State of Play: A 2025 Wargaming Goal (in spite of myself)

 

  

Harlan Ellison Wrote a book called The Glass Teat, which was essentially a condemnation of everything that television stood for. A few years later, an interviewer asked Ellison why, if he hated TV so much, did he persist in writing for television programs. His response, “What can I say? I’m a f**king hypocrite.”

I started with this story because Mr Ellison was one of my favourite authors growing up, and the story seemed germane to what I’m going to go into here. I was watching the War Room on replay this afternoon. I caught about fifteen minutes of it this (Sunday) morning, but we went for a walk in the neighbourhood before it got too hot outside, and I ended up missing most of it. For the uninitiated, the War Room is a weekly show on YouTube presented by idjester, Rough Swordsman Wargamer, and Nate Landrum (half of the Board Game Bunker – three YouTube commentators – where the three discuss wargames and wargame-adjacent topics for two hours. It’s a lot of fun, and somewhat educational.

The gentlemen of The War Room.

Anyway, each year Jester proposes a challenge to the regular viewers, usually around playing ten different games – all declared at the beginning of the year – within a time frame, usually by the end of that year. It was a misunderstanding on my part of the parameters of this challenge that set me on a Quixotic errand to play six games in my first year of writing A Fast Game, which has, in turn, inspired others to pursue similar goals.

At the end of 2024 however, I was done with trying to meet targets for games player or reviewed. The last year was particularly hard on my wife and me, and its only in the last couple of weeks that we’ve been realising just how much of our everyday lives we’d put on hold. I’m a little more forgiving on myself for what I didn’t get done now, and so I think I’m ready to set myself one more doable challenge.

In today’s episode of the War Room, Jester laid out the parameters for this year’s ten-game challenge. The rules are a little laxer than in previous years. People complained it was too hard to make their lists. Jester is a harsh but fair tyrant. But any challenge must have some rules, or it isn’t really challenging.

One of the changes is the number of games. To participate in the challenge you have to post your list of games to the Tac UP Facebook group (or email it to Jester and he will upload it on your behalf). This list will be comprised of twelve games instead of ten. This gives the participant a little wriggle room. If you have a game you intended to play but for some reason you couldn’t do it, you have a back-up (two, actually). In the past, some folks had put games on their list that were supposed to be published that year but were delayed for some reason. This takes care of that.

The rules for the 10 Wargame Challenge for 2025.

Another change is the newness of the game. In the past there has been a requirement that only new-to-you games were allowed (this was of course on the honour system). This year, it can be a game you have played before, but not one you’ve already played this year. Also, to qualify, they have to be played after the January 19 cut-off date.

And to make it even easier for those inclined to bite off more than they can chew (averts gaze, shuffles feet), participants are required only to make a real effort at playing each game. If one of them is just too hard or too long to finish, so long as you have made an honest go of it, that effort will count as a play.

The proviso is that evidence of play must be uploaded to the Facebook group with each play completed. Jester the Benevolent is going to keep a spreadsheet (a man after my own heart) of all participants’ lists and mark off their progress. I’m not sure what will be considered adequate evidence; a lot of folks who participate are bloggers or YouTube content creators themselves, so they usually post something on their channel and link it on the FB group. If you’re interested in participating, contact the administrators of the Tac UP group on FB. You have until the 19^th of January to submit your list to the group.

I’m still settling on my list. It’s going to be a mix of games I’ve played in the past but not lately and ones I’ve been meaning to get to the table, and probably a mix of solo plays and face-to-face games. I’ll write up a session report for each play and post it on A Fast Game.

I really had no intention of putting myself through the process of setting goals and see them unmet again and had resigned myself to just plugging away at the blog for twelve months. But this seems like an achievable target, as it’s what I would be doing in the regular run of things anyway. And it will be nice to feel like I’m taking part in something bigger than myself. So, yes, I do feel a little bit like a hypocrite, but it also feels like the right thing to do.

There are a couple of games I know I want to put on the list, but I don’t want to rush into anything. I should have a list firmed up in a couple of days. As I play the games and write them up, I’ll sub-head all the posts that contribute to my challenge target, so anyone can follow along at home.