over Arnhem (Avalon Hill, 1981), but few games from the “Golden Era” have weathered as well as this.

I’m looking forward to getting this to the table, and after a couple of double-handed games, to introducing it to other gamers. I the meantime, it joins the queue, but it may get nudged up a few places; regulars will be familiar with my appetite for Napoleonics.

* I can think of two situations in which I may be able to embark on the campaign game, but both of these are incumbent on leaving it set up in situ at somebody else's house for maybe a week.

 

Line of Fire: A Fast Interview with Pushing Cardboard’s Grant Linneberg

 

I am unpacking my library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. I cannot march up and down their ranks to pass them in review before a friendly audience. You need not fear any of that. Instead, I must ask you to join me in the disorder of crates that have been wrenched open, the air saturated with wood dust, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood-certainly not an elegiac mood but, rather, one of anticipation-which these books arouse in a genuine collector. For such a man is speaking to you, and on closer scrutiny he proves to be speaking only about himself.

- Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking my Library: a talk about collecting" 

 

Grant Linneberg is the voice behind the Pushing Cardboard podcast. He also maintains the Pushing Cardboard website, YouTube channel, and Discord server, a peaceable kingdom of lively game discussion between wargamers. In his spare time, Mr Linneberg writes about games and all the news from wargame publishers on the Pushing Cardboard blog and longer-form articles, and even manages to squeeze in some games.

I’m always curious about how other people build and manage their game collections. Mr Linneberg has recently undergone a complete refit of his gaming space and has just been unpacking his game library. Between filling shelves and recording podcasts, Mr Linneberg took time out to answer some questions about his collection.

---------

A partially unpacked collection.

A Fast Game: I’m sure you’ve mentioned this before on the Pushing Cardboard podcast, but what were your earliest wargaming experiences? What drew you to the hobby?

Grant Linneberg: When I was thirteen, my family took a summer motorhome trip from our home in Alberta through the US to visit family in Iowa and Missouri. Great trip, and I remember it was the first time I went to visit the Little Bighorn battle site (Montana was along the way).

It was 1976, the American Bicentennial, and so everyone in the US was trying to capitalize, including Milton Bradley, who re-published their American Heritage games from the 1960s. While I spent most of my spare cash on model tanks, I came across one of these games, Dogfight (Milton Bradley, 1963), and bought it. I had always been an avid boardgame player, but I'd never seen anything like this. Not much of a wargame by our standards today, but to me it was fantastic. Plastic biplanes! Air combat!

The following summer, we moved to Calgary, a sizeable city, and I stumbled upon my first real wargame in a department store, Avalon Hill's Tobruk (Avalon Hill, 1975). I bought it and loved it and went back for more as soon as I could afford it. Next up, Richthofen's War (Avalon Hill, 1972)! So much better than Dogfight. From that point, I was hooked and continued buying AH games for years. I'd get the odd SPI game, but at the time I didn't appreciate the innovations, I didn't think much of the paper maps in the flat packs, and I was skeptical of Strategy & Tactics being able to ensure quality on a magazine schedule. Of course, I only had a couple friends that were interested in these games with me, so I played a lot of them solo, much as I still do when I'm learning a new game. I had much better luck getting friends to play AH's sports games.

New shelves. Even the desk looks exhausted.

 

AFG: Roughly how big is your game collection (number of titles or linear feet)?

GL: I keep track of them in a spreadsheet as well as on BGG, so I can say that I have 695. That includes a few that are destined for the trade/sell/giveaway pile. It also includes a few family games, but not many as my wife is not a gamer (though we play Scrabble probably three times a week).

 

AFG: Do you keep a record of what games you own, like a spreadsheet or a listing on BoardgameGeek.com?

GL: Yes, as mentioned above, both. I put new games into BGG as they arrive, and every so often I export the BGG listing and update my spreadsheet with it. I've found the spreadsheet really useful for both my podcast and livestream. It lets me know what's new since the previous episode. As well, on the spreadsheet I've added a few columns for things I'd like to filter with. ERA, CONFLICT, MAP SCALE, TIME SCALE, UNIT SCALE, etc. I don't have that all input yet, it's one of those things I chip away at when I have time.

 

An artist's impression of Grant's collection in storage.

AFG: You’ve recently had the double-whammy of renovations and, let’s say, an unscheduled indoor water expression incident, and for a good while much of your collection has been tucked away in storage. Now you’re unpacking your library, which is both a herculean task and a real opportunity. Who are you setting up your collection this time around? Alphabetically? In historical order? By publisher? Mode (tactical, operational, etc)? Colour blocking?

GL: Ha! Colour-blocking would be great. Project Runway would be so proud of me. I would love to sort it strictly by date. (Date of the conflict portrayed, not date of publication.) However, space is limited, and I will eventually run out. My wife is supportive of my hobby, but she asked for a limit on how many games I have. Not for financial reasons, but because she's concerned about how many games she'll have to deal with when I die! Perhaps I can pre-arrange someone to deal with them for her, and then space will become unlimited, but until then, the new shelves I've had installed are a hard limit, so part of my arranging and sorting is all about best use of space. The big help is sorting by publisher – for most publishers, the height and width of 99% of their games is standard. So, I can set the shelf to exactly that height for those games. If I sorted by conflict, all the shelf heights would have to be high enough to accommodate the tallest games.

With publishers where I have a lot of games, such as GMT, I sorted them by conflict just to make them easier to find. I could have done them alphabetically, I suppose, but it's interesting to look and see how many games from a certain publisher I have on a specific topic.

The other thing that I did to save space was to stand the boxes on their edges rather than their bottoms. The names of the games in 98% of cases are on the top and bottom of the game, so this way I can put the shelves closer together. The shelves are over 18" deep, so I have no fear of them not fitting. Of course, this is talking about standard wargame style boxes, roughly inspired by the old Avalon Hill bookcase games. I have a few shelves along the bottom for the big monster boxes. A Most Fearful Sacrifice (Flying Pig Games, 2022), the Grand Tactical series, the Old School Tactical series, stuff that comes in those giant boxes. I lay some of them flat, some on their edges - that's a work in progress.

Magazine games are another challenge. I bought some cardboard boxes from ULine that are OK, but they aren't as sturdy as I'd like. A company called Aegis makes trays for magazine games and I have a handful of them. They work great, but they're about $5 USD per tray, so pricey. And they don't fit European size magazines, of which I have quite a few. On the plus side, I wrote to my friends at Cube4Me and described the problem and how the Aegis trays weren't exactly what I was looking for, and they got interested. They asked for the measurements of the trays I'd tried, and asked about what a good tray would look like. This was about a year ago. And just a couple weeks ago, they announced they are testing a prototype. Maybe they will be my saviour.

The "after" pic. In the words of Marcel Duchamp, "Finally unfinished."

AFG: Do you have a collection philosophy or a set of guiding principles when adding games to your existing collection? And if so, how strictly do you adhere to it.

GL: The only real principle is that I have to feel confident that I want to actually play the game. I'm not really a collector, I don't have multiple copies of games other than my backup copy of Up Front (Avalon Hill, 1983) (my all-time favourite game) and a couple that were part of box lots I bought and I'll sell or trade the extra copy. I adhere to the "I need to want to play the game" idea fairly strictly, but I can see where I have blind spots. For example, Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW). I haven't really played more than a few turns of it yet, but I've bought five of the games. A couple of them I bought second-hand but in shrink for an amazing price, so that's understandable. But I buy new ones as they come out. That's because they are from MMP [Multi-Man Publishing], and MMP takes forever to reprint things, and in the meantime, the aftermarket prices skyrocket. So, my rationalization is that if I end up liking GCACW, I'll have bought the games at pre-order prices or less. And if I don't like GCACW, I'll sell them for a profit and buy something I like better. On the other hand, I've bought four or five Library of Napoleonic Battles games, and I have less confidence that I'll enjoy them, so that's breaking my rule perhaps.

When I was younger, Advanced Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1985) was my main game. In the 80s and 90s, it was possible to own everything for it, you could be a real completist. I went away from it from about 2000 until 2015. When I jumped back in, the number of third-party publishers had exploded. It just wasn't possible to be a completist anymore, at least not on my salary. And that was very freeing for me. I still play a ton of ASL, but I don't buy everything that comes out. I don't even buy every official product. If there's a new historical module where I'm not interested in the setting, I pass it by. And that feeling of not have to be a completist in ASL has carried over into other series.

One other thing to note though, is I'm not the sort of gamer that looks for the perfect game on a topic and then gets rid of the rest. No perfect Gettysburg game or Bulge game for me. I like multiple games on the same battle or campaign because I like seeing what different designers do. And I have developed really wide tastes in terms of eras. Hence, 695 games and counting.

 

AFG: You've mentioned before that your collection storage is limited and you can see a point where you will have to introduce a one in - one out policy (I find myself in the same boat; I may be a little closer to "peak game", but I still have a steady influx of new titles). What would be your criteria for parting with a game beyond just not enjoying it?

GL: I'd try to use the same rationale as for buying a new game - will I still play this or not? I know that there are some sentimental choices where I probably won't play them again, but I can't see parting with them. I can foresee a time when there may be hard choices to be made. As I think about it, I realize my criteria will shift over time. I'm loathe to admit it, but perhaps the time where I'm interested in monster games is passing (or has passed!). I imagine if the choice came down to two games and one took 50 hours to play the whole thing, I might let that one go. I am avoiding this question. I won't really know until I'm faced with the actual decision.

Grant Linneberg (centre) assisting two unidentified gamers at a convention
(picture courtesy of The Player's Aid).

AFG: Is there a particular publisher, designer or topic that makes a new game an inevitable purchase for you?

GL: think there are a few, but most come with caveats.

First, I'm not into fantasy as a setting. Those days have long since sailed for me. Cheers to those who enjoy them, but I'm done with that stuff. I'm almost the same with sci-fi, but I let the occasional one through. I used to have a strict "no solo games" policy, but that is slipping. I'm trying one every once in a while. It's not really that I hate any of these things, I just like them less than two-player history games, and I thought I needed to draw a line somewhere. I'm sure it means missing out on some absolute bangers. Oh, I'm less interested in really recent history wargames. Stuff on the Ukraine War or recent Mid-East conflicts, it takes a lot for me to be interested.

Publishers: I have a soft spot for the little guys. I will try a game, even one on a topic I'm not otherwise much drawn to, when it's from a small operation that's trying to get established. So, DisSimula Edizioni from Italy, Form Square from England, Sound of Drums from Germany, Neva and Bellica 3^rd Generation from Spain. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. It would have to be a solo game about dragons for me to say no. I will buy every Blind Swords game that Revolution puts out. I love Revolution Games and own almost every non-solo game in their catalogue (thankfully a couple were sent to me to review). I pretty much buy all Hollandspiele non-solo history games as well.

Designers: I will buy every non-solo David Thompson game (and even bought a solo one last year) that is history or military themed. Same with John Butterfield, but he's so crafty, he makes his solo games playable as two-player games. I can't recall the last time Mark Herman put out a game that I didn't buy. Kim Kanger has been an auto-buy as he's so inventive, I always want to see what he'll do. When Amabel Holland does a wargame, I'm first in line. Jerry White and Volko Ruhnke, again, if it's not solitaire, I'm in. Both of these guys are always finding new ways to do things. I could make a much longer list here, but so as to avoid leaving someone I really love out, I'll leave a lot out.

Topic: The provincial part of me is always lurking and I can't say no to anything with Canadians in it. Lucky for my wallet, that doesn't amount to much. But it's also why I want to encourage it. I'm sure Australians have the same feeling. Other topics come and go. In the past few years I've gone on binges of France ‘40, The French and Indian War, WWII Italian Campaign, and the War of 1812. So, I think it shifts along with what I'm reading. But a constant is I'm always interested in new game mechanics, or old mechanics used in a new way. Part of what has fascinated me about boardgames going back to even before I saw my first wargame was the desire to figure out how they worked.

 

AFG: Finally, if you had to pack up your collection again for an extended period, what half-dozen-or-so games would you leave out for the duration? Which ones would you be loath to part with for any length of time?

GL: This is a tough one. I sort of had to do that a bit when I put the collection in storage during our renovations, but the games I kept out were some new ones, and older ones that would fit on a small table as I knew I'd be pressed for space. So this will be a whole new list.

Up Front - I can go three years without playing it and then fall in love with it anew the next time I play. I'm never disappointed.

ASL - Well, how much of it can I keep in this scenario? I have enough ASL stuff and scenarios to keep playing something new until I die.

The U.S. Civil War (GMT Gsames, 2015) - I know most people would pick one of Simonitch's ZOC-bond games, but I think this is his masterpiece.

Turning Point: Stalingrad (Avalon Hill, 1989) - I love area-impulse games and there are a few others that I could just as easily pick.

Empire of the Sun (GMT Games, 2005) - I've only played it once, just scratched the surface, but it's clearly something I'll love.

Blue vs Gray (QED Games, 1999) - ACW strategic level in a card game where the cards also make the map. Can't get enough of it.

And I'd have to pick one of my WWI tactical air combat games. But that's like choosing between your children, I can't decide which one.

There are others that I really love, but I think if I played them 100 times, I wouldn't love them as much. The above games, I could just play over and over.

 

Edit: After initially posting this, I added the before and after library photos and the rather apt Benjamin quote at the beginning. His essay, Unpacking my Library, was cavorting in the back of my mind while I was preparing the questions for Mr Linneberg. For those interested, a full text of the essay can be found here.