Well… I played a LOT of games in 2015 – and most of them were just with my family. Overall we probably played less miniature games (which is, in theory, the subject of this blog) and less role-playing games – but miniature and role-playing games took some of the tops spots in terms of games played most often.
According
to BoardGameGeek I played 413 games in 2015. Most of those (I’d say
90% – or more) were with my family. Of those 358 were board or card games
(ranged from 6 minute games of Loonacy to 6+ hour games of Arkham Horror), 18
were role-playing games, and 37 miniature war games - over half of which were
Song of Blades and Heroes (or other games from Ganesha Games using the same
game engine).
The most played games were Dominion (15 plays), Love Letter
(15), Song of Blades and Heroes (15), Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu/Masks of Nyarlathotep (14), Sentinels of the Multiverse (14), Race for the Galaxy (13),
Frostgrave (11), 7 Wonders (10), Hive Pocket (8), Eco Fluxx (8), Coup (7), Kaiser
(7), Dixit (6), Loonacy (With Fruitcake Fun Pack) (6), Tales & Games: The Hare & the Tortoise (6), Carcassonne (5), Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition) (5), For Sale (5), O Zoo le Mio (5), Pandemic (5), Rumpelstiltskin
(5), and SET (5)
So while role-playing games and
miniature games made up a small number of the overall number of games played –
they were some of the most played games – and card games filled out the rest of
the top 10.
Gaming Highlights
In January I had planned to go to Freezerburn – an annual one-day mini-con hosted by
my friend John
– but ended up missing it as I ended up in hospital
for five days and missed it…
Also in January I started playing in a Savage Worlds/Realms
of Cthulhu campaign. My friend Bruce was just starting up the classic Masks of
Nyarlathotep campaign with his reagular gamign group (that had recently lost a
few players) and asked if I’d like to join in. Amanda and I both got in on the
action and a year later the campaign rages on. WE ostensibly play every other
weekend, but there were a few weekends that had to be cancelled for one reason
or another, so I think we’ve only played 15-16 sessions so far. It has been a
hoot! For the last 15 years I’ve been running one game or another –
role-playing or tabletop miniature skirmish campaigns – it was nice just to
make up a character and PLAY in a game without having to prepare anything or
have adventures or scenarios ready…
In February I had initially planned to host a Song
of Shadows and Dust Campaign for my annual WArgaming Birthday Bash…
but that kind of fizzled as only Terry and Paul ended up showing any
interest in it… In retrospect I should have gone ahead with it. My kids had
factions in the works, I could have played, I could have convinced Amanda to
get in on it and the six of us would have had a hoot! Alas…
Instead I did host a Weekend
of Gaming over the Family Day long weekend and I played
Fear & Faith with the kids on my birthday.
A lot of the gaming I did with the kids this year had a
historical theme to it as I tried to tie games in with our study of world
history. You can read more about that in Gaming
Our Way Through History Part One and Gaming
Our Way Through History Part Two. We’ve mostly finished Volume Three (we've finished the reading, just a few games to catch up on...) and so I should be posting Part Three soon-ish…
In September I took
The Boy to ToonCon 2015. It was a huge success. The Girl was pretty
disappointed she didn’t get to go. I have a feeling she’ll insist I take her as
well this year. Perhaps it will become a family thing…?
Painting
I didn’t paint as much this past
year – compared to previous years, but I did at least paint MORE then I
purchased! Until this last month when the Black Friday/Xmas sales started I had
painted over twice as many figures as I had purchased! In the end I painted 748
28mm foot figures, 40 cavalry, 7 artillery pieces and 8 vehicles (and 8
microscale tanks and one ‘mech). Which is, actually, still quite a bit of
stuff.
What was all that? Well I ended
2014 painting medieval stuff for Lion
Rampant, followed by a brief phase of casting about trying to figure
out what I wanted to do next. I painted some Micro
Sci-fi – including some Epic Eldar and then some Deep
Ones and . I briefly tried to get myself motived to get back on track
with the Vimy
Project by painting up some Great War Canadians (52nd
(Norhtern Ontario) Battalion and some support
elements for the 3rd Division… but that didn’t last long.
By February I was looking for
some “low hanging fruit” projects that I could finish up and say; “There, those
are DONE!” and the easiest looking projects were a bunch of my WW2 forces in
28mm. and straight through until may I worked almost exclusively on WW2 stuff -
though I had no inclination to PLAY with any of them, I had a lot of fun
finishing them up. I even bought a few more things – just to fill out missing
elements in the forces I had. Before I ran out of steam I finished up my Soviets,
Commandoes,
British/Canadian
Paratroopers, Imperial
Japanese Army, Chindits,
Wafen
SS, and Early War French
Infantry. I also cranked out a few vehicles before moving on (a Tiger
I, a Puma,
USMC
Jeep, and a Reneault
R-35). Hopefully I’ll get to using some of that WW2 stuff when I get
to reading about WW2 with the kids in the upcoming months.
What did I move on to? The rest of the year was mostly
Medieval (finishing up a force
for Lion
Rampant) and Fantasy stuff for A
Song of Blades and Heroes and Frostgrave.
I also got a bunch of Englsih
Civil War stuff done and, in the last couple months, a bunch of 40K
stuff – mostly Imperial Guard.
What did I buy!? Mostly WW2 stuff – to fill out missing bits
in my planned forces, Some English Civil War stuff (mostly Scots and some
artillery crews for the English), a fair bit of 40K stuff (mostly Imperial
guard and most of it used off ebay), a bit of fantasy stuff (for SoBH and
Frostgrave) and most recently some Foundry swashbuckling types in anticipation
of the immanent release of En
Garde. Oh, and there was all the left-over stuff from the Reaper
Bone II Kickstarter - the stuff that the kids didn’t want. (I made a few more purchases in
the last week of 2015 – but as they have not arrived and are for 2016 plans I
didn’t count them – more on that in my upcoming Game Plan for 2016!)
I also got rid of all my 20mm WW2 stuff this year. Traded it
all away to Bob
in Edmonton. He’s been busy rebasing them all for Memoir ’44.
That's about it... Now onto 2016!
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Game Plan 2016
Gaming Our Way Through History
Part Three
Painting Updates with 40K
Imperial Guard and Swashbuckling Swordsmen!
Great you got so many games in, with the 4 of you, its almost like your own club! Heh, reading that you only painted 748 miniatures is likely 10 times my quota for the year, sheesh your a machine!
ReplyDeleteIt really is like our own little (highly exclusive) club!
DeleteI do recognize that 748 is a LOT of miniatures... it's just less than what I've done in previous years. It's a pretty tall stick I measure against!
A cracking year mate, even if you are a little disappointed in your painting output. You're very lucky to have a tribe to game with. I'm envious!
ReplyDeleteThanks Millsy!
DeleteI'm not THAT disappointed about my output. I was more just noting the fact.
I am indeed extremely fortunate to have my own tribe to game with.