Review of 2022

As another year draws to a close it's time for my annual review post.

This past year was the 10th anniversary of the blog, and it still feels like it's going strong and appealing to most of the people who read it. The biggest thing on it this year has been the 52 Games project. I'll be doing a roundup post for this separately, but for those who haven't been aware of it, it was my attempt to play at least 52 different games and/or sets of rules during the course of the year. Needless to say I reached, and exceeded, my target, and you will have been treated to writeups of all of the games, in some form or another. 

Whilst the project did rather spread my gaming activity around, I still played some of my personal favourite miniatures games - HOTT, Galleys & Galleons, Gaslands and relative newcomer Blood, Sweat & Cheers. I did a few more tweaks on some of my own rules as well, trying out new ideas for my ECW Portable Wargame and even briefly resurrecting my jousting game, Atteint!

Outside of gaming my wife, daughter and I reached our target for this year's Frocktober, and we all took new acts on to the burlesque stage, as well as revisiting older acts.

So many thanks to all of you who read, enjoy and comment on this blog, as well as those of you who do blogs of your own and provide me with the inspiration I sometimes need.

Anyway, on we go with my usual review format; the top-viewed post from each month.

January

With Pike And Musket - I added this gem to my collection of old-school wargames books at the start of the year. And during the year I played several of the scenarios from it.

February

Galley Redesign - We went away for a few days at the end of February to celebrate our wedding anniversary, and I took a little modelling project with me; to redesign my simple lolly-stick ancient galleys. I managed to get a look I liked, remodelled my existing ships and added new ones to the fleets as well. Naturally I still have a load waiting to be painted.

March

A Target Of Opportunity - Rummaging through my Google Drive I found a downloaded copy of Nordic Weasel's 'Five Men In Normandy' WWII skirmish game, and spent an enjoyable few days working through a Eastern Front campaign. This post was the most recent mission I've played to date; a hit on a high-ranking German officer by a squad of Russian soldiers.

April

Another Return To ... The Arena Of Death - We've done a little bit of Gaslands this past year. This was one of the earliest games we played, in which I used my tank-turret touting truck, Siberian Khatru.

May

Bolt Action Pictures - I got a new phone in May, and spent a club evening trying out the camera (which is a lot better than the one on my previous phone). That's it. That's all there is to what somehow became May's most popular post.

June

Bolt Action French - This was another Bolt Action photo post, but it's popularity (in terms of view) was less about the content and more about the comments, where I had the first appearance of 'Simon', a vile troll who has spent the six months since then posting daily abuse to the comments section of this blog. Obviously since I get to pre-approve comments, no-one else sees them, but that doesn't stop him posting up to six or seven times a day, despite stating three times (at least) that he was 'never going to read this blog again'.

'Simon' needs to get a life. 

Anyway, the pictures of Ian's Bolt action French are nice, and that's what really matters. 

July

Unorthodox - 3 - Naturally I have played Galleys & Galleons during the past year - not only with my remodelled ancient vessels but also with some of my less conventional ships. In July I did an experiment where I tried out ships with the Unorthodox propulsion trait against a variety of opponents in order to see whether there was a balance issue with that particular trait. To be honest I didn't come to a firm conclusion one way or another, but I got some entertaining games out of it. In this one the Unorthodox ships faced vessels powered by steam.

August

Gory Bloodbath - Obviousy I have played HOTT multiple times throughout the year, but sometimes I repurpose the elements for Dragon Rampant. And this was one of those times.

September

Duyfken - In Sydney there is a replica of the 17th century Dutch ship Duyfken. It seemed silly to be an avid Galleys & Galleons player and not to have paid her a visit. And my wife and I did so on one of the days when they sail her around the harbour.

October

Battle Cry - Newmarket - One thing led to another and I found myself getting out my copy of Battle Cry. I used the original figures (I have been using my 6mm in the past few years), but added more terrain to the board to improve the look.

November

A House Divided - Battle Cry led to me starting yet another reread of Shelby Foote's narrative history of the ACW. And that led to a desire to play a more strategic game. So I got out the classic GDW 'A House Divided' and played a couple of games over a week or so.

December

Double-Sized HOTT - December is always a tricky month in this project, because you don't get a feel for the highest view counts on posts until the end of January, but at the time of writing this writeup of a couple of 48AP HOTT games seems to be the most popular. And it's always good, in my mind, to finish a review of another year in the life of this blog with a game of HOTT.