I'm posting this earlier that I have in past years because I'm pretty sure I won't get another review up before Four reviews and one (P)review. Not even five actual reviews this year. This is where I feel like I haven't lived up to my own expectations the most. I'd gone into 2025 with the hope of managing at least one review a month, one roughly every four and a half weeks. I'm very happy with the reviews I managed to prepare, but four is less than half my goal for the year. I'm not angry; I'm disappointed.
I'm not going to try to make excuses. In my first calendar year (only eleven months) of A Fast Game, I managed twelve reviews. Admittedly, the early ones weren't very good; I was still finding my feet. Then in 2024, I still managed to post ten wargame reviews, all generally better than those from the previous year.
I have some guidelines for myself when it comes to writing up a game review. This is something I've gestured at before, but I think I can now finally articulate my thoughts in a few brief notes. My prerequisites for reviewing a game are:
1) Familiarity - as I've said probably several times now, I'll always have played a game at least three or four times before I'm comfortable criticising it;
2) Understanding - I won't try to review a game unless I'm confident I get what it's trying to accomplish and what's going on under the hood, and that I have a chance of making it clear and maybe interesting for the reader;
3) Fun - I won't waste my time and yours going into intricate detail about why I didn't like a game or thought it was rubbish. Life is too short.
Every game on this list I have enjoyed immensely, and believe it does what it sets out to do. Usually (but not always) , I also try to single out games that haven't - in my view - garnered the kind of attention I think is warranted. I probably won't ever write a review of, say, Twilight Struggle (GMT Games, 2005), but I might one day write up 1989: Dawn of Freedom (GMT Games, 2012).
So, without further ado, here are give wargames (of varying war-y-ness) that I gave enough of a fig about to spend some extra time over. Enjoy.
Commands & Colors: Medieval, Expansion 1: Crusades Mid-Eastern Battles 1 (GMT Games, 2024) This was undoubtedly my most played game of the year.
Fire and Stone: Siege of Vienna 1683 (Capstone Games, 2022)
Napoléon 1806: La Campagne de Prusse (Shakos, 2017)
With the Hammer (Conflict Simulations Ltd, 2025 - playtest preview)
Previous years reviews can be reached by the links below:
2024: The Year in Reviews - Interesting fact: the chap in the photo at the top of the post is Guy Debord, philosopher and author of the prescient Society of the Spectacle. I only learned last year that Debord was also an avid wargamer. So, D&D may have Vin Diesel, but we have French intellectuals!
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