Never too early to start planning for next year…
Most of this Involves some
concrete plans for the first quarter and some general plans or ideas for the
rest of the year.
BIG EVENTS
I recently posted that I will be hosting my 11th
Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend the weekend
of 13-15 February 2015. It will be a Rome-themed weekend with a Song
of Shadows and Dust campaign on Friday and Saturday and some board
games on Sunday including Conquest
of the Empire.
Beyond that…?
I had a thought of hosting a Summer Campaign Weekend… I
won’t be thinking about this too much until Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter
Wargaming Weekend is over. I am of missed feelings about a summer gaming thing.
Part of me feels like “who would want to spend a weekend indoors in the summer
when they could be outside enjoying the weather!?”. On the other hand, it would
be easier to travel in the summer – for friends in other cities…
REGULAR GAMING
Board and Card Games
We’re going to play a LOT of boardgames over the next year…
I was looking at my BGG
Collection - which by the time the dust settles after the seasonal
holiday gift-giving (and BOXING DAY!) I’ll have over 400 games and expansions.
Looking a little further I realized I’ve only played a quarter of those – now,
keep in mind, many of those are small expansions (a single pack of cards added
to a Munchkin game is a separate entry – NINE of those are just Carcasonne
expansions that came with the BIG BOX. Many others are games I played a lot
“back in the day” but simply haven’t played in the last seven or eight years
that I’ve been tracking game plays on The Geek. I have decided that starting
now and before the end of the 2015 I’m going to make sure we play 100 new games
and expansions – so at least half my collection will have plays recorded!
That’s on average about two per week. To kick us off, starting tomorrow, We’re
going to play one new game EVERY DAY until the new year – that’ll knock ten off
the list and get us on our way.
All the boardgames i played over the last year with the kids
was definitely one of the highlights of the year and finding games to tie into
the history we were studying was a stroke of brilliance (If I do say so myself)
– more on all that in the 2014 In Review post coming up in a week or tow - so
I’m really looking forward to playing even more this coming year.
While there will be a lot of other games going on - there will be a number of games following teh periods of history we will be studying over the year - starting with 7 Wonders, Parthenon and Alexander the Great this week to finish up the Greeks (and other ancients), followed by Rome (Italia, Conquest of the Empire, Ostia, Quo Vadis, Palatinus) and moving through the Dark Ages (Dux Bellorum, Song of Arthur and Merlin, Tara, Constantinopolis, etc...) and Middle Ages (Carcassonne? Hammer of the Scots, King Arthur, Knights of Charlemagne, Warrior Knights, Lion Rampant, San Gimignano, Siena, Ventura, etc) to the Renaissance...
While there will be a lot of other games going on - there will be a number of games following teh periods of history we will be studying over the year - starting with 7 Wonders, Parthenon and Alexander the Great this week to finish up the Greeks (and other ancients), followed by Rome (Italia, Conquest of the Empire, Ostia, Quo Vadis, Palatinus) and moving through the Dark Ages (Dux Bellorum, Song of Arthur and Merlin, Tara, Constantinopolis, etc...) and Middle Ages (Carcassonne? Hammer of the Scots, King Arthur, Knights of Charlemagne, Warrior Knights, Lion Rampant, San Gimignano, Siena, Ventura, etc) to the Renaissance...
In the fall I started hosting a Board Game Afternoon on
Tuesday for some fellow homeschoolificators. It was fun. I plan to continue.
I’m attending Freezerburn 2015 this year – a small
one-day-boardgaming-min-con hosted by my friend John,
who also organizes Tooncon
(not to be confused with John – who makes the Toy Soldiers)
Perhaps it’s about time I started attending Tooncon with The Boy…?
Skirmish Miniature Gaming
The next couple of months will be mostly focused on
preparing for the Song
of Shadows and Dust campaign at the 11th
Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend. I will be
spending a LOT of time making buildings – but hopefully we’ll be playing lots
of games just to get the rules in my head really good.
Other than that I imagine I’ll be playing a lot of other Ganesha Games I
picked up most of their catalogue over the last year and a few of those remain
unplayed. I have Of
Gods and Mortals, A
Fistful of Kung Fu – Hong Kong Movie Wargame Rules, Flying
Lead, Hearts
and Minds, Fear
and Faith, Kooky
Teenage Monster Hunters, MORE
Drums and Shakos, Song
of Arthur and Merlin, Samurai
Robot Battle Royale, Mighty
Monsters, Flashing
Steel, and Song
of Drums and Tomahawks - all of which I have bought, but haven’t
played yet. I’m going to play all of them in 2015 sometime… (that’ll be 12
games off my list right there!)
I’ll also still be playtesting Galleys and Galleons! (not
sure if that qualifies as “Skirmish wargaming”..?)
Big Battle Miniature Gaming
I don’t really have time to build any “Big Armies”… I could
bust out some Great War stuff and play Contemptible Little Armies… I have any
number of Hordes of the Things armies or Dark Ages DBA armies that I could get
out… but I haven’t really had the urge to do so lately and I can’t see me doing
that at any point in the immediate future. Nor will I likely be adding to any
of the existing forces at any point in the near future – with the exception of
the Great War miniatures for the Vimy
Project. Perhaps I’ll get in a game of CLA before
The only Big Battle games I could see myself playing a bit
of is Lion
Rampant (which isn't very "Big Battles" as it still has a 1:1 figure ratio... it's just Bigger than all teh other skirmish games I've been playing of late...) and possibly Dux
Bellorum - because I have it and I might be able to get away with
using elements of my DBA Dark Ages armies to play it.
Role-Playing Games
I made a few attempts last year
to get a few Role-playing campaigns going, but most fizzled before they really
got started. This year I’m planning on running a Cthulhu Invictus campaign for
the kids – which should tie neatly into our study of Ancient Rome over the next
few months.
PAINTING, etc.
My main focus for the first part of the year will be to make
terrain – buildings, buildings and MORE buildings for the upcoming Song
of Shadows and Dust campaign at the 11th
Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend. I should
also get a few civilians done and maybe another faction…
After that…? Painting stuff I already have, mostly. I have a
bunch of medieval units for Lion
Rampant I’d like to paint up. I need to finish up The Third Division
for the Vimy
Project and over 2015 I will need to acquire figures for the 2nd
Division and some Germans (though I may just cast more of my own sculpts) and
get cracking on some terrain!
I may pick up another Ancient
Civilians Collection… and figures for the 2nd Canadian
Division (I think the plan was to
use 1st
Corps, Gripping
Beast/Woodbine, and Irregular
Miniatures… but otherwise I don’t imagine buying much else – I’m sure
the odd thing will come up… but for the most part I HAVE all the miniatures for
all of the games I’m planning on playing this year – I just need to find time
to PAINT the ones that are as yet unpainted!
Well.... That's as much of the plan I have sorted out so far. I'm sure I'll be updating the plan as they year goes by. Stay tuned for the aforementioned 2014 in Review (in a week and a bit) and more game reports and painting updates this week!!
Well.... That's as much of the plan I have sorted out so far. I'm sure I'll be updating the plan as they year goes by. Stay tuned for the aforementioned 2014 in Review (in a week and a bit) and more game reports and painting updates this week!!
Posts
Always take the Boy. It's a completely different experience.
ReplyDeleteI have been looking forward to the kids being old enough o be excited about the idea of a gaming convention - then I'll be able to start planning family vacations around them!
DeleteMy only concern is that... well... The Boy is a sensitive lad (not unlike his dad was) (er... IS...) and tends to get a little overwhelmed in large crowds and/or noisy places. Also he has at times been prone to tears when things haven't gone well for him - and excessive mirth and gloating when things are going well... He has, I must say, gotten a LOT better over this last year - especially with the boardgames. But there have been two episodes in recent memory (one with a role-playing game, the other as I set up a game of Song of Blades and Heroes) - in both cases he burst into tears at the sight of what he percieved to be insurmountable odds and wailed and complained viciously that I "was going to KILL THEM ALL!"?
ToonCon's a long way off though... so we shall see...
My more immediate concern is whether to let them play in the Song of Shadows and Dust campaign at my Wargaming Birthday Bash.
Tim for my 2 cents, though I do not have kids of my own, if he plays in the campaign, he will be playing against people who are somewhat vetted & have met the lad. This could perhaps be a watershed moment...oh bad pun, but it would allow him to play against people you know. I am sure we have all shed some tears when things have gone horribly wrong, at least until we could have a beer or 2.
DeleteLooking forward to the weekend! Should start seeing some of my band on the blog by end of the month.
He played in last year's Ronin campaign - which I still have mixed feelings about. He had a GREAT time - when he was winning. In the other games... he burst into tears and conceded the game as soon as he took his first casualty - which I thought was really unfair for the other players - because it was more of a tournament format and they gained Victory Points based on the casualties they caused. I know it also made a few of the players uncomfortable to have a 10 year old boy crying his eyes out across from them... Others were totally patient and just rolled with it. One game I actually MADE him continue when he wanted to concede (after suffering a single serious wound) - mostly because he was WINNING that game - and sure enough two turns later his opponent packed it in...
DeleteI'll play a tonne of SDD games with him and The Girl over the next month or so and see if I can't get him to chill and not get so attached to those little men!
Merry Christmas to you all, Tim and best wishes for 2015 ;)
ReplyDeleteThis is enough to make me want to get posted back to the prairies in 2015 (Shiloh maybe?) to close enough to crash some of these events. With you and the Fawcett gang and Curt C's mob, there's quite a gaming scene on the prairies. Wishing you and yours a happy holidays and every success with these plans,
ReplyDeleteMichael