Line of Fire: A Fast Interview with Pushing Cardboard’s Grant Linneberg

 

Grant Linneberg is the voice behind the Pushing Cardboard podcast. He also maintains the Pushing Cardboard website, YouTube channel, and Discord server, a peaceable kingdom of lively game discussion between wargamers. In his spare time, Mr Linneberg writes about games and all the news from wargame publishers on the Pushing Cardboard blog and longer-form articles, and even manages to squeeze in some games.

I’m always curious about how other people build and manage their game collections. Mr Linneberg has recently undergone a complete refit of his gaming space and has just been unpacking his game library. Between filling shelves and recording podcasts, Mr Linneberg took time out to answer some questions about his collection.

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A Fast Game: I’m sure you’ve mentioned this before on the Pushing Cardboard podcast, but what were your earliest wargaming experiences? What drew you to the hobby?

Grant Linneberg: When I was thirteen, my family took a summer motorhome trip from our home in Alberta through the US to visit family in Iowa and Missouri. Great trip, and I remember it was the first time I went to visit the Little Bighorn battle site (Montana was along the way).

It was 1976, the American Bicentennial, and so everyone in the US was trying to capitalize, including Milton Bradley, who re-published their American Heritage games from the 1960s. While I spent most of my spare cash on model tanks, I came across one of these games, Dogfight (Milton Bradley, 1963), and bought it. I had always been an avid boardgame player, but I'd never seen anything like this. Not much of a wargame by our standards today, but to me it was fantastic. Plastic biplanes! Air combat!

The following summer, we moved to Calgary, a sizeable city, and I stumbled upon my first real wargame in a department store, Avalon Hill's Tobruk (Avalon Hill, 1975). I bought it and loved it and went back for more as soon as I could afford it. Next up, Richthofen's War (Avalon Hill, 1972)! So much better than Dogfight. From that point, I was hooked and continued buying AH games for years. I'd get the odd SPI game, but at the time I didn't appreciate the innovations, I didn't think much of the paper maps in the flat packs, and I was skeptical of Strategy & Tactics being able to ensure quality on a magazine schedule. Of course, I only had a couple friends that were interested in these games with me, so I played a lot of them solo, much as I still do when I'm learning a new game. I had much better luck getting friends to play AH's sports games.

A partially unpacked collection.

 

AFG: Roughly how big is your game collection (number of titles or linear feet)?

GL: I keep track of them in a spreadsheet as well as on BGG, so I can say that I have 695. That includes a few that are destined for the trade/sell/giveaway pile. It also includes a few family games, but not many as my wife is not a gamer (though we play Scrabble probably three times a week).

 

AFG: Do you keep a record of what games you own, like a spreadsheet or a listing on BoardgameGeek.com?

GL: Yes, as mentioned above, both. I put new games into BGG as they arrive, and every so often I export the BGG listing and update my spreadsheet with it. I've found the spreadsheet really useful for both my podcast and livestream. It lets me know what's new since the previous episode. As well, on the spreadsheet I've added a few columns for things I'd like to filter with. ERA, CONFLICT, MAP SCALE, TIME SCALE, UNIT SCALE, etc. I don't have that all input yet, it's one of those things I chip away at when I have time.

 

An artist's impression of Grant's collection in storage.

AFG: You’ve recently had the double-whammy of renovations and, let’s say, an unscheduled indoor water expression incident, and for a good while much of your collection has been tucked away in storage. Now you’re unpacking your library, which is both a herculean task and a real opportunity. Who are you setting up your collection this time around? Alphabetically? In historical order? By publisher? Mode (tactical, operational, etc)? Colour blocking?

GL: Ha! Colour-blocking would be great. Project Runway would be so proud of me. I would love to sort it strictly by date. (Date of the conflict portrayed, not date of publication.) However, space is limited, and I will eventually run out. My wife is supportive of my hobby, but she asked for a limit on how many games I have. Not for financial reasons, but because she's concerned about how many games she'll have to deal with when I die! Perhaps I can pre-arrange someone to deal with them for her, and then space will become unlimited, but until then, the new shelves I've had installed are a hard limit, so part of my arranging and sorting is all about best use of space. The big help is sorting by publisher – for most publishers, the height and width of 99% of their games is standard. So, I can set the shelf to exactly that height for those games. If I sorted by conflict, all the shelf heights would have to be high enough to accommodate the tallest games.

With publishers where I have a lot of games, such as GMT, I sorted them by conflict just to make them easier to find. I could have done them alphabetically, I suppose, but it's interesting to look and see how many games from a certain publisher I have on a specific topic.

The other thing that I did to save space was to stand the boxes on their edges rather than their bottoms. The names of the games in 98% of cases are on the top and bottom of the game, so this way I can put the shelves closer together. The shelves are over 18" deep, so I have no fear of them not fitting. Of course, this is talking about standard wargame style boxes, roughly inspired by the old Avalon Hill bookcase games. I have a few shelves along the bottom for the big monster boxes. A Most Fearful Sacrifice (Flying Pig Games, 2022), the Grand Tactical series, the Old School Tactical series, stuff that comes in those giant boxes. I lay some of them flat, some on their edges - that's a work in progress.

Magazine games are another challenge. I bought some cardboard boxes from ULine that are OK, but they aren't as sturdy as I'd like. A company called Aegis makes trays for magazine games and I have a handful of them. They work great, but they're about $5 USD per tray, so pricey. And they don't fit European size magazines, of which I have quite a few. On the plus side, I wrote to my friends at Cube4Me and described the problem and how the Aegis trays weren't exactly what I was looking for, and they got interested. They asked for the measurements of the trays I'd tried, and asked about what a good tray would look like. This was about a year ago. And just a couple weeks ago, they announced they are testing a prototype. Maybe they will be my saviour.

 

AFG: Do you have a collection philosophy or a set of guiding principles when adding games to your existing collection? And if so, how strictly do you adhere to it.

GL: The only real principle is that I have to feel confident that I want to actually play the game. I'm not really a collector, I don't have multiple copies of games other than my backup copy of Up Front (Avalon Hill, 1983) (my all-time favourite game) and a couple that were part of box lots I bought and I'll sell or trade the extra copy. I adhere to the "I need to want to play the game" idea fairly strictly, but I can see where I have blind spots. For example, Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW). I haven't really played more than a few turns of it yet, but I've bought five of the games. A couple of them I bought second-hand but in shrink for an amazing price, so that's understandable. But I buy new ones as they come out. That's because they are from MMP [Multi-Man Publishing], and MMP takes forever to reprint things, and in the meantime, the aftermarket prices skyrocket. So, my rationalization is that if I end up liking GCACW, I'll have bought the games at pre-order prices or less. And if I don't like GCACW, I'll sell them for a profit and buy something I like better. On the other hand, I've bought four or five Library of Napoleonic Battles games, and I have less confidence that I'll enjoy them, so that's breaking my rule perhaps.

When I was younger, Advanced Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1985) was my main game. In the 80s and 90s, it was possible to own everything for it, you could be a real completist. I went away from it from about 2000 until 2015. When I jumped back in, the number of third-party publishers had exploded. It just wasn't possible to be a completist anymore, at least not on my salary. And that was very freeing for me. I still play a ton of ASL, but I don't buy everything that comes out. I don't even buy every official product. If there's a new historical module where I'm not interested in the setting, I pass it by. And that feeling of not have to be a completist in ASL has carried over into other series.

One other thing to note though, is I'm not the sort of gamer that looks for the perfect game on a topic and then gets rid of the rest. No perfect Gettysburg game or Bulge game for me. I like multiple games on the same battle or campaign because I like seeing what different designers do. And I have developed really wide tastes in terms of eras. Hence, 695 games and counting.

 

AFG: You've mentioned before that your collection storage is limited and you can see a point where you will have to introduce a one in - one out policy (I find myself in the same boat; I may be a little closer to "peak game", but I still have a steady influx of new titles). What would be your criteria for parting with a game beyond just not enjoying it?

GL: I'd try to use the same rationale as for buying a new game - will I still play this or not? I know that there are some sentimental choices where I probably won't play them again, but I can't see parting with them. I can foresee a time when there may be hard choices to be made. As I think about it, I realize my criteria will shift over time. I'm loathe to admit it, but perhaps the time where I'm interested in monster games is passing (or has passed!). I imagine if the choice came down to two games and one took 50 hours to play the whole thing, I might let that one go. I am avoiding this question. I won't really know until I'm faced with the actual decision.

Grant Linneberg (centre) assisting two unidentified gamers at a convention
(picture courtesy of The Player's Aid).

AFG: Is there a particular publisher, designer or topic that makes a new game an inevitable purchase for you?

GL: think there are a few, but most come with caveats.

First, I'm not into fantasy as a setting. Those days have long since sailed for me. Cheers to those who enjoy them, but I'm done with that stuff. I'm almost the same with sci-fi, but I let the occasional one through. I used to have a strict "no solo games" policy, but that is slipping. I'm trying one every once in a while. It's not really that I hate any of these things, I just like them less than two-player history games, and I thought I needed to draw a line somewhere. I'm sure it means missing out on some absolute bangers. Oh, I'm less interested in really recent history wargames. Stuff on the Ukraine War or recent Mid-East conflicts, it takes a lot for me to be interested.

Publishers: I have a soft spot for the little guys. I will try a game, even one on a topic I'm not otherwise much drawn to, when it's from a small operation that's trying to get established. So, DisSimula Edizioni from Italy, Form Square from England, Sound of Drums from Germany, Neva and Bellica 3^rd Generation from Spain. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. It would have to be a solo game about dragons for me to say no. I will buy every Blind Swords game that Revolution puts out. I love Revolution Games and own almost every non-solo game in their catalogue (thankfully a couple were sent to me to review). I pretty much buy all Hollandspiele non-solo history games as well.

Designers: I will buy every non-solo David Thompson game (and even bought a solo one last year) that is history or military themed. Same with John Butterfield, but he's so crafty, he makes his solo games playable as two-player games. I can't recall the last time Mark Herman put out a game that I didn't buy. Kim Kanger has been an auto-buy as he's so inventive, I always want to see what he'll do. When Amabel Holland does a wargame, I'm first in line. Jerry White and Volko Ruhnke, again, if it's not solitaire, I'm in. Both of these guys are always finding new ways to do things. I could make a much longer list here, but so as to avoid leaving someone I really love out, I'll leave a lot out.

Topic: The provincial part of me is always lurking and I can't say no to anything with Canadians in it. Lucky for my wallet, that doesn't amount to much. But it's also why I want to encourage it. I'm sure Australians have the same feeling. Other topics come and go. In the past few years I've gone on binges of France ‘40, The French and Indian War, WWII Italian Campaign, and the War of 1812. So, I think it shifts along with what I'm reading. But a constant is I'm always interested in new game mechanics, or old mechanics used in a new way. Part of what has fascinated me about boardgames going back to even before I saw my first wargame was the desire to figure out how they worked.

 

AFG: Finally, if you had to pack up your collection again for an extended period, what half-dozen-or-so games would you leave out for the duration? Which ones would you be loath to part with for any length of time?

GL: This is a tough one. I sort of had to do that a bit when I put the collection in storage during our renovations, but the games I kept out were some new ones, and older ones that would fit on a small table as I knew I'd be pressed for space. So this will be a whole new list.

Up Front - I can go three years without playing it and then fall in love with it anew the next time I play. I'm never disappointed.

ASL - Well, how much of it can I keep in this scenario? I have enough ASL stuff and scenarios to keep playing something new until I die.

The U.S. Civil War (GMT Gsames, 2015) - I know most people would pick one of Simonitch's ZOC-bond games, but I think this is his masterpiece.

Turning Point: Stalingrad (Avalon Hill, 1989) - I love area-impulse games and there are a few others that I could just as easily pick.

Empire of the Sun (GMT Games, 2005) - I've only played it once, just scratched the surface, but it's clearly something I'll love.

Blue vs Gray (QED Games, 1999) - ACW strategic level in a card game where the cards also make the map. Can't get enough of it.

And I'd have to pick one of my WWI tactical air combat games. But that's like choosing between your children, I can't decide which one.

There are others that I really love, but I think if I played them 100 times, I wouldn't love them as much. The above games, I could just play over and over.