By the Numbers: Collection-to-Play ratio revisited

 

Action atop Ball's Bluff, for no particular reason except I was reading about the battle
the other day and it put me in mind of John Poniske's game. 

At the end of November, 2023, I posted my first By the Numbers category post, on the subject of my game collection to games played ratio. A Fast Game, in a convoluted way, grew out of a desire to play more games, and in particular the games I already owned, so the better part of a year into the blog, I wanted to see how I was doing. This month marks the second anniversary of that post, so I thought it might be edifying/sobering to revisit the subject.

Before I began writing A Fast Game - maybe fifteen or so months earlier - I’d prepared an inventory of all my game titles (wargames, family games, party games – the works). This would have probably been around the end of 2021. That list came to around about 190 titles; I think I was including all of the expansion material I that count as well, so all the Commands and Colors boxes, all the expansions for the Flying Pig games, the whole kit. At that time, I checked off all the games I’d managed to get to the table at least once, and the count came to around 22%. When I extracted the core (stand-alone) wargames from the bigger set – 117 in all – that plaid quotient rose to a shade under 25%. As an example of what I mean by core game, when I made this list, I already owned here Band of Brothers games, Screaming Eagles (Worthington Publishing, 2011), Ghost Panzer (Worthington Publishing, 2013) and Texas Arrows (Worthington Publishing, 2016). Screaming Eagles and Ghost Panzer can be played on their own, both are self-contained games using thew same mechanics Texas Arrows isn’t labelled an expansion, but it does rely on components from Screaming Eagles to play, so that one didn’t make the count. That’s when I started thinking that I really needed to start playing more wargames to justify buying more wargames, and about when I started mixing it up with my brother-in-law, T for Monday Night gaming fare.

When I tallied my games-to-games-played ratio for the first post two years ago, I had 162 core wargames. Of those 162 games, I had at that time played fifty-seven. This translated to 35.3%, a definite improvement. Which brings us to the current situation.

I’ve only started keeping a register of new (and new-to-me) games since the beginning of this year – twenty-nine thus far (thirty if you count a practically new copy of Charioteer (GMT Games, 2022), but that doesn’t make it to the “Wargame” list; I'm a sucker for a good racing-game). Between the first audit and this, the collection has grown by seventy titles, so I can extrapolate that in the thirteen months from late-November ’23 to December ’24 I gathered another forty-one titles. Put like that, it seems like a lot, not quite one a week, but not so far off. Actually, I can shave two off the count: I didn’t include two Academy Games titles on the Games list - Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! – Russia 1941-42 (Academy Games, 2008) and Storms of Steel! – Kursk 1943 (Academy Games, 2009) - because I’d intended to sell them. (I also still have Price of Honour – Poland 1939 (Academy Games, 2010), but that’s not a stand-alone).

I’ll admit I was a little nervous preparing this post. 2025 hasn’t felt like a stellar year for trying new games. My seeming inability to satisfactorily complete my Ten Wargames Challenge list is disappointing to say the least. But apparently, I must be doing something right. As of a couple of days ago, I own 232 core wargames (the full count, including expansions and supplementary packets comes to 285 titles). I’m pleased (and more than a little relieved) to report that I have played 92 of these. The definition of “played” here has always been reasonably flexible; in most cases it constitutes at least one full game or scenario, sometimes against an opponent but more often double handed in the case of two-player games. In some cases, I have counted a game that has ended prematurely, but had exhibited a likely outcome of victory for one or the other side.

The takeaway is that my collection-to-played ratio has risen a little to 39.7%. This is a much better result than I had hoped. This has been a dry year for gaming generally for me; I had a stronger gaming year in 2024, but I’ve managed some in-roads into the collection, even as it’s been expanding (he says as if the collection is doing it all on its own). So, generally good news, but I still have a lot of games I’ve yet to get to the table, or to punch, clip and sort, for that matter.

There’s more to report from the current audit. I’ll do a breakdown of the collection by various methodologies in a week or so, and I’ll break down the year in gaming in late December like I did last year. And if you’ve made it this far, thank you for putting up with my self-indulgent meandering. There is some more edifying and entertaining stuff on its way.