6X6: Second Quarter Update – halfway point; “Must try harder”*

 

[If you care to, you can find my First-Quarter 6x6 report here.]

So, we’ve reached the mid-point of the year, and what do I have to show for it. If I’m honest, not much more progress than three months ago. T, my brother-in-law and regular partner in crime was overseas or otherwise unavailable for much of the last three months. I did take the opportunity to catch up with Wednesday group host, B, on a couple of Mondays for a game, but, though we’d planned to break out Great War Commander (Hexasim, 2018) to knock off a few extra notches on my 6x6 leader board, but it didn’t happen that way. One week we played a new arrival – Fire & Stone: Siege of Vienna 1683 (Capstone Games, 2022), a brilliant attritional conflict game that I want to play a few more times before committing to a review, and the next we played three games of the Reiner Knizier classic, Battle Line (GMT Games, 2010), in my local watering hole, the Arab Steed (personally, I haven’t come across a better game to play in a pub, although I understand Table Battles (Hollandspiele, 2017) has a some avid imbibing fans).

I have got a few more games under my belt; we had a good run on Undaunted: Normandy (Osprey Games, 2019) – though I haven’t closed that out with a sixth game yet – and I’ve introduced T to another brilliant attritional game, French and Indian War, 1757-1759 (Worthington Publishing, 2020). I've also added Commands and Colors: Ancients - Expansion 1: Greece and the Eastern Kingdoms (GMT Games, 2006) as a supplementary entry, having only come to it this year, and knocking off three games already (three spots that otherwise would have been used for selected 6x6 games).

All in all, I’ve played nine games of the thirty-six I committed myself to; not as strong a showing as I would have liked at this point, 25% completion. It’s not about the numbers, but at the same time, it kind of is. Making a commitment to myself to play six hitherto unplayed games six times each, against a human opponent, and making that commitment public – telling friends and family, then starting a blog to record the progress, has all helped to make me conscious of what I am playing, how much and how often. It’s made me more thoughtful about what kinds of games I spend my time on and more willing to try new things. It’s made me a little more willing or more confident to share my thoughts and opinions on different games in the public forum of Facebook groups, and helped me make new (virtual) friends there. And it's let me give back to the community in some small measure with game reviews and static "unboxings" (The Stripped Down for Parts series of posts). In the last six months I’ve played 24 games that I hadn’t played before, most of them at least two or three times, and many of them games that I already owned but hadn't got around to getting on the table. This is all good, and I’m actually kind of proud of what I’m doing here at A Fast Game.

By the numbers: Q1 - 5 games; Q2 - 4 games. Haven't even got 1960 out of it's box yet (although that is getting the Stuka Joe treatment in the second GMT CDG Solo System Pack (GMT Games, TBR), due out in about a month).

But at the same time, I know if I don’t get the other 27 games on my 6x6 list played, I’ll feel like I’ve let myself and everyone else down. And I only have 26 weeks to get those 27 games done. That’s not impossible, but based on the last six months, it won’t be all that easy.

 

 * When I was in primary (elementary) school, I was a bit of a day-dreamer.  I wasn't rowdy, but struggled to focus sometimes; these days I would have probably been diagnosed with ADHD and put on something "stabilising". "Must try harder" and other variations on a theme were common on my report cards for a few years. When I started writing this post, that phrase came back to me. I like to think I turned out alright, in spite of not fitting the template. Here's to you, Mrs Robinson.