Blog note: 2026 Prospectus

 

 

Planning for a brighter 2026.

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice."

— T.S Eliot, Little Gidding (Four Quartets)

 

Happy new year, gentle reader. I hope January finds you in good health and spirits, and that you find more than you lose.

My wife has been on leave the last fortnight, so I’ve taken a break from wargaming and (mostly) from posting to A Fast Game. We’ve spent tine walking, cross-quizzing (I feel like this is a peculiarly Australian pastime, crosswords where the clues are quiz questions instead of simple of cryptic cues), jig-sawing and generally abiding. I now feel refreshed, recharged, and ready to face the coming year.

As I stated in the Fourth Quarter report for 2025, I’m begin off setting goals for myself or for the blog this year. Think of it as a reset. My one ambition for the year to get more games played overall than last year. This has been thwarted at the gate; I’m writing this on Monday, and T is overseas (I knew they had a trip coming up but thought it was later in the month), but I have fifty-one weeks in which to catch up.

I have played one more game at the end of 2025, though not a wargame. A few months ago, we had dinner with friends, and D quizzed me about games he could play with his going on nine-year-old. I told hm I’d think about it. The next day I ordered a copy of Odin’s Ravens (Osprey Games, 2016) which I finally dropped around to them on New Year’s Eve afternoon, and we played a quick learning round. D picked it up straight away, but on reflection, their “I’m eight-and-a-half!“ year-old might need a little more time (and a primer in Norse mythology).

 

Short term and long term

Over the next month or so, I’ll probably mostly be posting unboxings. Today I received Waterloo Solitaire: Board Game Edition (Worthington Publishing, 2023) and notice of the imminent arrival of a GMT Games care package (three games from their November release). I still have one outstanding game from Legon Wargames to look at – A Glorious Chance (Legion Wargames, 2023), and Desert Blitzkrieg: Rommel’s North African Campaign (Compass Games, 2025), which I won in a lottery draw watching the last Compass Town Hall for 2025. Compass owner Bill Thomas usually gives away a copy of the company’s latest release at the end of the show, but this time, full of the Christmas spirit, Bill and the crew gave out a copy of practically every box title and issue of Paper Wars released in the year that hadn’t already sold out. I was lucky enough to score Mike Vitale’s new game (which I was going buy, but I put that money to another Compass game instead).

I tend not to post unboxings of second-hand games; I see less of a point in that, but I’ll continue to write up older games when I happen to find intact copies (like I did with Monty’s Gamble: Market Garden (Multi-Man Publishing, 2019) and 1914: Glory's End / When Eagles Fight (GMT Games, 2014) (you can find these in the index column).

When I play an interesting game, I’ll write it up. I wrote fifteen After Action Reports of games played across 2025. I think the number will probably be closer to twenty-five over 2026. Considering six or seven of those were write-ups of Commands and Colors: Medieval (GMT Games, 2019), I’ll try to offer a bit more variety, as much for my own sake as for subject diversity.

I have in mind some game reviews I’d like to write and post, but I don’t want to commit to a firm number because that never ends well. I only posted five reviews in the last year; I’ll aim to beat that number. I’ll try to look at newer games for review as well, or at least those still in print. I have some candidates in mind already.

I enjoyed researching and writing up an inquiry into the value proposition of wargame awards from the publishers’ perspective in 2025. If I can find another subject to get deep into the weeds with this year, I’ll take that challenge. Nothing is leaping out at me though at this point. If you’d like to suggest something, let me know.

I’m also hoping to continue the Not Created Equal series I started in June, then proceeded to ignore for the rest of the year. I’ve started sketching out two more instalments, and I hope to get one out at least before the middle of the year.

So, that’s a brief look at what to expect here in 2026. If you’re an old hand, thanks for sticking with us. If you’re new to A Fast Game, don’t try to read everything; most of the first six months of the blog was me finding my feet. It gets progressively better after that. And, thanks for coming along for the ride.

 

Here’s to more wargames played, and to having fun. In the end, that’s the point.