Review Of 2025

2025 has been a funny old year for me. Whilst I've continued gaming at the club, various circumstances, both personal and external have contrived to reduce the amount of gaming I do at home. And it's the gaming at home that drives both the various projects and game reports that fill this blog. Which is a long-winded way of saying that there's been less material on this blog over the past year.

But the year hasn't been without activity.

Towards the end of last year, a group of us decided to add some Wild West gunfights to our repertoire, and we picked up figures to paint. In a surprising burst of activity I actually produced twenty gunfighters, and in the first half of the year managed to use them in a few games. 

This burst of painting activity then helped power up the next project. I'd played some Turnip 28 last year, and even bought some figures for it, but had stalled after a little bit of painting and modelling. However in the first part of the year I managed to produce my first army for it, and have started a second. Needless to say that that one has stalled. And the reason for this activity? It was so that I could play in a Turnip 28 tournament in Sydney in April. I pretty much came last and my army was wiped out in every game. But it was fun.

I got involved in two bursts of playtesting this year. The first was for Nic Wright's new fantasy skirmish game, Fantastic Scuffles (which was actually published a couple of weeks ago). The second was for a variant of Galleys & Galleons, that had been picked up as a game in its own right for publication in the near future. It's called Torpedoes & Tides and covers small ship actions in WWII. I didn't allow my total lack of knowledge of this period to hinder me when it came to giving it a go, and in another burst of activity I developed simple scratchbuild designs for the vessels I needed. I think the rules are pretty much completed now, and are awaiting an editorial hand and eventual publication.

In the middle of the year my gaming was dominated by the new Dominion series of games, which present a set of rules that are stripped down to the bare minimum to offer 10-15 minute games with, it has to be said, a surprising amount of depth. Whilst the individual games are light, they are an excellent set of rules for resolving campaigns, and I developed campaign systems for the English Civil War, the French Intervention in Mexico and the War of Spanish Succession for use with the rules. It also spurred another burst of painting allowing me to finish an ersatz early 18th century Ottoman army to go with my Russians and Swedes.

New games (to me) this year have included Frostgrave and Sword Weirdos. Since I also played a bit of Song of Blades and Heroes, fantasy skirmishes have been well represented.

My regular favourite games have not been neglected. I've continued to play Galleys & Galleons (adding the world of Earthsea to my repertoire there) as well as HOTT and even some Gaslands, although for various reasons I actually missed the two most recent club games of that.

I have also continued to play boardgames as well, even if a lot of that doesn't get recorded. Mrs Kobold and I try to fit in at least one game of something each week if possible and we continue to take small games such as Love Letter with us when we go out in case we have downtime that needs filling. Our favourite small game of the year has been Bananagrams.

Anyway, that was the past year for me. I hope you have had at least a moderately pleasant year of gaming at that 2026 sees the same or more!

As ever, here are the top posts in terms of views for each month. You'll see that they mostly concern games and projects I've mentioned above. There should be a few fun memories in there for regular readers.

January

Go West, Young Man - Although it all went south later in the year I started this year's painting off well, with this batch of gunfighters.

February

Pirates Of Earthsea - In February I revisited Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy, and then went on to read the other books in the series for the first time. It inspired me to play some games of Galleys & Galleons set in her world, which was also a chance to try out the magic rules.

March

Song Of The Yokai - Song of Blades and Heroes got a couple of outings this year. In this game some Uruk Hai fought the Yokai.

April

The Long March - I played a couple of games of Turnip 28 in 2024, but this year I was able to use my own army for the first time. This was the debut game for the Gentleman's Gentlemen.

May

Monsters - More Galleys & Galleons. June requested a game with sea monsters and that's what we did.

June

A Simple ECW Campaign - The Dominion series dominated the middle of this year, and inspired me to create a couple of rudimentary campaign systems. I did a much prettier map for the campaign system later on, and have run the whole thing through several times, each one giving some exciting games.

July

Random Armies For The War Of Spanish Succession - As well as campaign systems the Dominion series also inspired some random army generators. I love putting together this kind of thing. 

August

The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 1 - Moving on from the Dominion rules, I did some playtesting for a forthcoming set of WW2 coastal rules based on Galleys & Galleons. This is a new period for me, and I tried the campaign system. Harvey Knight and his flotilla have had some hair-raising adventures, but have cost the Germans dear in terms of lost ships.

September

More Small Boats - Playtesting continued into the next month. This was a club game with Daniel, but I really must run a couple more adventures for Harvey Knight as well.

October

More Hebridean Piracy - Ships were popular and specifically my little Viking ships, which got used in this rerun of a scenario set off the coast of Scotland in the 16th century.

November

Minoans vs Egyptians - I much prefer DBA to Art de la Guerre, but that didn't stop me playing a game of the latter one Thursday evening.

December

The HOTT Literature Championships - Draw & Game 1 - Inspired by an idea for a short series of HOTT games at the club I started a mini knockout tournament using armies derived from various series of books. At the time of writing I have reached the semi-finals stage, with four armies now battling for a place in the final. This post covered the initial setup, as well as the first game.

The HOTT Literature Championship - Game 4

Game 4 of the HOTT Literature Championship was the Barsoomian match - the Red Men of Helium against the Green Men of Warhoon. Helium defended.

The Green Martians massed their shooters against Helium's aerial navy on one flank, so Helium shifted it (slowly) to the other flank.

The Green Martians slowly formed their line, ready for the charge. Helium carefully redeployed to meet it.

Across the Martian dead-sea bottom the Green Martians charged, in near silence ...

... until they smashed into the Red Martian line. Their Jed faced John Carter himself.

The battle moved back and forth, but the Red Men seemed to be holding.

An attack from some rough going destroyed some of the Warhoon.

The Green Martians kept fighting.

Out on the flank some Warhoon warriors were attacked by Helium's airships whilst crossing a patch of rough ground.

They were quickly and efficiently destroyed.

On the other flank the Warhoon shooters were doing their best, but their only target were some light fliers ...

... which quickly fled to support John Carter in his fight with Warhoon's Jed.

The mighty Warhoon warrior was slain, breaking the Warhoon army.

To add insult to injury some more warriors were destroyed out on the flank, destroying half of teh army as well.

The end of the battle.

Losses. Helium had won 12g-5.

So we now have the pairings for both semi-finals.

In the first the Forces Of Light will face the White Witch of Narnia.

In the second Cluny's Vermin Horde will face Helium

Who do you think will make it into the final?

Happy Christmas!

OK, it's a day late but yesterday I was busy with a mix of having fun, relaxing and cooking. No time for blogging.

I hope you all had, or are having, a great Christmas and that Santa (or whatever functional equivalent thereof) brought you plenty of gaming goodies.

My haul this year was small, but that's OK. I got a dice-tray (something I've needed for ages, but never got around to getting), as well as 'Grand Tour, the most recent expansion for Flamme Rouge covering new specialist rider types, some weird new track pieces and full rules for running multi-stage tours.

I also realise that I'd missed posting about the Wollongong Wargamers Christmas Get-Together, which was a week ago now. As ever we went to a local RSL for a meal and a chat. But we also did the annual trivia, competing for the coveted Golden KV2. Last year's winner, Peter, set the questions, and in a tight competition Dave emerged victorious. Once again I ended up in second-place. Story of my life.

Return To Ambridge

I realised the other day that it's been a couple of years or more since I played a game using my Portable ECW Rules, and thought that I'd better give them another outing. Rules get lonely if you don't play them.

I was inspired a little by a post on the Portable Wargames Facebook Group in which someone had played a game and added in a small tweak whereby a unit had to spend a movement point to turn. This mad flanking moves slightly harder to achieve, something that I've been wanting to so for a while without a satisfactory solution. I wanted to give the change a try, and also look at not having retreats when flanked be impossible. On, and I also added in co-located artillery.

I set up a scenario I played for fictional The Battle of Ambridge, but fiddled with the army lists a little.

On the left is Parliament:

1 x Commander
1 x Experienced Dragoons
1 x Experienced Horse
3 x Raw Foot (one of which is Shot only)
3 x Experienced Foot
1 x Artillery
10 Command Dice, Breakpoint 15

On the right are the Royalists:

1 x Commander
1 x Elite Horse
1 x Experienced Horse
4 x Raw Foot
1 x Elite Foot
1 x Artillery
9 Command Dice, Breakpoint 14

The Royalists are trying to clear the road; there should be no Parliamentarian units on it or within one square of it by the end of the game.

I randomised the starting positions of each side by a clever mechanism called Making It Up As I Went Along. The Royalist horse was split between the two flanks. Parliament's horse and dragoons were on the Ambridge side of the river (which is impassable except at the bridge).

The Royalist horse on their left attacked, but was driven back by Parliament's foot.

Action all along the line, from behind the Royalist advance. On the right the Royalist horse was attacking its Parliamentarian opposite numbers with some success, whilst their foot was engaged with dragoons in the hedgerows.

The infantry got to grips in the centre.

The Royalist horse on their left was first to break.

The Royalists reorganised their line to bring up some reserve foot, as the infantry shoved back and forth. 

Destroying their opposite numbers, the elite Royalist horse turned on some Parliamentarian horse and drove them back to the river.

The Royalist commander was wounded, which would slow their attack, but it was offset by Parliament suffering a couple of random event induced turns where they had some command paralysis.

The Royalist attack was faltering now though as they lost another unit. Parliament's hold on the road was still strong.

At least I got to use the flanking move changes, as Parliament turned the Royalist line. 

Despite the Royalist losses in terms of units, Parliament reached their breakpoint first. The Royalists had spread casualties across the enemy force even if only one unit had broken. However the Parliamentarian morale held.

The Royalists reached their breakpoint and also passed their morale test. But their numbers were dwindling and time was running out (I set a limit of ten turns).

The battle ended with Parliament still in control of the road and the Royalists looking pretty shaken.

With hindsight the forces were too even (indeed Parliament's force may have been stronger). The Royalists certainly had a tough task ahead of them. If I did this again I'd downgrade a few of Parliament's units and give the Royalists some more units and boosts. I like the idea of them having a ford on their end of the river as well, so that they can consider swapping units from one side to the other.

It was fun to get these rules out again after such a long break.

The HOTT Literature Championship - Game 3

Game 3 of the HOTT Literature Championship saw my two Narnian armies vying for a spot in the first semi-final.

The White Witch defended. 

The Narnians pushed forward but made the first of two mistakes. Their left flank had to advance through some rough going, but as the army advanced the Pevensie Children - who command it - ended up on the wrong side of a hill and would have to spend extra PIPs to keep the left flank moving. This left the initial Narnian advance exposed.

The White Witch was quick to exploit this ...

... but some Narnian beasts saw off their opposite numbers.

The White Witch evened things up when their minotaur slew the Narnian giant. 

Some Narnian beasts were destroyed. The White Witch now had the upper-hand on that flank.

Aslan rushed in to help. Attacked by the minotaur he held it to a draw...

... before other beasts came to his assistance. The minotaur was slain.

Aslan and the beasts stabilised the flank, destroying some beasts. The White Witch was now 8AP down, and things were looking bad for her.

She pushed forward into the attack as a mid-game lack of PIPS limited any major reorganisation.

On the Narnian right they attacked, led by the Pevensies. Opposing them were the White Witch's hordes

The hordes were driven back, but were holding for now.

However Aslan was continuing his depredations on the other flank, and drove the White Witch's aerial element off the board. Her army was close to breaking.

But this was the Narnian's second big mistake, and it was a costly one. In moving out onto the flank, Aslan no longer provided a protective radius against a bespelling attack on the Pevensie children. With any PIPs she could spare the White Witch started using her magic.

The Narnians were hacking through the enemy hordes, whilst the Witch staved off defeat by bringing them back as fast as the Narnians could slay them.

Disaster for the Narnians - the White Witch finally managed to ensorcell the Pevensies. They had still lost fewer AP than that White Witch, so the Narnian army didn't break, but they were teetering on the rink of defeat.

The White Witch's behemoths attacked Aslan

He held them as long as he could, but eventually the odds caught up with him, and he went down to a great big axe.

That was enough to break the Narnian army. But on the same bound some hordes took down one of the Narnian riders.

So the White Witch won 16g-10. It was a close battle, but the Witch made fewer mistakes.

So the first semi-final will see The Forces Of Light take on the White Witch. In the next game two Barsoomian armies will battle it out to determine who will face Cluny's rat Hordes in the second Semi-final.