By the Numbers: Final-ish Game Plans for 2024; and 100 posts!

   

  

This post marks my one hundredth submission to A Fast Game is a Good Game, two weeks into the blog's second year. I’ve talked about why I started A Fast Game and how its direction and purpose has changed over time several times before, and in a previous post I sketched out some ideas I had for my gaming program for this year. Well, a month-and-a-half in to 2024 and I haven’t locked down every detail, but I’ve got some things to share, and I thought that would be a good way to mark my hundredth post.

6x6 now 5x3

If you’ve been reading from the start you’ll know that I initially started A Fast Game as a way to track my progress at my self-imposed 6x6 challenge, i.e., playing six designated games six times each, against a face-to-face human adversary. That turned out to be a lot tougher than I first thought it would – mostly due to the difficulties scheduling, so I’m adjusting my expectations. 

This year I’ve been working on picking five games to play three times each. I’m still going to try to finish the outstanding 6x6 games (as a manner of penance for my overreach – I had seventeen unplayed sessions at the beginning of the year, and that’s now down to fourteen), but looking back over the year, I’ve come to the conclusion that three runs at a game is a pretty solid position from which to critique it. While I understand why it happens, I really hate it when people review games after a single play-through. I don’t think it’s fair to the game or to the audience. Six games is great, four or five is swell, but I think three is the minimum number to begin to get a solid feel for a game. To wit, I present the titles I’ve so far settled on for the 5x3 challenge:

 - Brothers at War,1862 (Compass Games, 2022 (see the unboxing here))

 - Dawn’s Early Light: the War of 1812 (Compass Games, 2020)

 - Napoléon 1807 (Shakos, 2020)

These three are firm choices. I did a solo run-through of Brothers at War and was really impressed. I’m looking forward to playing it against an opponent. I spent some time with Dawn’s Early Light last year (and wrote positively about it here). I think that is a strong candidate for my favourite CDG. And after my experience with Napoléon 1806 (Shakos, 2017), I was keen to see how the system will play out over a bigger play area and multiple scenarios with differing strategic goals.

C&C: Ancients - both fast and good.

For the last two slots, I’m tossing up between Undaunted: Battle of Britain (Osprey Games, 2023), No Retreat!: the Polish & French Fronts (GMT Games, 2018), Fate of the Reiters (Hexasim, 2019), Dunkirk: France 1940 (Worthington Publishing, 2018), Old School Tactical, Vol. 2 (Flying Pig Games, 2017) and a Columbia Games block game, maybe Athens and Sparta (Columbia, 2007). If I can’t choose and I’m feeling game, I may stretch to a 6x3.

Solitaire Play and Review Challenge

I mentioned this in my previous goals post. In the past couple of years, I’ve built a decent collection of solitaire or solo-friendly games. I’ve managed to play quite a few, but certainly not all of them (probably about half), and most of them have gone unreviewed (well, five of the twelve reviews I posted last year were solitaire games, but I feel like I could have done more). I said in my last By the Numbers post that I was going to aim for twelve solitaire games, wither new or revisiting (I’ve recently had a hankering to get Skyhawk (Legion Games, 2022) to the table again). I’m going to wind that target back to eight, but I’ll concentrate on new games, or at least, games I haven’t played yet. This will also be open to games with a dedicated solitaire mode (like Atlantic Chase (GMT, 2021) and Pacific Tide (Compass Games, 2019).

My most recent acquisition.

I haven’t settled on all the solo games I’ll try to get played through the year, but I’m planning on starting with titles I already own. The first couple off the rank will probably be:

 - Skies Above Britain (GMT Games, 2023)

 - Redver’s Reverse: The Battle of Colenso, 1899 (Legion Wargames, 2016)

 - Midway Solitaire (Decision Games, 2017)

 - Beneath the Med: Regia Marina at Sea1940-1943 (GMT Games, 2020)

Redver’s Reverse, set during the Anglo-Boer War, only arrived this week; I’ll post an unboxing in the next week or so. I’m currently reading though the rules, and it looks promising, if a little daunting. Technically, I have played Beneath the Med before; I ordered it through GMT’s P500 program and played it when it arrived, but it’s been a while and I’d like to run through it again to get reacquainted before reviewing it.

I’ll aim to play all these at least three times, and review each of them here at A Fast Game. This should help toward my third goal for the year.

Twenty considered, generally positive game reviews in 2024

My first year of A Fast Game saw me post a total of game reviews. The reviews I post are the most popular features on the blog, read by an order of magnitude more folks than anything else here. Not to blow my own horn, but I feel like I’ve gotten better at writing my reviews. And it can be tough, but they are the most rewarding posts to put together. I think I can put twenty reviews up this year (I’ve already posted one in January for Napoléon 1806, so only nineteen to go). Eight solitaire game reviews, five or six for the 5x3 challenge and three more for my outstanding 6x6 games will get me most of the way there.

1944: D-Day to the Rhine (Worthington Publishing).

At this point, I’d just like to reiterate for anyone who’s joined us recently that you’ll only see positive reviews here. I don’t think I’ve come across too many games over the years that I absolutely didn’t like or that I couldn’t find any redeeming factors in, but if I do through the course of writing about games, I won’t review it. This is partly because whatever I don’t like, somebody is going to think it’s the best thing since the last really good thing, then they’re going to start spamming me with vitriol and I don’t need that. I used to write music reviews back when the internet was still shiny, so I know of which I speak. Mostly, though, it takes time an effort to write a review, good or bad. If I’m putting that much effort into a piece of work, I want to promote something I think is worthwhile.

Extra Credit Goals

At the beginning of the year and the first flush of enthusiasm over new beginnings and such, I had a list of things I hoped to achieve in the coming twelve months. With just ten and a half of those months left, I’m trying to be a little more sober-minded about what I can accomplish. So, there are a couple of things I’d like to do, but I won’t castigate myself if I don’t get there. Part of the reason I didn’t complete my 6x6 challenge last year is the multifarious ways life outside of gaming would trample on plans and curtail the best intentions.

Fire and Stone (Capstone Games).

I already written up a wish-list of extra-curricular accomplishments I’d like to make happen this year, so I won’t reiterate it here. The most realistic might be learning Fields of Fire, Vol. 2 (GMT Games, 2019), as that would tick off another solitaire game, but if I don’t get tick any of them off this year, I’ll still be cramming in a lot of gaming goodness.

So, if you’ve been following A Fast Game for the duration, thank you, and I hope you’ll stick around. If you’re a newcomer, please don’t feel like you have to go back and read everything, but browse the index and see if there’s anything of interest (some of the reviews are quite good, and if there’s a particular game you’re interested in, you might find some of the AARs interesting). Here’s to a game-rich 2024 and a diverting blog going forward.

By the Numbers: Further thoughts on Wargaming Goals for 2024

 

 

"I thought it was your turn to bring the ASLSK?"

A week ago, I posted about my desire and reasons for setting some goals for myself around wargaming in 2024. Since than I’ve spent some time thinking about over the last seven days, mostly because I wanted to be able to make a big announcement for the first anniversary of A Fast Game is a Good Game. I had hoped this would be the 100^th post to the blog, rounding out the year nicely, but with other demands on my time, it wasn’t to be (this is actually the 96^th post). But like most things to do with A Fast Game, 

I haven’t got all the details bedded down as yet, but I have settled on the structure of my goals. My first priority is to complete the outstanding 6x6 obligations that were left uncompleted last year. Playing six games six times each – thirty-six games in all – seemed like an achievable goal, but various circumstances conspired to make it impossible. Nonetheless, I am committed to finishing that goal. I have fifteen games outstanding, having knocked off two already in January and completing my run of Napoléon 1806 (Shakos, 2019), and played my first game of Great War Commander (Hexasim, 2018). My review of Napoléon 1806 can be found here). I won’t put completing the outstanding games ahead of everything else, but I’ll try to complete them in the first half of the year.

On to the new goals. Learning from last year, I’ve decided to have two ranks of goals; Primary goals – the ones I will strenuously try to complete in 2024, and Extra Credit goals – the ones that I would like to get to but won’t die in a ditch over. Any Extra Credit goals I don’t complete this year may become Primary goals in 2025.

The bottom of the fourth in Napoleon 1806.

As I said earlier, I haven’t squared away all of the details regarding these goals, but I can present the essential structure I’m setting for myself and fill in some of the details. So, without further ado:

Primary goals for 2024:

A 5x3 Challenge

I thought about increasing it to a 6x3 or 7x3, but with the outstanding 2023 6x6 games to be played, a big chunk of my gaming year is already spoken for. If I get to November having completed this, I may add another rank or two. I haven’t settled on all five games yet, but there are a couple that will almost certainly make the cut; Brothers at War: 1862 (Compass Games, 2022), and Napoléon 1807 (Shakos, 2020). As with the previous year’s program, only plays against another human opponent will count to the tally. I’ll post a session report for each game and a full review after completion of the three games for each title. This won’t be as thorough as the six-game regime of the past, but three games is still a good sample for appraisal (considering many reviewers seem to base their opinions on a single run-through*).

Twenty Game Reviews posted in 2024

In 2023 I posted twelve game reviews. Writing reviews is hard if you’re doing it right. Anyone can say, “This is the best thing ever!” or “I had to scrape this game off my Hushpuppy with a stick!” It may be a little easier for me because I only post reviews of game I like. That doesn’t mean I won’t point out their weak points or how they might be improved. But if I can’t be positive about a game, I’m not going to waste my time telling you why you should hate it (there are enough people doing that already). I’ll stick to my three-play minimum promise for games I review that I made last year; a game is a dynamic experience, and if it’s worth it’s salt, it might throw you under a bus your first time out. In my opinion, three bites of the cherry is a minimal requirement for beginning to get to know and understand a game. I wouldn’t trust myself to offer a considered opinion with less.

WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020), one of the
games I'm planning on getting around to reviewing in 2024.

So, three more 6x6 reviews, another five from the proposed 5x3 challenge, and one down already. Eleven more reviews (minimum) to make my goal. Which leads me to my third Primary goal for 2024.

12 Solitaire or Solo-Friendly games, New or Revisited, in 2024 (with reviews)

One of the things that made the 6x6 out of reach for me last year was the stipulation of the games being played against a human opponent. A full half of the individual games I played last year were solitaire or two-handed learning games. These also made up about half of the reviews I posted in 2023. I own a handful of solitaire games that I either haven’t played yet or haven’t played in years (Skies Above Britain (GMT Games, 2022) and Beneath the Med (GMT Games 2020) spring to mind). If I still have them in my collection, it's because I enjoyed them and could see myself revisiting them, or I think I’ll enjoy them. It’s time I started getting some of them back to the table (and thinking more deeply about them for review purposes).

That’s all I’m committing myself to. Actually, that’s quite a bit. I hope I’m not over-extending myself. These are the things I’m going to focus my efforts on. My Extra Credit goals are more opportunistic in nature. If the situation avails itself, I’ll grab it, but I’m not going to flagellate myself if I don’t meet any or all of these. Well, maybe a little.

Extra Credit Goals for 2024:

Learn the GBACW system

After a long hunt, I’m the proud owner f a pre-loved (clipped and trayed) copy of Death Valley: the Battles for the Shenandoah (GMT Games, 2019). The hunt came about, in part, because I already had the confusingly titled Battles for the Shenandoah: a Death Valley Expansion (GMT Games, 2022), and Into the Woods: The Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862 (GMT Games, 2022) which several people said in no uncertain terms was an inappropriate game to try to learn the Great Battles of the American Civil War (GBACW) system. Hence the hunt for Death Valley. 

Now By Swords and Bayonets (GMT Games, ~2024) has made the cut on GMT's P500 and is likely to be released this year; covering smaller battles often overlooked in ACW series, probably will be the best game to learn the system. I’ve made a significant investment in time and cash sourcing these games, and I really want to sink my teeth into some wargaming rib-eye, but in the short term, I’m willing to wait for By Swords and Bayonets, which may drop as early as June. That date isn't carved in stone, however, so that's why this one has been relegated to an Extra Credit goal.

Teach myself to play Fields of Fire

Another GMT game, Fields of Fire (2008) is a company command solitaire game, covering three theatres of war, WWII Europe, Korea and Vietnam. The original game – long out of print – is getting a Deluxe Edition release, probably later this year. In the meantime, I have Volume 2: With the Old Breed (GMT Games, 2018) in the series. (A third, covering the British Parachute Regiment is in the works.) The game has a reputation for being difficult and for demanding much from the player in terms of concentration and commitment. But if I can crack it, that would potentially count to my 12 Solitaire Game goal, so it would be a win-win.

Table and play Chase of the Bismarck

I bought Chase of the Bismarck (Vuca Simunations, 2023) last year, along with Task Force: Carrier Battles in the Pacific (Vuca Simulations 2023). Vuca make really beautiful games and chase of the Bismarck is an unruly beast of a game that has probably the biggest overall footprint of any game I own (with the possible exception of Death Valley with its expansion). A game of Chase will require several things; a place to set it up (probably the night before), a full day clear to teach the game, then actually play it, and an opponent equally committed to the task. This is probably the Extra Credit goal I would most like to achieve, and the one least likely to occur, but a fella can dream. (To get an idea of the scope of this undertaking, have a look at my unboxing post of Chase for the Bismarck here. I forgot to mention just how distractingly beautiful the whole ensemble is.)

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So, that’s the plan in broad brushstrokes – more details as they come to hand. I want to nail down the 5x3 games in the next week or two, and I need to take inventory of what I have on had to play, because I anticipate not having the luxury of buying as many new games this year as last. Nobody is supervising me in this, and I have a history of flaking on commitments when they get difficult. So, I write a blog to self-police my own behaviour. That it’s fun to do – not as fun as the games themselves, but quite fun in its own way.

Anyway, if you're still reading this far in, thank you for being a part of this, and helping to keep me keep for playing new games and writing about them. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I hope you'll stick around for year two.

 

* That jab was not directed at anyone in particular. I do understand the pressure to produce new content can force some to cut corners. That’s why I write a blog – Nobody reads anymore, so no pressure, I can do what I want; I could spend a month writing about the intricacies of diplomatic relations in Here I Stand (GMT Games, 2006), and probably nobody would notice or care. There is one outstanding exception; while I don’t always agree with his opinions, I am in awe of the consideration Calandale puts into every game he reviews on his YouTube channel.

 

 

By the Numbers: Thinking about Wargaming Goals for 2024

 

January is the time people choose to make decisions about changes in their lives. I’m certain most people make these declarations – or unspoken determinations – with sincerity of spirit, but the fact remains, any kind of change is hard, and behavioural change is an order of magnitude more difficult again. Most New Year’s resolutions are abandoned – forgotten or ignored – withing the first eight or ten weeks of the year,

I’m no stranger to unfulfilled self-promises and commitments to being or doing better. But, at the beginning of 2023, I wanted to change one behaviour that I noticed in myself. I’d shifted from being a wargamer to being a wargame collector. I’ve talked about this before; collecting games is a valid hobby in and of itself, there is a special joy in owning some artifacts, and I would never try to fat-collection-shame anybody, but I’ve always identified as a player of games (more recently, nearly exclusively board wargames), but my actions were not reflecting my self-identity. So, I set about doing something about it.

Here I Stand (GMT , 2006)

As a veteran of failed change attempts, I knew I had to plan something manageable, and settled on playing six games I owned hadn’t got around to playing, and playing those games six times each before the end of the year, to get to know them better than if I’d just played each one the once, with all the rules  mistakes and tactical errors that are inevitable in first runs at a new game.

As I’ve also mentioned here, I didn’t complete the task I set myself. But I tried to. And in the trying, some interesting things happened. I played a lot more than six new games – I just didn’t play them al with other people, one of the stipulations I set myself in my 6x6 challenge – and a lot of those were games I’d had in my collection for some time, but now had the desire and confidence to try out on my own.

A Fast Game (this blog) was an unforeseen side-effect of my desire to play more of the games I already owned. I wanted a way to keep myself accountable for the project. I could pose AARs on Facebook – there is a very supportive group based in my adopted home-town – but I’ve always been a writer, and I thought keeping a written record of the games I played and my responses to them would make me think more deeply about the games in question and about why I played what I played or chose this game over that (or just chose both).

WWII Commander: Battle of the Bulge (Compass Games, 2020)

I’ve been making some notes in my planner (which might hint at how old I am) on what I might set as my gaming goals for 2024.Nothing is carved in stone as yet, but here are some of my thoughts:

➤ Complete my 2023 6x6 Challenge I feel like I owe it to myself to see it through, so it’s not just one more incomplete effort. I’ve talked about this before; I don’t see it as an overall failure because the process of committing to it and writing about it has made me both more conscious about the games I play, and more eager to play new and different games off-list. Before 2023, I could have counted the number of solitaire games I’d played on one hand. Looking over my records for 2023, I recorded 52 separate solo games played (some of those were two-handed solo learning games, but I’m still counting those). For the year, I had 122 gaming incidents listed, so all up, around 150 individual games (a full third of those alone, but that’s okay too). Planning to play games has lead to more games being played, unplanned. Which is kind of cool, and kind of why I started planning to play games in the first place.

Siege of Syracuse (Worthington Publishing, 2022)

At time of writing, I have made some headway on this, having last week played my sixth game of Napoléon 1806 (Shakos, 2017) and my first run at Great War Commander (Hexasim, 2018) on the same day. There are a couple of things vying for my attention at the moment, but I’m hoping to finish the three outstanding games on my list by the end of March, and I should have a review for Napoléon 1806 in the next week or two.

➤ Commit to something like a 6x6 for 2024 This is a tough one. At the end of January last year, I thought that a slate of 36 games – six games, six plays each, against another actual face-to-face human would be tight but doable (I even set myself a stretch goal of another six games of 1960: the Making of a President (GMT Games, 20##). I think it’s a valuable exercise, and I wouldn’t be heartbroken if I didn’t complete it again, but I’d like a better chance of getting it done. If I do commit to a scheduled program like that, it might include solitaire games, for a little more flexibility, and maybe even online games (using VASSAL or Rally the Troops!).

➤ Learn to play the Great Battles of the American Civil War (GBACW) rules-set I have no excuses for this one; I managed to land my White Whale game, Death Valley: Battles for the Shenandoah (GMT Games, 2019), after a year-and-a -half of near-misses and second-hand but lovingly clipped and tray-sorted,  and I have Into the Woods: the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862 (GMT Games, 2022) tucked away and as yet unpunched, waiting to be played. GBACW has a reputation for being a difficult system to grok, but I’m prepared to put the time and effort into it.

Regardless of what other goals I settle on, I intend to pursue another year of A Fast Game. The only item I had on my list relating to the blog was to try to raise the number of game reviews posted from 12 in 2023 to 20+ (I remember when I wrote out my notes that I thought about declaring 25 reviews – roughly two a month – but I lost my nerve and lowballed it a little to keep it manageable). Reviews are where everything I’ve learnt about a game, thought about it and through it, and taken from it gets wrung out into a fifteen hundred-of-so words, and it rarely conveys everything I mean it to. I like to think I’m getting better at it, though.

Aces of Valor (Legion Wargames, 2022)

The reviews are often the hardest part of the blog to write, but also the most probably the most satisfying as well. I’ve never accepted a copy of a game for review (I’ve never been offered one either), so I’m in the lucky position of being able to spend that energy on games that I think deserve a spotlight for whatever reason. That won’t change. But I’ll still be posting game reports and unboxings (State of Play and Stripped Down for Parts posts in A Fast Game parlance), and the odd, meandering prose-poem about some esoteric facet of our shared hobby (Overthinking It).

The end of January will mark the first anniversary of A Fast Game, and my first year of blogging about games. Writing A Fast Game has been very rewarding personally – a separate joy from the actual playing of the games I write about – and some folks seem to enjoy reading it. So, whatever I end up settling on for the year, people will still be able to read me babbling on about it for another twelve months at least.

Great War Commander (Hexasim, 2018)