52 Games - The Final Update

At the start of 2022 I set myself the task of playing at least 52 different games during the course of the year. I felt that this was an achievable target; all I had to do was average one new game each week and I'd be sorted.

I counted pretty much any kind of game; if you have read this blog for a while you'll know that I'll turn may gaming hand to most things, so it wasn't just miniature wargames I was going to count. I would include board wargames as well and, of course, the various board and card games we play as a family.

Well, I actually completed the project back at the end of August, playing the super-fast heist RPG The Score. But I carried on after that and, as you can see HERE managed a total of 75 games.

I actually skipped a few borderline cases. Whilst I included darts early on (which we have played on and off during the year, by the way), I failed to include the games of pool we played on holiday in October/November (when we discovered that our travelling companion, Dr Salum, was a bit of a hustler), and also the regular trivia nights that we've started attending at our local club. I also skipped my daily Wordle and Nerdle puzzles, as well as Duolingo (which does have a competitive element built into it). So if you're feeling generous you can add in those as well.

My previous update was at the end of October, and I'd played around 62 games at that point. I predicted that we'd add a few when we were away on holiday, but in fact most of what we played were games I'd already done. I only added one new game whilst we were away - the ubiquitous Fluxx.

November and December saw the usual mix of new boardgames and wargames mixed in with the old favourites. With it being the Christmas/New Year holiday period there were a few lightweight games in there, but they were all fun. But I did fit in Black Powder, which I'd assumed would end up on the list at some stage, but which didn't appear until mid-November. I also managed my second RPG of the year - Partners.

In terms of actual miniature wargames I've played around 30 different sets of rules this year. Some only once, it's true, but others, like HOTT, Galleys & Galleons and my portable ECW wargames, multiple times. I don't think that's bad going all things considered.

Maybe I'll do this project again in a few years, and see how the list of games I play compares.

How many different games do you think you played in 2022?

Christmas Games

I hope you all had a great Christmas! And especially hope that your figure, rules, books and gaming collections were expanded in a way that was satisfactory to you.

I only got one game this year, but that's fine because really I have too much of most things these days. However my wife got a few new games, so we had plenty of stuff to try out over the break. 

First up was Calico, which Catherine decided to buy with some birthday money she had. We got this out on Christmas Day. As you can see, it has a cat-theme, and was therefore designed for Catherine.

In Calico you are making quilts, using a selection of hexagonal tiles which come in combinations of six patterns and six colours.

Grouping together sections of the same colour allows you to add buttons. Grouping together sections of the same pattern attracts cats to your quilt who will sleep on it. Both of these things earn you points.

Attracting a real cat doesn't earn you any extra points, although the first player is the person who most recently petted a cat, so Aloy got some frantic attention early on ...

Each board also has three bonus score tiles, which look complicated, but aren't. These reward you for setting up combinations of patterns and/or colours around the particular scoring tile. You can score for the combination in just colour or just pattern, or go for the extra points of doing it with both pattern and colour.

Part of the way through the game, and I was feeling confident.

My finished quilt. It all went a bit wrong towards the end, when (naturally) I needed tiles of particular patterns and/or colours and they stopped appearing from the bag. That's my excuse anyway. I came last.

Maya won it, by managing to get maximum points of all of her bonus scoring tiles.

I think Maya got a score that was almost equal to mine and Catherine's combined. 

The game has a special 'Master Quilter' tile you get to hold as a trophy if you win. You are then obliged to have your photo taken.

Catherine and I then had a go at another of her gifts - a word-game called 'A Little Wordy', from the people who brought us 'Exploding Kittens'.

This is a fairly simple two-player game. Both players draw eleven letter tiles from a bag and secretly construct a word, of any length, from them, making a note of it. You then hand the tiles you drew to your opponent, and take it in turns to guess what word they might have constructed using them.

So here's my word (FONT) and my notes on what I know about Catherine's word - it ends in 'E', it's not GLEE or EXILE, it contains an 'L', it doesn't contain an 'H' and it's more than four letters in length. But how do I know all that?

I knew those things because on your turn you can either guess the opponents word, or activate one of eight clue cards that are dealt out at the start of the game, and which require the other person to give you certain pieces of information about their word. Each card you use gives the other person victory points, however (as does incorrectly guessing their word). And the winner is the person who not only guesses their opponent's word, but concedes the fewest points doing it.

It's a quick and simple game, and we enjoyed it. Catherine also played a few rounds with Maya whilst I cooked Christmas dinner.

Our neighbour joined us for dinner, and we played a couple of games afterwards. The first was Kitttins, which is a very quick and simple game involving the stacking of cat meeples into shapes determined by a drawn card, and was another of Catherine's gifts. It's very much a dexterity game.

Here's a winning stack. You play a round until someone completes the pattern shown on the card. The first person to win three rounds wins the game.

That entertained us for a while, but we decided to get out something more cerebral, and opted for 'Rear Window'. Since our neighbour hadn't played before we left out the murder, so it was a simply a matter of me (the Director) leading the players to the correct solution with no subterfuge involved. They still failed to guess the correct occupant/attribute selections, though, although to be fair my inability to convey that the lady in Apartment D was an Athlete contributed to this.

So that was Christmas Day done with - our neighbour went home, we did two video calls to family in the UK and our son and his wife who are currently in Indonesia, and then went to bed.

Maya had asked to play the buddy-cop RPG Partners at some point over the holidays. This is designed for two players with no GM, but we decided to do it with three - Maya and Catherine would actually play and I would manage the mechanical side of things, tracking who led each scene, making notes and drawing cards and random words.

They created a detective series set in a shopping mall called the Sunnyview Retail Village, and called 'Village People' (the theme song was Village People's 'Hot Cop', naturally). Neither of their characters were actually official detectives - Catherine's straight shooter was a retail worker in a department store, whilst Maya's wild-card ran a cat-grooming service (yes, MORE cats) and operated MLMs on the side.

The mystery was the death of the mall's head of security, who was found drowned in the ornamental fountain in the main atrium. Naturally the police were investigating in the background, but we ignored that - our two intrepid amateur sleuths were also on the case and quickly uncovered a sordid network of affairs. However despite them looking to be the key to the murder, it actually turned out to be the victim's hairdresser who had killed them (albeit accidentally) with the motive being something to do with the upcoming prestigious 'Clippies' awards, and some illicit back-street hair-dressing operation that the security guard was threatening to expose.

And so onto the final game of the holiday - Scattles. Some friends of ours had recently been to Europe on a camping trip and had mentioned a game that involved throwing a baton at a group of skittles. Catherine tracked down a set (in the local Target, so not much detective work required) and bought it for me.

It's fun - we played for a good chunk of Boxing-Day evening (until the mosquitoes woke up)

The rules are simple. You throw a wooden baton at skittles set up about six feet away. They are numbered 1-12. If you knock down one skittle then you score its value. If you knock down multiple skittles then they are worth one point each. Knocked down skittles are stood up again, at the point where they ended up, so over time the targets get spread out. You win when you reach exactly 50 points. If you exceed 50 points then your score is reduced to 25 points and the game continues.

Sometimes our game was interrupted because of the appearance of (you've guessed it) a cat.

You can see how the skittles are getting spread out here.

Anyway, I think we all won at least one game.

Phew! So that was it for Christmas Day and Boxing Day for us. I added five new games to my 52 Games total for this year.

How did your days go?

52 Games - Game 71-75

Christmas Meetup

In lieu of our normal club meeting last night we had a pre-Christmas meetup at a local club for a meal and some drinks. 

Following on from last year we had a military history quiz which I somehow found myself volunteering to set and run. So twenty questions on a random assortment of (military) subjects it was. Surprisingly a couple stumped everyone at the table. I also put together a trophy from some spare 3D print bits - the prestigious Golden KV2

It was a fierce contest, but Ralph eventually got far enough ahead that no-one else could catch him, and claimed the prizes - in addition to the trophy, Drew from Slave2Gaming donated some dice. Ralph gets to keep the trophy for one year, but will have to defend his title next year (or maybe we should have him set the next quiz).

Towards the end of the evening, when the venue had quietened down a little, we played a few rounds of One Night Werewolf.

Most people involved hadn't played a hidden role game like this before, but Caesar kept it all moving and, aside from a few hiccups, it all went fairly smoothly. Honours were about even between villagers and werewolves, which was good.

So that's it for Wollongong Wargamers for this year. In theory our venue is free next Thursday, but I'm not sure anyone is going to avail themselves of it. But first week of the New Year? Maybe.

52 Games - Game 70

Elk Fest

Two elk (Jule and Ole) stare at each other across a river. Longing for the greener grass where the other elk is, they set out to beat each other to the opposite bank! In Elk Fest, move your elk to the other bank by flicking wooden disks across the table and balancing your elk on them. Can your elk get to the greener grass across the river? Good grazing is just a stone's flick away!

Catherine and I needed something quick and silly to play last night after tea, so we pulled ot this classic, fast dexterity game. It has lovely chunky wooden pieces.

The game is as described above. Each turn you can flick two disks and, at any time, move your elk from one connected pair of disks to another trying to cross the river and stop your opponent from doing the same.

It is traditional to both make moose noises when you pass in the middle.

You also get to make a triumphant moose noise when you win.

Balance can sometimes be precarious. You are penalised if you knock either of the elk off their stones, however - your turn ends and the other player gets an extra shot on their turn.

Anyway, we played three games, and I won 2-1. 

52 Games - Game 69

What A Christmas Tanker

 For this week's club meeting, we did a multi-player game of What A Tanker in 15mm. This had big 'Girls Und Panzer' vibes, in that we cheerfully mixed tanks of different nationalities and periods. Each player was allowed three tanks - one from Level 1 or 2, one from Level 3 or 4 and one from Level 5 and 6. You didn't have to stick to the same nationality in your selection, although some people chose to. You started with your lowers Level tank on the table, at one of the short edges. The aim was to drive off the other end - a distance of 12'. If your tank got destroyed, then you respawned with your next highest level vehicle. Seems simple? It was. Except that to win, each player had to also destroy at least one enemy tank, and also visit the pie-shop in the village in the centre of the table. This meant that you couldn't just do a straight run down the middle without fighting.

Anyway, this was the table - desert terrain close to the camera, a mixed woodland/urban terrain in the middle and some frozen wastes at the far end. We had eight players in total, with Ralph (the scenario designer) keeping things running. A few players hadn't played before.

Everyone selected their three tanks, determined which end they would start from and then Ralph gave us all the briefing.

This was my selection: My lowest level tank was a Panzer II (because I wanted to try the Rapid Fire autocannon), my next level an M5 (using my Haunted Tank element from my HOTT Weird WWII American army) and finally a T34/85 as my top-level tank. The latter was purely because I happened to have a model in my collection of random bits.

My Panzer II got off to a cracking start on the desert board; I rolled a load of Drive or Wild dice, and being fast could convert another dice to a Drive dice too. So I got five movement actions on my first turn, and whizzed down the table. Given the movement-based nature of the mission, fast tanks were popular (all three of my selections rated Fast).

At the other end of the table things started more violently, as the players rolled fewer movement and more shooting actions. Theo started things off with a bang, rotating his Crusader on the baseline to fire a killing shot at a nearby Panzer III.

From that point we got heavily into the game and I stopped taking photos for a while. My Panzer II carried on its fast drive, but was pursued by Caesar's Fiat (not sure what model - it was a small Italian tank, OK?). Needless to say I got shot at, and damaged; damage to my drive gear, specifically, slowing me down. That was pretty much the only shooting at our end of the table - Stuart and Nathan (running a Crusader and a Panzer III respectively) advanced more slowly from the start and stayed hidden from each other, so didn't line up any shots.

My plan was the quickest possible visit to the pie-shop, then a run for the finish, hoping to kill a tank from the frozen end of the table on the way through, maybe via a rear-shot after I'd whizzed past.

So here I am - I've been to the pie-shop and am heading out of the village. At the top right you can see Theo's Crusader coming down the road from the other end of the table.

Things caught up with me. This was the position later in the turn with Stuart and Theo's Crusaders heading for the shop, and Caesar's Fiat still chasing me. It looks more dangerous than you might think; there was a no fire zone within a certain distance of the pie-shop, which meant that none of us could actually shoot at each other. This was to have a major effect on  how the game played out, as you will see.

The frozen end of the table, showing a Hetzer and something Italian. The Hetzer killed the Italian tank, which respawned as a Panzer IV behind the Hetzer - you could respawn within 18" of your previous tank's position, so long as you weren't any further forward.

Caesar rolled a load of Drive dice and got ahead of me whilst we were still in the ceasefire zone. He was engaged by Colin's Crusader, and badly damaged.

More to the point, his gun wasn't pointed at the Crusader; it was still trained on my Panzer II. I came out of the ceasefire zone and also started shooting at him, inflicting some minor damage as well. Caesar shot back, but my Small trait, mixed with some outrageous luck, meant that he kept missing. Caesar was shaping up to be my kill ...

At that point it became academic. Theo had made his kill on the first turn, and had visited the pie-shop as well. Then he simply drove off the table through a desert zone devoid of opposing tanks. The only other tanks he encountered were in the ceasefire zone - so no-one could shoot at him.

So Theo got a good, solid win, with a kill, an escape off the other end and doing it with his lowest level tank. My view was that the ceasefire zone was probably too large (or could have been removed) and led to a situation where, at the point where people had the best chance to start shooting and getting kills, they couldn't do it. I suppose that each group of players could have fought at their own end of the table before coming into the central zone, but that would have led to two four-player games, and less fun.

That aside it was a great scenario, and I hope we get to do it again sometimes. All credit to Ralph for putting it together, to Colin for loaning me a Panzer II and to the other players (including Nathan, who visited the club whilst passing through Wollongong on holiday) for keeping it all entertaining.

52 Games - Game 68

Atteint!

Inspired by a picture of some jousting knights on a box of colouring crayons, and the memory of a blog post from the other day, I finally got around to getting my Atteint! jousting rules out today for the first time in four years. Actually it's pretty much the first time I've had them out since the week in which I wrote them. 

The blog post about jousting I'd seen drew my attention to some figures for jousting knights on the Junior General site, so I downloaded them and out them together. And here they are:

As you can see, I hadn't got around to painting the bases, but I was keen to get playing, and decided to forego that nicety for now.

I picked four knights - Black, White, Red and Yellow - for a quick mini-tournament. Black and Yellow would joust, then Red and White, and the winner of each one would go through to a final, third, joust.

I'd got a couple of notes for some rules changes. Nothing much though, but I decided to try them. The first was that a strike takes place when the knights are diagonally adjacent (see picture below). This is simply aesthetic, although it does have a small effect on the game since they contact one space earlier. The next change builds on this; if the knight that initiates the strike ends in this position then resolve the strike as normal. But if their move would leave them immediately adjacent to the other knight (because they got to move two spaces) then when rolling against Force to test for a broken lance they get to reroll a fail. I need to word that better. Finally I only allowed a knight to hold one Favour from the Ladies Court at a time. 

The first bout was between the Black Knight and the Yellow Knight.

On the first pass, Black rolled well for Force and advanced quickly down the list, but Yellow got the initiative in the strike. Despite that, it was Black who threw off Yellow's aim, only to then miss with their own attack. Neither knight scored any points.

The second pass saw both knights miss each other again. The approaches were slower, but neither knight build up much in the way of Force or Aim. Yellow was a favourite with the Ladies' Court by this stage, and could count on a reroll in the next pass, but Black's actions had caught the notice of the Marshal of the Field, who would certainly award the joust to Black if the scores were tied at the end,

The third pass started with everything to play for - Yellow had the support of the ladies, whilst Black was currently considered the better knight. Black could afford to play for a tie, but Yellow had to score a point. Yellow managed to catch the Marshal's eye on the approach, negating Black's edge there. Black threw  off Yellow's aim on the strike, but despite that both knights hit each other. All was set for an epic tie-break, except that Black's lance broke, unbalancing Yellow, who was unhorsed (a triple '1' rolled by Black saw to that). This gave Black 3 points and an overall 3-0 win in the first joust of the day.

The second joust of the day was the White Knight against the Red Knight. In the first pass both knights concentrated on their Aim, hoping to get a quick point to start things off. As expected both scored hits but, against the odds, both also broke their lances, starting the joust off at 2-2.

The second pass was steady and saw both knights build up good scores in all three attributes. White threw off Red's aim in the strike, but Red opted to go for a reroll anyway. Both scored a hit, but this time only White's lance broke. So the pass was scored 2-1 and White now led 4-3 on aggregate.

The third and final pass saw both knights roll incredibly well for attributes. White played safe, opting for a high balance to throw off Red's attack. Red naturally opted for a good hard attack. On the strike White was able to blunt the force of Red's attack, making it less likely that he would shatter his lance. Both knights hit, and White's lance broke. The score was 2-1 to White again, and 6-4 on aggregate. So teh White Knight was the winner.

So the final joust of the day would see the White Knight face the Black Knight - a classic pairing.

The first pass saw White score a hit, and shatter his lance, whilst Black missed. This put White 2-0 up.

The second pass saw White play defensively, opting to risk a hit from Black but prevent his lance from breaking. And that's what happened; Black hit but his lance remained intact. Black won 1-0, leaving the aggregate score at 2-1 to White.

All White now had to do in order to win the joust was score at least as well as Black in the third pass. Black caught the Marshal's eye on the approach, though, which meant that if the final score was tied, Black would now win. White got the edge on Balance and threw off Black's aim, but despite that Black hit and White didn't, leaving the scores tied! To add insult to injury Black's lance shattered, giving Black a 2-0 win in the pass and a 3-2 win overall.

So the Black Knight was the champion for the day.

I need to go through these rules again, and tweak sequences and how the attributes work, so that there can be different strategies in how to apply them. To some extent, at present, there is a strong advantage in putting points into Aim, as this ensure a hit. This makes sense, obviously, but there needs to be an incentive to consider Force and Balance as well. Still, overall I'm pleased with how these rules work, given that they were basically written in a day or so.

52 Games - Game 67