Overthinking it: Weighing in on something so not qualified to talk about

  

 

Jerry over at the Cardboard Commander blog has just posted his take on the most recent Compass Town Hall, specifically the discussion around the reception of Combat! Vol. 3:Arnhem (Compass Games, 2025). CC is always worth reading (and his YouTube channel is always worth checking out), and this was personal for him; in his most recent post he talked about bouncing off Combat! Vol.3. in this post. He begins briefly reiterating his own experience with Vol. 3, and then goes into Compass publisher Bill Thomas’s comments on the public reception of Vol. 3 on the Town Hall (Episode 129, about 42 minutes into the Town Hall and runs for about seven minutes in all) and suggests some options for customers (in general) going forward.

"Any game's harm diminishes me, / Because I am involved in game-kind."
(With apologies to John Donne).

CC made a lot of good points, and I encourage readers to go have a look at both posts (and have a general poke around while you’re there). But the overall reaction to Combat! Vol. 3 that Bill Thomas (for the uninitiated, Compass's owner/ publisher) was referencing during the Town Hall got me thinking tangentially – as is my want – about the wargaming industry and how everything is amplified by social media and its attendant hysteria. This post isn't intended to diminish or repute anything Cardboard Commander brought to the table – to start with, Jerry has played the game while I haven’t. I’m more interested in how the game is being portrayed in the public discourse. Jerry was clear and concise regarding the game about what didn’t work for him. But there has been a lot of spleens vented in the last few weeks (maybe longer – I started to notice it about a fortnight ago), and I wanted to examine the scant evidence available regarding what people are generally feeling about the game, the signal within the noise.

Compass Games is a different beast to pretty much any other company in the wargame publishing sphere. They are one of the very few companies that maintains availability of games when they're selling (I believe Revolution Games and some European publishers also try to keep their back-catalogues in print). So, those that can resist the FOMO associated with the gaming industry in general can probably expect to be able to grab a copy of that game they missed out within six months of the first batch selling out. A side-effect of this is that the reprint files tend to be untouched from the previous version, so the known errata isn’t necessarily addressed, but this meant that I only had to wait about six months for Imperial Tide (Compass Games, 2022) to come back into stock, instead of watching a pre-order number slowly creep up over long years.

As I said, I can't speak directly to the game(s); I haven't played any of the Combat! series (and, to be honest, I’m unlikely to; the granularity of the game just doesn’t appeal to me), but I will say that Compass games sometimes suffer from an expectation of player foreknowledge (the notion having a clear idea of what the designer meant, rather than what is committed to the page).* I haven't seen this myself in the No Peace or Tide games – series games are where you might expect to find this kind of oversight – but I have seen it occasionally in one-off games; nothing insurmountable, but something that disrupts the flow of the game or impedes understanding. Maybe that was what was lacking here. I will say that, in my experience, it feels like Compass can sometimes be a little too hands-off with the way rules are presented, leaving it up to the designer or developer. A while ago at another Town Hall, I mentioned in the chat that I'd just got a copy of Flanks of Gettysburg (Compass Games, 2024) – this would have been about six months after its release – and Brittani Eaton-Koch highlighted it and made an off-hand comment that I'd need to download a copy of the living rules before I tried to play it.

As for the scenarios, that's a different thing. I don’t like commenting on a game I haven't played (which seems to put me in the minority), but enough people are saying there are some issues with them, maybe there should have been more playtesting. But this also comes down to play-tester availability. A lot of people want fully tested games, but would never dream of giving up their own time to playtesting an in-development game because it’s not done yet. If nobody puts their hand up to help out, things are going to be missed. In publishing of any kind, products need multiple sets of eyes, different viewpoints, or groupthink can set in and mistakes will inevitably be made, or existing problems overlooked. That said, I don't have time for complaints about introductory or learning scenarios; every free-standing series game that comes out should assume it may be somebody's introduction to the game and have a couple of on-ramp scenarios to get the newbies started (having said that, there's no reason they can't also be challenging and fun for old hands, but I digress).

I feel sorry for Compass as a whole. Lots of publishers try to have a more or less open discourse with their customers; GMT does their monthly update, Worthington is getting better at communicating their plans and production-status (although I really wish they'd have a few weeks’ lead-time for announcing when their fourteen-day Kickstarter campaigns are going to start; I'd probably back more games given a heads-up), and Legion Wargames has upped their game with a quite active Discord channel. Even MMP does a monthly (IIRC) podcast now, talking about their products, events, and what's in the pipeline.

But Compass is the only company of which I'm aware that has such an open, two-way discussion directly with their public. A lot of designers and developers show up in the chat as well, and most questions get answered, though the answer isn't always what one hopes for. 

Compass is extremely open with their customers, which is a profoundly good thing, but that kind of familiarity breeds a measure of contempt. The company consistently gets more crap for their perceived failings than any other three wargame publishers put together. I was a little dismayed when I saw the three pages of "errata" in Burning Banners (Compass Games, 2024) (in truth, mostly clarifications of rules rather than typos), but I've worked as a copy editor, and I know how hard it is to get everything right on the day. I understand Bill's frustration when other publishers seem to get a free pass on their mistakes. And kicking Compass in the butt has become a sport for some. Maybe they even deserve it sometimes, but in the case of Combat! Vol. 3, it feels like a pile-on.

Combat! Volume 3: Arnhem stats (sourced from BGG, 22 Feb. 2026).

So, let's take a look at the the numbers. Some point to the BGG rating for the game for validation of the criticism (never a good measure to my mind, but let's work with it for the moment). The Overall Rating for Combat! Vol. 3 is 6.9, considerably lower than the previous two volumes (8.4 and 9.1 respectively). But if we dig into the numbers (such as they are), you start to see a shift. At the time of writing, 59 people indicating ownership of the game, of which 40 have given a numerical valuation, and from these 40 ratings we get the less inspiring aggregate of 6.9.

Combat! Volume 3: Arnhem Ratings (sourced from BGG, 22 Feb. 2026).

But let’s dig a little deeper. Looking at the individual rankings adds some nuance. Twenty-seven people rated the game as a 7 or higher (67%), while only seven contributors rated the game as a four or lower (7%). 

If we dismiss the shrillest of boosters and denouncers, removing the knee-jerk 1s (three ratings – 7.5% pf the original forty) and hysterical 10s (six ratings – 15%) from the count altogether we’re left with a more rational pool thirty-one numerical ratings. Keep in mind that this levelling hurts the higher order ratings in real terms twice as much as it does the lower ones – 6-3 removed ratings respectively. Out of this reduced pool, twenty-one people rated the game as a 7-9 (67.7%) while only five rate it as a 2-4 (16.1%), a ratio of 4:1 favourable responses over unfavourable ones, and about 3.5:1 over the middling scores). 

The highest number of individual rating-levels goes to 8, the only level to make double digits (and 25% of full count of ratings overall). This all goes to suggest – as much as such a small sample size can suggest anything – that the actual response to the game is much more positive than the conversation around it would suggest.

None of this means you need to like this iteration of Combat! or the whole series. No game is ever going to appeal to everyone. I can’t speak to the lived experience of people who genuinely didn’t enjoy a game, and I’m in no way trying to undermine anything Jerry said in his blog post, he’s been around the block enough times to know what works for him. All I can do is point to the numbers, and, so far, the numbers for Combat! Vol. 3 aren’t too bad at all.

I don't expect this to change anybody's opinion about anything. This was really an exercise to slake my own curiosity. Thank you to Cardboard Commander for the inspiration, and to all who have read this far for following me down the rabbit-hole.

 

 

Line of Fire: a fast interview with Yasushi Nakaguro of BonSai Games

 

 

Yasushi Nakaguro is a game designer and publisher at BonSai Games and the quarterly magazine, Bansai in Japan. In the English-speaking wargaming world, Mr Nakaguro is arguably best known for his game, Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: War in Asia and the Pacific (BonSai Games, 2017), which appeared in issue 9 (2019) of Multi-Man Publishing’s Special Ops magazine and was subsequently nominated for a Charles S. Roberts Award in the Best Magazine Board Wargame category.

Mr Nakaguro was generous enough to take some time out to answer a few questions, which lead to a few more. What follows is a true account of our email conversation – well, a lot of it – lightly edited for the sake of readability.

 

-----

 

A Fast Game: How old were you when you came to wargaming, what were your earliest (or most memorable) game experiences, and when did you decide to design games yourself?

 

Yasuki Nakaguro: In 1980, I was 12 years old. I could show you a wargame advertisement in the comic magazine that tells me about wargames.

Then, accidentally, I met Midway (Avalon Hill, 1964) in the hobby shop and I purchased it instead of the plastic model.

Midway made me crazy... I played it with my friends every day after school – IJN [Imperial Japanese Navy] was one of the hot topics for us because the plastic model series "Waterline" was booming [AFG note - these kits are 1:700 scale a little large for table-top play, but are still available from Tamiya and other manufacturers].

What I learned about wargames through [playing] Midway is that regardless of the scale the game simulates, it's crucial to include the following three dimensions:

1) Strategy: Multiple conditions exist for winning the game (war), and players can choose among them.

2) Operations: Players can plan and execute the means to achieve those strategic objectives.

3) Tactics: The ability to employ techniques to execute operations more effectively.

It is desirable for each dimension to maintain consistency with the historical period the game portrays.

Avalon Hill's Midway, First Edition (photo: Paolo Desalvo, BGG).

In the next year, many Japanese publishers were born and the first Japanese wargame magazine, Tactics (Hobby Japan, 1982-1992) was published. I was totally fascinated by the articles about Midway in that magazine (translated from General magazine).

BTW, you could read about the history of the wargame in Japan here.

In my teenage years, I published [a] wargame fanzine with my friends. One of them designed the original wargames for the fanzine (Iwo and The Air Raid at Taranto), then I did the same thing (Terrible Tarawa).

 

AFG: Many of your games model events in the Second World War. Do you enjoy this period most, or do WW2 games sell more quickly than other historical games?

 

YN: To be honest, and [this is] just my thoughts, the hottest topic of wargames in Japan are:

1. Pacific War

2. Japanese History (Sengoku Jidai)

3. WW2 Eastern Front

4. Other WW2 battles

5. Others

On the business side, I should design or publish the PTO [Pacific Theatre of Operations] WW2 games -- also as I wrote, I was an IJN boy.

In my interest, however, I'd like to design the games that I have interest in depending on the time.

AFG: You have also designed games set in the ancient world, the Russo-Japanese War, and even a couple of fantasy and science fiction games. What other periods would you like to explore in games, or maybe are already working on?

YN: Depending on the time :)

Now, I was fascinated by the history of Hittite and designing the game by using [a] wargame context. I like to play games designed in a wargame context, such as Sea & Steel: Columbus' Voyages (Neva Wargames, 2025).

 

AFG: When you talk about enjoying games in a wargame context, what do you mean, exactly? Do you mean games that come to their subject like a wargame?

 

YN: I wrote “context,” but “mechanics” might be easier to understand. While it's true that wargames simulate “warfare,” they also sometimes make players feel the historical nature of the themes they handle. That's why I chose the word ‘context’ rather than “mechanics.”

Map art for The Rise of Blitzkrieg (BonSai Games, 2019) (photo: Rodolphe Duhil, BGG).

 

AFG: We should be seeing English and French language version of Guerre Éclair (Nuts! Publishing, ~2025; originally released by BonSai Games, 2019 as The Rise of Blitzkrieg: The Fall of France, 1940), the third in the Combat Rations series, coming out in 2026 from Nuts! Publishing. Are there any other games you have designed in the pipeline to be released in English?

 

YN: Nuts! Publishing will publish Norway! and The Punic Wars in the future. I have other plans with other publishers but have not decided yet.

The Punic Wars (BonSai Games, 2022), slated for release in Nuts! Publishing's
Combat Rations series.

AFG: What are you currently working on (that you can tell us about)?

 

YN: Other than Rise and Decline of the Hittite Empire, I'm designing Stalingrad 20 and Midway 2. The latter is the revised version of my first Midway game.

 

AFG: Some songwriters talk about a song by someone else that they believe is so good they wish they had written it. Is there a game, or a game-mechanic, created by somebody else that you wish you had done? (This might be a different way of asking what your favourite game (or mechanic) is from someone else, or it might be a mark of respect for another inventor).

 

YN: The wargame context I wrote [see above] means the marriage historical topic and game mechanics. I like any wargame that I feel about this marriage. In other words, it's like this.

As you know, haiku involves composing poetry within strict rules and a limited number of words. Writer Maruya Saiichi described this as “the task of packing jewels into a jewel box.” Within the constraints of using the war game context—though defining “war game” here is extremely difficult, I imagine readers share some common understanding—I enjoy games that recreate history.

Though I'm embarrassed to mention my own work, 300: Earth and Water (BonSai Games, 2018; Nuts! Publishing, 2021 – you can find a review here) is a historical game yet is clearly designed within the war game context. Mechanics like Action/Event, Dice Rolling, and Point-to-Point Movement used in that game are commonly found in war games. Even if the mechanics originate from war games, I love games where you feel history when you play them, and that's the kind of game I want to design.

I'm a designer but also a publisher, so I wonder if this is the answer or not:

There are many good wargame designers in Japan. My priority is introducing them to the world via my brand -- When did Rommel get his goggles? (Bansai #20; BonSai Games, 2024) by Nanka Waguri, and The Pacific War: Deadly Bloody Battles of Combined Fleet (Bansai #12, BonSai Games, 2022) by Yoshio Kubota will be published in English.

 

The Pacific War (Bansai #12) Rulebook (photo: Rocky Mountain Navy, BGG).

-----

Thanks again to Yasushi Nakaguro for his patience and openness, and for agreeing to be the first interview to appear in A Fast Game. It's my hope that Line of Fire will become an occasional but regular feature of the blog.

Stripped Down for Parts: Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns

 

 

Personal note: apologies to regular visitors for the lack of new content the last couple of weeks. The first couple of cays in February were intentional, but then life intervened. I expect to be able to get back to a more regular posting regime for the foreseeable. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

When I started to get back into wargaming after about a dozen-year hiatus (moving house about fourteen times, and states twice), I couldn’t imagine the circumstances under which I could get to play a two-map game. And to be honest, strategic games didn’t hold the appeal for me that tactical – and later, operational – games offered; shorter games playing out on a single map. So, it didn’t occur to me that one day (nearly a dozen years later) I would come around to Unconditional Surrender: World War II in Europe (GMT Games, 2014 – a third printing is now available for pre-order on the GMT website). Unconditional Surrender has a reputation for being a very playable “mini monster” that runs at a good pace and keeps all the players engaged nearly all of the time.

The third printing of Unconditional Surrender may be out as early as later this year, but in the meantime, US designer Salvatore Vasta and Allan Hill have brough us Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns (GMT Games, 2025). Unconditional Surender: Western Campaigns – USWC from heron in – is a set of set-piece campaigns on much smaller maps (most just 8 ½” by 11”), which offer an on-ramp to the game, introducing the battle mechanics with much of the economic/political overhead stripped away. BGG suggests a given campaign will play out in between one and three hours. Small, footprint and shorter duration definitely place US: Western Campaigns in A Fast Game’s wheelhouse.

 

The box cover features a montage of photographs from the theatres represented in the game. The emphasis is mobile warfare, soldiers marching, columns of mechanised infantry rolling through dusty plains, soldiers stepping out of a landing vessel. Below the photos area listing of the five theatres covered in the game, Poland, France, Norway, Italy and French North Africa. This doesn’t tell the whole story about what’s on offer here, but I’ll come back to that later.

The Box-back. 

The back of the box offers a glimpse into the game content; there are maps (some of these are double-sided, so don’t go thinking you’ve been short-changed), and a selection of sample counters presented at actual size.

The box description does its best not to reference its progenitor (the plucky little game that wants to earn its place on its own merits, rather than its famous name). Instead, it offers some of the flavour of play, pointing out the small footprint – most of the maps are 8 ½” by 11”, with an additional page-sized Faction – and low counter density.

The scale of the game is in terms of armies, fleets, and sir-wings, with a map-scale of 30 to 40 miles per hex. The infographic advises that the game is of middling complexity (5 out of 9) and designed with two players in mind, although the solitaire suitability is rated at 7 out of 9. As always, the recommended player age is 14 and up, and a scenario might take between thirty minutes and four hours.

The Rulebook. Don't start here. I did. Don't be me.

The game comes with three booklets, A Rulebook, a Guidebook, and a Playbook. Ss I’m not repeating myself, all three ae printed on a mid-weight matt paper-stock familiar to anyone who buys GMT’s hex-and-counter wargames. The books are laid out in a two-column format and extensively illustrated with examples-of-play diagrams. Colour-coded box text highlights both important notes regarding rules and play, and designer comments scattered throughout. Each book has a short Table of Contents on the cover page, and the pages are helpfully numbered.

Rulebook - sample spread. Well-documented, lots of illustratrions.

The Rulebook runs to 28 pages, but the actual rules content is only nineteen pages. The rest includes four [ages of detailed explanations of the various Event and Tracking Markers, a comprehensive two-page index, and on the back cover, a single page USE Players: Fast Start, for players already familiar with Unconditional Surrender: World War II in Europe.

I’m looking at the Rulebook first because that’s how I roll, but the very first thing the rulebook tells you under General Information is, “If you are viewing the game for the first time, start with the Guidebook. The Guidebook contains a list of the game’s components, different methods of how to play, game scale, the writing style used, designer’s notes, etc.” Before We move on, I’ll just say the rules for USWC are very clearly and sensibly laid out, and it should prove an easy thing to locate any particular rule when you need to.

The Guidebook. The cover photo caption is a joke, but not really.

The Guidebook comes in at 32 pages and it meets all the expectations built up in the Rulebook intro. The “Learning the Game” section runs to 22 pages and, after noting the traditional Rulebook method and spending some column space on the Training Scenario method (playing through the Poland, Norway (also referred to as Scandinavia in some places, including the map) and France, 1940 in sequence will ease a new player into the rules), the next 22 pages are devoted to what the designers call the Example method. This is a step-by-step run through the third scenario, France, 40. This sounds like n example of play, but it’s much deeper than that, starting with a discussion of the components you need for the scenario. My first thought was to go the programmed scenario route, but having read through the first few pages of the Example method, I think I’m going to try this.

Guidebook- sample spread.

The Guidebook also offers a page of notes on the rules, two pages of Tactical Tips, along with some adjustments for Play-by-Email and solitaire play, another two pages of Designer’s Notes and Bibliography, and a representation of the counter sheet front and reverse (yes, this game manages to give you everything you need on a single counter-sheet!). The back cover lists the game’s full credits.

The Playbook. With nine scenarios, the game comes with baked-in replayability.

At just twenty pages, the Playbook is the shortest of the included booklets. Here is where you get an idea of just how much game is packed into the box; USWC offers nine scenarios across seven maps, including a combined France/Italy 1944 scenario (two maps). The first two pages cover general scenario information and set-up notes, and the remaining seventeen present the relevant details for each scenario in a clear and easily digestible format.

Playbook- sample spread. The left page demonstrates the complete scenario format:
the Balkan Campaign - two turns and nineteen on-board units total.

The scenarios range from one to fourteen turns in length and include details like month-to-month weather status and varying victory conditions for the two factions. They are presented more or less chronologically, and include a counterfactual France 1941 scenario, working off the assumption that Hitler delayed his western push a year.

Counter sheet. Half-inch counters one can work with.

Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns comes with a single, full-sized counter-sheet of 254 ½” counters. I’d be annoyed with the size of the counters if is wasn’t for the fact that the units are essentially force-presence markers. The units have no strength indicators; rather, they feature a NATO symbol for infantry (including some mechanised infantry), armour and air-support, with a flag and army-level designation (BEF, Afrika Korps). The fifteen nationalities (counting French Republic, Vichy and Free-French forces separately) represented are sensibly colour coded.

The track and admin markers are equally readable, with many performing double-duty on their reverse sides. These look generally playable, but the proof will be in the playing.

 

Player Aid Card (outside; Front panel (right) and rear panel.

Player Aid Card (inside the fold).

The Players’ Aid Cards – yes, there are two – are bi-fold, 11”by 17” that offer all the tables and charts you’ll need for the game. The Front panel presents a Sequence of Play Flowchart, with Phases and sub-phases colour-coded. I’ve wrestled with flowcharts in some games in the past, but this looks like it was prepared by an information sharer rather than an engineer. I like it. On the back panel is the Operations Phase Flowchart. This drills down into a little more detail around a deeper, more pernickety turn-phase.

Opening the folder reveals the Combat Results Table, tables for Weather, Movement and Production Costs, the Combat Resolution Sequence, Air and Ground Combat Results tables, and listings of various situation-specific Dice Roll Modifier lists. The separate sections are also colour-coded, and the whole thing is well laid out and easily navigable. And it’s worth mentioning again, there are two of them, one each – no waiting.

The Faction Card, for all your turn and points-tracking needs.

All of the off-board action takes place on the Faction Card, a shared tracking board, offering a Turn Track, National Will & Production track, Faction boxes for recycling eliminated units, a Weather Track and a handy Terrain Key. When a unit is eliminated, it is placed in the upper box on its Faction box, the appropriately named Elimination box. It is unavailable for the remainder of that turn, but in the End of Turn phase it’s moved down to the Mobilization box. From the following turn, the unit will be available for purchase (at the cost of Production Points). The Third box is for Event tokens. Each scenario will dictate which events are in play, and these will be located on the turn track. When the turn is reached, the Event token is placed in this box, ready for use by the faction.

The Poland map. With the scenario running to just one turn, this one will likely show
the least wear and tear.

The maps are numerous, attractive, and quite playable, with clear terrain and movement features (roads and rail). Playing out a whole campaign like the invasion of Poland seems incongruous on a single page map with a mere seventeen counters, playing out in just one turn, but I’m keen to try it out.

The France map does quadruple scenario duty for the France 1940, 1941, 1944,
and France/Italy 1944 scenarios.

The Norway/Scandinavia map. The Scenario is called Norway, but the playable map area
also takes in Denmark and part of the Pomeranian coast (as well as neutral Sweden).

Even on these small maps, the playable area can be somewhat reduced by the scale of the conflict, such as on the Scandinavia map, with Sweden (neutral during the war), which covers half the land area on the map shaded out, marking it as off limits for both factions.

The Balkan map. Note the "faded dot" hex at the bottom of the map, near Athens. These
areas prohibit land movement and cannot be used for amphibious landing because
the minimal infrastructure in that region simply couldn't support an army-sized
contingent. This, I think is a nice touch.

The North African map, covering the narrow stretch from Casablanca on the Moroccan
coast, to Tripoli, the capital of Libya. This scenario covers the period from Operation Torch
in November 1942, to around the time of the Axis evacuation from Tunis (the game runs to
June 1943, though historically the bulk of the surviving German forces had fled by May).

The Italy map. Geographically a tough nut to crack.

The maps are printed on the same weight card as the PACs and Faction Card. This is perfectly adequate for the purpose. I don't think I'll be breaking out the plexi for a two or four turn game on one of these maps (and of course, being mostly single panels, no crease-puckering to deal with).

Everything in the game is resolved by a d6 die roll, and two colour-appropriate dice are provided in the game. Baggies are also provided and appear to be sufficient for the game’s counter mix, though I think USWC is a good candidate for a GMT counter tray (a subject for a future unboxing – so stay tuned).

It's worth mentioning that the box is a solid, 2mm board construction. A fabrication engineer might argue it was built beyond its required parameters. Too bad – I for one appreciate the At two inches deep, you'll have no trouble accommodating the aforementioned counter tray.

-----

So, that’s all of Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns. For all my best-laid plans, real life prevented me getting much to the table in January. If the first couple of scenarios here are only one or two turns long, I really don’t have an excuse not to get some USWC games in in the next couple of weeks. Fates, be kind.

One final thought: to paraphrase a popular meme, the existence of an Unconditional Surrender: Western Campaigns suggests the possibility of an Unconditional Surrender: Eastern Campaigns. I don’t have any inside scoop on this, but it seems a logical addition. It would practically write itself; the Winter War (Finnish campaign of 1939-40), Barbarossa (North, Central, and South),  Bagration, Romania/Hungary, and Vistula/Oder. I would buy that game, just saying.

 

Next year's words: three years of A Fast Game

 

 

Saint Jerome in his Study, by Albrecht Dürer. While undeniably a beautiful work by a pre-
eminent artist, I think we can comfortably assume Dürer had never seen an actual lion.

 

"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)

 

Three years ago today, I launched A Fast Game is a Good Game. Three years later (today) I can say with some pride that A Fast Game is still up, and still (fairly regularly) presenting new – and I hope interesting and informative – material. I went into it with a couple of specific goals, one of which was to see out a full year. A Fast Game began as an adjunct to another wargame project, but over time it’s morphed into its own thing, and three years on, people are still visiting and reading the blog; in late October A Fast Game reached a milestone of 50,000 views, a figure I hadn't expected to reach until I was some way into 2026. Now, at the end of it's third year, the blog just topped 65,000 views. In the last year A Fast Game has received more than double the number of visits the blog had gotten in its first two years combined. Many of those visits are the result of the continued support of good folks like Rachel at GMT Games, Jerry from the Cardboard Commander blog and podcast, and Brant from the Armchair Dragoons. Thank you, all.

If you want a potted history of how we got to here, you could do worse than read last year’s anniversary post. That should bring you up to speed without getting too deep into the tall grass – I’m getting better at keeping my indulgences brief. You could say the blog began with a misunderstanding, and I’ve been buggering things up since. But along the way I’ve learned a lot, played quite a few more games than I otherwise might have, met some interesting, like-minded folks, and had a lot of fun.

Evidence of a quiet evening in, clipping Desert Blitzkrieg (Compass Games, 2025).

A Fast Game runs to two cycles. Regular readers will know I keep a calendar-year record, and present various wargame- and blog-related goings-on in a quarterly report (the next will be due at the end of March, if you’re interested; if you’re even more interested, you can click on the “Quarterly Report” subject heading in the column to the right and be confronted with all of them, starting with the most recent). But my first post for A Fast Game, went up on January 31, 2023, so this (today, I mean) is the actual anniversary of the blog, and it’s become a thing to me to mark the date with an entry separate and apart from the usual stuff.

Year three has been a mix of good and less good. We had a death in the family late 2024 that cast more of a shadow over the last twelve months than any of us were expecting. That and a third bout of COVID (not as bad as the first two, but awful enough), along with other less serious ailments kind of set the tone for the year, which had an impact on output for A Fast Game.

I haven’t written as much this year as I did in the one previous, but more than in the first year of A Fast Game. At the beginning I thought two posts a week, about a hundred a year, would be workable. I nearly made this count in 2023-24, but the number has steadily dropped over successive years, with 2025 being punctuated by long gaps, sometimes a fortnight or more. Still, I’d rather post worthwhile content than make targets, but I am going to try to maintain a more regular output. Here are the relevant numbers.

 

* The first post to A Fast Game was supposed to go live on February 1, 2023,
however, due to the vagaries of International Time Zones, Blogger disagreed,
and so the official launch date is the 31st.

If A Fast Game was a novel, it would be a bit longer than David Copperfield, but would fall somewhat short of Don Quixote. Over the last three years, I’ve written ninety-four After Action Reports, fifty-seven unboxings and twenty-seven reviews. I’d like to up the number of reviews, try for twelve to fifteen a year. I also don’t write up every game I play. I do try to capture the interesting ones, and those that highlight something the game does well. I also have three or four more unboxings to write up even now (as well as some new games due this quarter). Stay tuned.

As for the coming year, I’ve already written at length about my abbreviated plans here (with a minor amendment here), so I won’t rehash all of that, except to say that I hope to get more games in generally this year than last. I’d like to spend some time working on something bigger, like last year’s research project or 2024’s two-part rumination on how to build a wargame library, but at this stage I have absolutely nothing in mind. I’m open to suggestions if anyone has any thoughts.

I intend to wind back spending money on new games in the coming year (though that’s what I said in 2025). As a result, you may see some more time and attention spent on older ones. Or to evoke Eliot once more:

“We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring /

Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”