The year will soon draw to a close and I have already begun planning on what games I want to play in the New Year. This coming year I hope to get some of my existing games onto the table and also perhaps try out a few new ones.
Existing games
Last Blitzkrieg
I have a small scenario from Last Blitzkrieg set up and I hope to start playing it soon and then advance to some of the larger scenarios. While you can play the entire Battle of the Bulge across four maps I don’t have that sort of space or time to do it and it is very good that the game comes with as many, more manageable, scenarios as it does. I am hoping to get a copy of Arracourt as well as Baptism by Fire this year to fill out the series. It is a great series of games.
SPQR
I have found a local gamer who actually wants to play SPQR so this is definitely going to get some time on the table. I had it lined up as a solo game but an actual opponent is a much better idea. The SPQR boxed game comes with 19 scenarios but some of them are absolutely insanely large so I found a few smaller scenarios that were published in 3Ci to start with.
New games
Not necessarily games that I intend to buy but games that I haven’t played before that friends have copies of. Some of these may require a purchase or two.
Oath
Oath is from the team that created Root and it contains a system of victory conditions that are not only insane but also change from game to game in a semi-legacy system where some parts of the game state transfer forward to subsequent games. When you hear it explained it seems unduly complicated but it sounds absolutely wonderful.
Plantagenet
Plantagent is a game by Francisco Gradaille using Volko Ruhnke’s Levy and Campaign game system to model the English War of the Roses. I only came across the system, and its current games, this month but it looks like an exciting game system and seems well suited to the WOTR as it has a very robust political system.
Inferno
Now the reason that I am familiar with the Levy and Campaign system is Volko’s upcoming game Inferno which is set in Tuscany during the close of the 13th century. Guelphs and Ghibellines vie for control of cities and towns in the interregnum following the death of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in 1254. From what I have read it seems to capture the nefarious nature of Italian politics at the time as well as the ruthlessness of the period.
Norman Conquests
I am not sure if Norman Conquests will be produced in 2023 but if it does I want to pick it up if only so I can fight the Battle of Civitate. It does have three battles from 1066 which is, to me a least, a fairly large problem as I find that period to be of little real interest. Much depends on the quality of the other scenarios.
Update: I looked at it again and did some research and while it does look interesting to play the Battle of Civitate there are three scenarios in the game, just under half, which cover the Norman Conquest and none of those have ever struck me as interesting battles. So this title is going to be a pass for me.
Command and Colors
A friend has a full set of Command & Colors: Ancients that I hope to play more. And depending on when it gets released I may look at getting Command & Colors: Medieval. I like the system much more than I thought I would and it is a fun system to play with folks who like the periods but aren’t necessarily interested in investing in learning SPQR.
2023 goals
Even after the significant purge that I did during the move I have more games that I will ever play. So I want to try to buy fewer games and play more of the ones that I have. There are a few local gamers who have a large number of games that I would want to buy in their collections already so that should help. Moving from Calgary to Edmonton will also help. The Sentry Box in Calgary has a huge wargame section and it was just far too easy to go to the store and pick up a new title. Since moving to Edmonton I have had to look into online stores as there is only one store in the area that carries wargames and they are a 30 minute drive. I have been also picking up some titles used which helps keep the costs down. I have already made on online order, from Tadenac Games, and I suspect that I may be doing a few more in the future but given what postage costs are I may be looking to do a group order with friends.
The main thing I want to do, other than economise a bit, is to play more games with real people. I got out of the habit in the last few years and hanging out with folks and playing games will be good for me. Flexing my social muscles and all that.
Pile of dice 