Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Game Plan 2017


Every year, after looking back at the previous year, I tend to look forward and try to come up with some sort of plan. It’s good to have a plan. Though my plans tend to be more like the Pirates Code (“they’re more like ’guidelines’”).

Alternating Friday D&D

Since September, my friend Bruce has been running a D&D 5E Primeval Thule game every other Friday for me and Amanda and a few other friends. (Before that it was the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign using Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu). It has been a lot of fun and I expect (HOPE!) that to continue for the foreseeable future.

50 Games

I have a lot of games.

I mean a LOT of games (and that’s just the board and miniature games… don’t get me started on all the role-playing games). Now mind you many of those entries on BGG are expansions – and some of them are single card promo cards and the like… but still a lot of games. I could play a different game every day of the year and… well… I might get to play them all (if I used all the expansions). So there are two things I wanted to do this year: 1) get rid of some games – I’d like to sort through them and get rid of some of the chaff  (I’ll try to maybe trade them away on BGG, or just sell them at the ToonCon Auction) and 2) PLAY as many as I can, obviously, but also make sure I get to play all the ones that I really want to play again (or try out).

To do the second thing I thought I’d make a list of 50 games I’d REALLY like to play and endeavor to play at least one of them each week. I thought I’d get the kids to do the same – which would mean we’d have to play at least three games a week – and we’d all get to play at least ONE game on our list of games that we want to play. This was harder than I initially supposed… I sat down and started the list and when I counted them up I had WAY OVER fifty! (and I hadn’t even gotten to listing the MINIATURES games I wanted to play – which I’d initially though to include, because I’ve been feeling I haven’t been playing those as much as I like, and thought including them would ensure I’d get to play at least a few more…).

So I had to do some paring down. First of all I took off a few of our “Go To” games – games that we got down and can play in under an hour – we’ll end up playing those whenever we have a bit of time to kill – games like Dominion, 7 Wonders, Race for the Galaxy, Love Letter, Loonacy, Fluxx, Pandemic, the Grizzled, etc. I’m even hoping A Study In Emerald might slip into this category as the last couple times we played we got through games pretty quickly!). I also decided something else had to be done to get some more miniature games in (more on that in a moment) so I canned them from the list. I also dropped a bunch of games from the list that I know the kids really like hoping that they’d end up on THEIR lists, so we’d get to play them anyway.

Here is what I ended up with…

1. Railways of the World (Eastern United States)
6. London
36. Albion
48. ZhanGuo
50. A Few Acres of Snow

I'm considering possibly themed months... maybe all the Railways of World games on month, all the Martin Wallace games another month, all the Phil Eklund games, all the GMT games, etc... I was thinking October could be Arkham Horror month... It might help keeping rules straight if playing a series of games with similar rules/mechanics...?

I thought of suggesting the same to Amanda... but then we'd have FOUR games to play each week... that might get a bit daunting.... and, honestly, she probably couldn't be bothered. She'll play any game we put on the table and invite her to play, but she would never seek out new games to play or sit down to read rules. Maybe I could ask her to pick out just 12 - so we play one game she wants to play each month. 


Saturday Afternoon Games

While Amanda is out with The Girl at dance classes on Saturday afternoons I have been organizing games for me and The Boy to play with various other friends. Generally I’ve run longer games (2-4 hours). I hope to continue this. This is where a lot of the games on my list will probably end up being played… which, unfortunately, will likely mean Amanda and the Girl don’t get to play them… ah well… Hopefully we’ll get to play a few of the games on The Boy’s list as well!


Skirmish Saturday Night

I think it’s time I brought back Skirmish Saturday Night and got some miniatures on the table. Actually what I mostly have in mind is a series of campaigns that could be a series of linked skirmish scenarios to something more like role-playing… we shall see. 

I tried to make a list of games I’d like to play and sort out how I’d get them all in. As the list grew I started thinking if there were twelve I could focus on one game each month for the year… although that would mean only four of each game – which would mean some pretty short-lived campaigns… then the list ended up longer than 12 anyway…

Some of the Games I definietely would like to play at least a few times this year include:
Faustus Furious - using chariots or JET BIKES!
Maybe even Bolt Action or Force on Force…?

I’d really like to set up campaigns of Frostgrave and/or Song of Shadows and Dust. I’ve also been considering running pseudo-roleplaying games using Fear and Faith (running Call of Cthulhu adventures) and/or Flying Lead (possibly running old Twilight: 2000 adventures…?)


Vimy

The whole Vimy project is kind of up in the air at this exact moment. It probably deserves a completely separate post. So, more on that in a moment…


Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend

Originally I’d planned to NOT have a skirmish campaign this year as I’d hoped to have enough of the terrain and miniatures done for Vimy to play test it that weekend with a few people I was hoping might help out with running the game. As that I up in the air at the moment, so are plans for the Birthday Bash.

My birthday falls on a Saturday this year, so I’ll definitely be playing games all day – probably all weekend – it just may or may not be Vimy…


Family Day Weekend

Two weeks before my Birthday is the Family Day weekend in February  and for the last couple of years we’ve had a weekend of playing boardgames with family and friends. I’ll probably do the same this year.


Summer Skirmish Weekend Campaign

As I am not planning a skirmish campaign for February, I thought I might organize one over the summer…? I have NO IDEA what game I might run or exactly when it might be… just putting it out there, it might happen. (if there was anybody interested).


ToonCon

As the whole family had a lot of fun at ToonCon last year, we will very likely all be attending again this year.

I will also definitely be running some sort of game (or gameS). I guess I don’t have to decide for sure for a few months, but some possibilities I am currently considering are Passchendaele (as it will be close to the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Corps’ assault on the ridge and the final capture of Passchendaele in 1917) and/or Faustus Furious with JET BIKES! (I picked up the game a couple of months ago and it looks like a RIOT! When Viscount Eric at Gaming with the Gnomies pointed out the Jet Bike Construction Kit Kickstarter (which ends in a few days!) I immediately thought it would work perfectly for racing jet bikes!



Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Vimy Project Update!?

New Miniatures!

12 Days of Gaming (or “What I Did for My Winter Holidaze)! 

6 comments:

  1. That's a plan, that's a lot of games! Good luck with that!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks, Iain! I may not play them all... but hopefully I'll have fun trying!

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  2. Sweet Baby Jesus, Carlos, and Ramon. That is an ambitious list!

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    1. It is... I'm not saying I absolutely, positively will play every single one... or that I will play miniature skirmish games EVERY single Saturday evening... it's just a goal to shoot for. Trying to be flexible and fun (with a plan), not "WE MUST PLAY THESE GAMES"!!!

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  3. "Actually what I mostly have in mind is a series of campaigns that could be a series of linked skirmish scenarios to something more like role-playing… we shall see. "

    If you don't already have it, might I suggest you look at the "At the Sharp End" supplement by the Too Fat Lardies. It's basically the campaign book for Chain of Command but most of it is generic enough that you can use it for other rules.

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    1. I don't have it. I shall have a look at it. Thanks!

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