I know with how long a year is, it's rare to get to the end of one with your aims intact, but I have no idea what happened in 2023. I had a real solid aim for how this year would go, desert warfare for the first few months and then Normandy themed games afterwards, add in trying to artificially make some Dark Ages armies my most played this year - all with a smattering of Lord of the Rings as that's what one of my brothers is in to. Then out of nowhere - WARHAMMER 40K!*
*in caps to emphasise the point
The big thing this year was having a second son. It turns out that one kid slows your gaming down but isn't unsurmountable, 2 is a much harder issue, so I've been gaming at slightly odd times with really understanding mates/brothers. I've missed not getting down to my gaming club SEEMs on a Wednesday night, but its one of those things. I suspect this will change over 2024, however, I'm definitely toning down my plans for the year coming.
It was also a bit sad that once 40k hit this year, historical gaming basically vanished but this is as much to do with who I was gaming with as anything else - will get across the table from Neil again in 2024.
My aims for 2022;
- Focus my gaming. Going to try and focus on desert warfare for the first few months of the year then Normandy in the last few. But happy for a few other games in be mixed in. Going to be hard to score this one. - The first planned desert war games didn't go ahead and we played games in Normandy instead - after which all planned aims went out the window as 40k happened.
- Play more 15mm - 6x 15mm games in 12 months can't be unreasonable? - I didn't play any!
- 2:1 painting/buying ratio - a return for this aim. - I succeeded in painting more than I bought, but wasn't even close to a 2:1 ratio.
- 12x photogenic games - I quite enjoyed this aim in 2022 - probably a fail, but I really enjoyed the games I played
- No new projects bought at all. This one feels like the sort of aim I will accidentally break in the first 2 weeks of the year but we'll see how it goes. Also I have bought a few projects for 2023, so I'm probably already cheating in the spirit of this aim - I actually only bought three new projects this year and I think you'll agree I kept them small. Tyranids, Genestealer cult and Legion Imperialis.
- Play more scenarios - Go into a game with a set scenario and limit the amount of games that are just line up and kill them all's - I think we played 2?
Photos from games this year;
First game of the year, Norman civil war in January.
A day of gaming on the last weekend in January with two games sent in Normandy - 1st my WW2 Americans push to take the village of Sur-le-Where. While below the French try and stop an English army marauding around the countryside late in the 100 years war.
A day of gaming in the last week of Feb using my new gaming table at home. A couple of games of crusade era Lion Rampant.
Followed by 5 games of Thunderbirds - so many because 3 of the games were lost in a few turns.
Some Dark Age shieldwalls in mid March. These two Saxon units were absolute heroes, holding the centre at bay for I really don't know how many turns.
An evening of board games with my mate saw a couple of games of Patchwork and a couple of tries of Dodos Riding Dinos - which I can see being a really good group game.
The first game of LotR this year, with my Rohan vs my brother's Minas Tirith.
The only game of the Horus Heresy this year,
the knight in the photo did less than the photo suggests . . .
Some more games while away with the family of One Night Vampire (not pictured) and more Dodos Riding Dinos - which was even more fun with extra players.
On the anniversary of Culloden we played a game using the forces from the battle but in a Franco-Prussian war scenario that Neil wanted to test for his participation game at Broadside. Photos of his British red coats rather than my Jacobites as just look at that column!
The opening games of the Fratribusia campaign and test games of Kill Team
The recapture of Osgiliath - a game that has been on our hit list for over a year
A quick couple of games in our 40k campaign with a game of Kill Team while we waited for the new edition and then a small test game of full warhammer 40k on release day. (Bad photo quality as it had started to get dark at this point in the game).
The big ACW game from the middle of the year.
The end of July saw the Imperium of Man launch Operation Thunderstorm across multiple theatres;
Then towards the end of August, Imperial casualties really started to mount up, but they were taking and keeping the upper hand.
Two games below where one of my brothers was testing out a list idea.
Our first big game of the campaign - all 4 players around the same table.
The start of our experiments into Combat Patrol.
A surprise entry for Bolt Action again trying out the Hedgerow Hell scenario that has been on my list to play all year.
The big monster base - far less climatic than I had expected
Then the last game of 40k this year
D&D was a surprise late entry to my games this year in early December as it wasn't planned or looked for. I got invited to play with a group of non-gaming guys who wanted to give it a try.
I plan on keeping my aim ridiculously simple for this year as I keep doing big complicated plans that inevitably fail, so this year I aim to;
1. Play 12 games - this was almost 12 wargames but ultimately I just need to keep doing some gaming.
2. Get the unread folder on my kindle below 400 books - I built up a massive backlog on purpose but it would be good to get it to a manageable level.
3. Buy less than I paint - that old classic that I usually fail
I've promised one of my dad club mates a game of 30k and I need to get some historicals on the table at the club, plus both my brothers got new armies for Christmas, so 2024 should be interesting.
Only as I write this that it's dawned on me how little historicals I've painted or gamed this year. A must do better for next year.
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