By the Numbers: Games played in 2025 (keeping score)

 

Record sheet from a fifteen-inning game between the Universities of Michigan
and Santa Clara, back in the day.

I wasn’t looking forward to preparing this post; while I’ve mostly kept up with writing about wargames here at A Fast Game, I’ve been feeling a bit like a failure in the actual playing of the games, writing what feels like a lot of unboxings (nineteen this calendar year, as of posting). I’ve often made plans to tackle a new game or revisit a favourite, only to have sickness, family responsibilities, an opponent’s sudden unavailability, or some other circumstance to nix those plans.

When I started pulling together the numbers, I was a little surprised. In truth, I’ve had a better gaming year than I had first thought. A couple of years ago, I started keeping a week-to-a-page diary, mostly to write down what games I had played (I also have a poor memory for ephemeral details). Working through this year’s journal, I realised I’d managed more games overall than I’d previously thought. It’s down from last year, but the overall count wasn’t as dismal as expected.

So, without further ado, let’s talk numbers.

 

Wednesday group

I have two regular gaming commitments in the normal run of things, and both have been a thing for more than a decade and a half. These are my regular Monday night game (though as often as not, it gets pushed out to Tuesday, occasionally Thursday) with my brother-in-law, We’ve been doing this most weeks since 2010. The other is an established Wednesday night group that I joined in 2008 as an RPG group, but that in the last six or seven years has been mixing up the game itinerary to include minis and board games. I’m deeply appreciative of both of these opportunities, and I know I’ve got it better than a lot of wargamers.

Taking the fight to the rebels. American Revolutionary War,
fought using the Valour & Fortitude rules.

Due to sicknesses and some other commitments, the Wednesday group only convened thirty-eight times this year. Twenty-one of those evenings were spent on Role Playing Games; there was a resurgence in RPGs with the Wednesday group compared to last year, but RPGs are what brought that group together in the first place. We played five RPGs, all new to the group, and all varying levels of fun and interesting. But we’re not here to talk about RPGs.

I’m proud to say I’ve been a part of the Wednesday group for seventeen years next March. In that time, we’ve played a lot of wargames (mostly minis), but it’s not a wargaming group, and I can’t count on getting my fix here. In 2025 we played sixteen non-RPG games all up (over seventeen weeks - we played Border Reivers: Anglo-Scottish Border Raids, 1513-1603 (GMT Games, 2023) and a six-player game of the Berg/Simonitch classic, Successors (Phalanx, 2021) each over two weeks), spread over nine games. Of these, five were minis games, two what I’d class as functional wargames – Border Reivers and Undaunted 2200: Callisto (Osprey Games, 2024), and two were co-operative franchise games with rather silly names but were nonetheless quite fun if I’m honest. We also played El Grande (Hans im Glück, 2015), of which David Thompson said he considered “the perfect game,” and wondered why anyone would bother making other games after playing it. Thankfully Mr Thompson has ignored his on position on this.

Undaunted 2200: Calisto. Familiar mechanics, new challenges.

I also got a couple of games in with Wednesday night host, B; two games each of Commands & Colors: Medieval – Expansion #1 Crusades Mid-Eastern Battles I (GMT Games, 2024), and The Hunt (Salt & Pepper Games, 2023). There was talk of other games, but each time plans slipped, or difficulties emerged. We managed to get a couple of games of The Hunt into an hour or so before our regular Wednesday night start-time, so that might be something we can replicate in the future; I’ve got a stable-mate of The Hunt, Operation Barclay (Salt and Pepper Games, 2024) that would fit the bill.

 

Monday night games

Illness and international travel took a toll on Monday night gaming with my brother-in-law, T through 2025 as well. When we started catching up for a quick game on Monday evenings in 2010, we averaged around meeting forty weeks out of fifty-two. In recent years that batting-average has become harder to achieve.

The battle of Lake Antioch (a thrashing for the Seljuq Turks). We played
a lot of C&C: Medieval - Crusades this year.

In 2025, we managed just twenty-six. Twenty-five of those sessions were wargames (sixteen of those, some flavour of Commands & Colors), but a few weeks ago, after a string of defeats and draws, T pulled out Century: Spice Road (Plan B Games, 2017), in which he maintains an unbroken string of wins since our second ever game.

 

Alone again, naturally

When I get a new game to the table, it’s almost always a solo endeavour (Breizh 1341 (Shakos, 2022) was an unusual exception to this). Sometimes I’ll dive straight into a game if, after going though the rules, I feel confident about it; I did this with Pacific Tide (Compass Games, 2019), and more recently, Drop Zone: Southern France (Worthington Publishing. 2025). But more often than not I’ll give the rules a onceover, have some non-directed play to familiarise myself with the workings of the game before I try to set up a scenario.

When a new game (or an unpunched second-hand one) arrives I’ll usually make a photo log of the components – not every game I purchase has got an unboxing here, but I like to be prepared – and ideally punch and clips the counters (at this point I have about a dozen unpunched games, but nearly all of these are bigger games, like Death Valley: Battles for the Shenandoah (GMT Games, 2019) that involve six or more counter-sheets, and that I haven’t sorted out storage solutions for yet). The smaller ones I’ll usually punch and bag immediately, and these are the ones I will tend to break out to just push some counters around and get a feel for the game  I don’t usually keep a record of these noodling sessions because it’s not really playing the game in the proper sense, and I tend to lose track of the games I start off this way. It does still warrant engagement with the game, however superficial, so I should be keeping track of these instances. I know this year I’ve gone that with All Are Brothers, Solforino, 1859 (Legion Wargames, 2025), Stalingrad Roads (Nuts! Publishing, 2024), Panzer Battles: 11th Panzer on the Chir River (Multi-Man Publishing, 2016), and some others, but I’d estimate I’ve done this with fourteen or fifteen games this year. For the sake of the stats, I’ll keep it to the eight or nine I can remember starting out like this. 

Gaming avenues	Wargames	Other	Total
Monday night (T)	25	1	26
Wednesday night (group)	12	26*	38
Other contested games (opponent)	-	7	7
Computer games	15	-	15
Solitaire	7	-	7
Try outs	8†	-	8
Totals	67	34	101

      * This count is in weeks played rather than games played.

        † This is an estimate based on the games I can recall. The actual number was maybe               another half-dozen or so instances higher.

 

The Spread

Now for a little analysis. This will cover just the full games I played, not the less serious noodling engagements. I have included what I think of as non-wargames, in this list, though technically the only two with no direct conflict, either between players or players vs. game, are Century: Spice Road and Odin’s Ravens (Osprey, 2016).

I played a total of thirty different games played in 2025 (plus five new RPGs). Only three new, physical games hit the table for a full play this year (five new games in all – I played through the entire eight scenarios of Bill Kalapoglou’s Arete (Molotov Cockatiel Games, 2025), which I’m hoping to write something about not far into next year, and another 2025 release, Rebel Fury (GMT Games/Hexes of War, 2025), which technically isn’t a new-to-me game, but was on a new platform. Two of the new games played were on my Ten Wargame Challenge list, but only one of those, Drop Zone: Southern France, was a new game. The other was Agincourt from the Men of Iron Tri-Pack (GMT Games, 2020). T was so impressed with the game he’s getting a copy in the second printing (which is scheduled for release in January ‘26).

It should come as no surprise that I got a lot of Commands & Colors games in through the course of the year. For our Monday game, if we’re playing at T’s house, nine times out of ten C&C-something will be set up and ready to go.

Dawn's Early Light - one of the non-C&C games we managed to get to get in
on a Monday evening. Or maybe a Tuesday.

So, the results are better than I anticipated. If I count all the times I’ve engaged with a game even superficially (which is still “playing” maybe just not with all of the rules yet), I’ve managed about two games a week. I have to be happy with that. I would have liked to get some more new games to the table, but there's little use in repining.

I’ll look a little more closely at some aspects of my gaming year in the last Quarterly Report for the year (I’ll add a link here when it’s posted on the blog). In this post, I just wanted to look at the numbers. You’ll have to wait for the rest of the story.

 

Simply the best?

I’m not a Top Ten person – I don’t see the value in pitting favourites against each other, though I can understand the appeal if you're a content creator looking to generate comments on your posts (I appreciate all the comments I get, but I'm not going to cajole readers into making them; I'm grateful enough for you all showing up). I’ve been lucky this year to have played a bunch of games that I’ve enjoyed at some or another level, not as many or as varied as I would like, but this is something to work on. Having said that, a couple of game experiences stood out. Here's something from the highlights reel.

Most played game

Hands down, Commands and Colors: Medieval – Crusades exp. Over a dozen plays over the course of the year, but we still haven’t worked all the way through the included scenarios. I’ve posted a lot of AARs for C&C-Crusades this year, as well, not every game, but the most interesting ones.

 

Best new (to me) two-player game

Drop Zone: Southern France. Dan Fournie has a talent for making fast-playing but nonetheless challenging and quite addictive games. I cite 1944: Battle of the Bulge (Worthington Publishing, 2020) as just one example, but Drop Zone was a labour of love for the designer; his father was among those who jumped into Southern France in the opening stages of Operation Dragoon. This game plays out quickly and smoothly, but success must be earned by either side.

American (green) and British paratroopers land, ready for a fight.
Drop Zone: Southern France.

I’ve only played this solo, and I’d like to take it out a couple of times with different opponents before I write up a review. In the meantime, I look forward to whatever Mr Fournie chooses to turn his design hand to next.

Honorary mention: Breizh 1431. Another taut, frustratingly good game that is done in an hour and takes up a quarter of the table space of Drop Zone.

 

Best new (to me) multi-player game

I really enjoyed Border Reivers, but the standout for me was Successors. For the wheeling and dealing at the table, it reminded me of Republic of Rome, but the game was much less abstract, with sieges to lay and alliances to break. A tense game right up to the last turn, but still a lot of fun. I think something that added to it was less than usual whining at the table – with six players, there is always somebody who feels they’re being unfairly put upon. There was still some of that with Successors, but with less longevity. Everybody could see that everybody was getting a kick in the ribs at one time or another; luck and fate were equal-opportunity obstructions.

The rather austere cover of the fourth edition of Successors, released by Phalanx. 
The image, and the square box put one in mind of an obscure Nordic Metal band. 

Honorary mention: El Grande. I don’t think I’ll ever be as big a fan as David Thompson, but this was a surprisingly deep game with multiple avenues to victory that didn’t outstay its welcome.