Game Plan 2016

After looking back at 2015, it's time to start looking ahead to 2016!

Of all the years I’ve done some sort of Game Plan for the year (because I do recognize I am far more productive when I have a plan and stick to it) I have the least idea of what I want to do… It’s not that I’m losing interest in gaming or miniature gaming – quite the contrary – I feel pulled in too many directions at once and can’t really settle on just one thing!

Game Weekend

I’ve been dragging my butt about organizing a game weekend, as I couldn’t really settle on any one thing to do for the weekend – too many fun games that could be played. Ultimately I have settled on playing a A Song of Blades and Heroes campaign using some elements of Song of Deeds and Glory and elements of other campaign systems to play a somewhat abstract map campaign.

Gaming Our Way Through History

We have one more volume of Story of the World to read through and I have a bunch of games lined up to play as we go through it.

Board Games

China the Middle Kingdom– not just modern history – this is a game based on Britania which covers a great deal of the history of China – players play successive groups of peoples that rise to power and the eventually fall to newer groups from 400BCE to modern day.

Maharaja - similar to China: the Middle Kingdom above. The time period of the game runs from the Aryan invasions of 1500
BC to the establishment of the British Raj in the mid-1800s – so mostly stuff we’ve already covered, but hopefully the game will be a good review…

Soldier Raj India again – a little more focused on the period between 1767 and 1846. By the same guys that did Soldier Kings (which we tried… but didn’t get to play a whole game of…)

American Civil War - The Eagle Games production – as it allows for more than two players and has lots of little toys!

Railways of the World - because history isn’t JUST about war!?

Railways of North America because the map is basically just Canada… We can built the CPR!

Prairie Aflame - a game of the (Canadain) Northwest Rebellion of 1885. I doubt it’s covered in the book we’re reading – but I thought I’d add it in for a bit of Canadian history.

Go West

Expedition Northwest Passage

Bittereinder…? A game of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). I ‘ve had this for years. I may or may not try it with the kids…

Axis & Allies 1914 - a lighter strategic game of the Great War… possibly if the kids are up to it I might try Paths of Glory

Red Russia for the rise of Bolshevism and the Russian Civil War

Warlords: China in Disarray

Popular Front for the Spanish Civil War

Axis & Allies 1942 for a lighter strategic game of the Second World War

OR (if we can find the time!)

Axis & Allies 1940 Europe AND Axis & Allies 1940 Pacific because that would be fun… we’d have to find some more players and set aside a weekend to play it…

Twilight Struggle for the Cold War… only two player… so maybe we’ll play a few games of it.

Fire in the Lake - a grand strategy game of the Vietnam War.

Port Stanley: Battle for the Falklands another game I’ve had kicking around for decades that I may or may not get to playing with the kids.

Labyrinth: the War or Terror 2001 - ? - to bring us right up to the present day…

Power Grid Deluxe again, to add in a little something that ISN’T just about WAR!?

Third World War? as a bit of a “how it could have gone down”? I have this entire series of games (Including Arctic Front – Battle for Norway, Southern Front – Race for the Turkish Straits, and Persian Gulf – Battle for the Middle East) I’ve always wanted to play them all together…

Miniature Games

One Hour Wargames - I’ve been meaning to get in a game of this… I’m running out of useable time periods. The more modern options presented in this book don’t really appeal to me.

Ever Victorious Armies which I had, at one point, modified to play some colonial actions…

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.…? (without the Giant Steam Robots or Martians) as an alternative to the modified EVA…?

Contemptible Little Armies for a simple game to cover some actions in the Great War, Russian Civil War, and the “Back of Beyond” (China, etc)

Wings of Glory - for some WW1 Dogfighting.

A World Aflame - one of the Osprey Wargames I picked up a few years back to try out. Meant for the “inter-war” period. I thought I might try it out for some Spanish Civil War actions (though I don’t have any SCW specific miniatures – I do have a lot of generic early 20^th Century civilians armed with bolt action rifles that might make due for some of the combatants).

Bolt Action - for some skirmish action in WW2. I have no shortage of options for this!

Force on Force - I can use this for Vietnam and other Cold War and more modern actions…

Cold War Commander for some larger scale actions in the Cold War and more modern conflicts – I’ve been thinking about re-doing some of my forces for this game in mirco-armour… perhaps that won’t get done in time to play with the kids during our study.

Flying Lead…? For smaller scale actions in just about any 20^th century conflicts…

Saturday Game Afternoons

I know I’ve been saying this for years, but I’d really like to start hosting longer games on Saturday afternoons/Evenings once (or twice) a month. I did get in at least THREE this past year… (There was probably more if you could ones where just my family played – but I’m thinking about games where people OTHER than my family join us to play a longer board game…).

Eldrtich Horror - actually already played a 7-player game of this on 2 January 2016 – but I’d like to play it AGAIN!

Firefly– already have a couple afternoons set aside to play this – once with just Amanda and the kids, and again with some other guys!

Soldier Kings I tried it as a three-player game with the kids and it didn’t work out so well… I’d like to play this as a 7-8-player game…

Soldier Emperor - as Soldier Kings above – I’d love to play this with 7 players.

Forbidden Stars - I did get in one game over the holidaze, but I’d like to try it again.

Game of Thrones - 6-players… I had started reading the first book again with the kids. Maybe when we finish it, we’ll recruit a few more players and have a go.

Arkham Horror having played Eldritch Horror now, I kind of like it better… but I’d still like to play this a bit more (especially since I picked up a few expansions on sale over the holidaze!?)

Axis & Allies (1914, 1942,  or 1940 Europe, and/or 1940 Pacific) – these will probably be played as part of the Story of the World studies with the kids – but the bigger ones (1940 Europe and Pacific) could be played together as a weekend long mega game with eight players!

Ikusa - I did get to play this last year with the kids. I think it’d be more fun with 4-5 players.

Empires Age of Discovery Played it last year with four – like to try with six.

Joan of Arc - as with the last two, I played it with the kids this past year but would really like to play it again with six players.

Wallenstein - ditto.

I’m sure there are others… but these are the ones that are at the top of the list to play. If I played just one each month I’d get through… well.. MOST of them!? How hard could that be?

Other Events

ToonCon 2016 - 23-24-25 September 2016 – The Boy and I had a great time last year, so I definitely think we’ll be going again this year! Not sure about Amanda and The Girl… I know The Girl is keen to go, we shall see…

The Vimy Project?

I don’t know… Maybe when I get reading about the Great War with the kids it will rekindle my interest in this project… I’d have a LOT to do to get this ready in time, now… it could be done… but it’d be a lot of work.

Other Miniature Gaming

Other miniature games I'd like to play (or get back to playing) this year... 

Dragon Rampant and Lion Rampant – Dragon Rampant just arrived last week and I’ve really enjoyed reading it and am looking forward to trying it out and getting back to playing some more Lion Rampant. Also last week I ordered a pile of stuff from Black Tree Design to fill out a few more Lion Rampant retinues/Dragon Rampant warbands

En Garde! We had a  lot of fun playing Ronin (also by Craig Woodfield) and I’m assuing it will be more or less the same system – I can see the system easily porting over to the new genre perfectly with just a few modifications – mostly for flavour – and some new army lists. I have craploads of pirates and English Civil War soldiers that could be pressed into service. I also recently ordered some “Swashbucklers” from Wargames Foundry and wouldn’t mind picking up some three musketeer types from Redoubt.

40K – the kids and some friends have shown some interest in this and I have a small collection of Imperial Guard I could use in this. I hope we can weave together some sort of narrative campaign for our various forces and steer away from the standard “bring 1000 points and have a battle” as that will get pretty boring real fast…

Frostgrave - I'm sure we'll get in a few more games of Frostgrave this year. I actually have a few new wizards and adventurers to be painted... and a pile of ruined city terrain in progress... 

Flying Lead – I’d really like to try this out some more in different modern periods

Men Who Would Be Kings – I have to wait until September for this one, but I’ve been looking for a new colonial era game.

Galleys & Galleons – I haven’t played this since I did some playtesting for it. I’d like to get in a game or two sometime… 

Song of Drums and Tomahawks – Another Ganesha Game I’d like to try out. I have miniatures that could be used. Just need to find some time and sort out a scenario.

One Hour Wargames – I’ve been meaning to have a go at these for some time. Hopefully I’ll get to it this year.

Some sort of micro scale sci-fi (Epic 40K or Future War Commander or Samurai Robot Battle Royale or Dirtside or Horizon Wars) – I have a pile of 40K epic stuff that I’ve been eyeing up since the kids got interested in 40K stuff… need to find some rules to use with them…

There are a number of other Wargames from Osprey coming out this year that I might like to try out - Rogue Stars and Broken Legions look interesting... I'll probably pick up Poseidon's Warriors and Chosen Men to have a look at... 

Role-Playing Games

I’ve really had a lot of fun playing in the Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu/Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign this past year. I’d really like to get back into running some role-playing games…

Only War – mostly because I have a PILE of Imperial Guard miniatures and it’d be fun to weave it into the narrative 40K skirmish campaign. Also I’ve always been a fan of Military RPGs – there’s no faffing about with “why are we going on this quest?” – you are given orders, you carry them out to the best or your ability…

Rogue Trader – It just looks cool. Between me and the kids, we have lots of miniatures that could be used for resolving action on the tabletop…

Cthulhu – I’ve really enjoyed playing in the Savage Worlds/Realms of Cthulhu campaign this last year and it’s got be feeling like running some of the other campaigns I have – in particular Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Maybe when we finish up Masks of Nyarlathotep.

Traveller? As a less dark alternative to Rogue Trader, I wouldn't mind running some other sci-fi game involving space travel... 

Other Board Games

Of course there are lots of other games I’d really like to play (or play more of…)… Dominion… Race for the Galaxy… Carcassonne… Giro d’Italia… Onward to Venus… and others….

Is that enough to do this year…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Painting update – 40K, Swashbucklers and dismounted ECW cavalrymen.

Perhaps a game report of the Frostgrave we played over the holidaze…