2020 Wargaming review

Started by paulr, 30 December 2020, 06:33:26 PM

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Duke Speedy of Leighton

 2020

Yeah - right, well... what to say that has not already been said about this year?

Erm... well... Fishface!

No one will have said that about 2020.

I had set myself some 2020 goals and they looked like this...

X-Wing on Thursday, only ever played 4 games before, and I am so looking forwards to getting these out again. Only one game played.
That might be my only Thursday for a long while... Oh the irony of that!
MeG Weekends on the way:
Burton: Ancients, Yep, did that. Derventio: Ancients, Didn't play, umpired and went and played Mortal Gods with Pete.
Warfare: Eastern Themed, Skull Rollers: Open Competition, Campaign: Team event with three periods (Viking Age, Medieval France and Africa), Warfare: Bronze Ages All cancelled, ho hum!
Other stuff, no idea, but isn't that the best way to be? Oh wow, this is where things actually got good!

Games I actually played:
Carcassonne w5 2nd 3 3rd 2
King of Tokyo w4 l4 last 1
Xwing 2 out of 3
MeG l9 w16 d2 1 abandoned
Invasion Earth1w 1l
A Very British Civil War 1mutal loss 1loss
Mortal Gods w1 l1
Chess w4
Star Wars Destiny 2l
Quirkle w4 1 2nd
Warband 1l 1 abandoned
Classical Indian Civil War 1l
English Civil War 1l
WW2 tanks 16w 8l 3 d
Spanish Civil War 1w
Quiz 2nd
Black Powder 1l
Naval Thunder WW2 1w 7l 2d
Cowboys 1w 1l
Crossfire 1w 2l
Apaches 1l
Poseidon's Warriors 1l
1 hour wargames Beruit 2w
Warhammer Fantasy 1l
Lord Of t'Rings 1w
40k 2 draws
Principles Of War (Sudan & Crimea) 2w
Naval Thunder WW1 3 win
American War of Independence 1l 1w
Uno 2l (both tonight, daughter's Xmas pressie)

Most of these are online games, it was fun, it was quite different, some worked better than other, others came out of left-field and were brilliant. MeG, one of my favourites, took a hit early, as I did not enjoy it as much on-line as in real life, so it's numbers dipped, there was a brief resurgence before Lockdown 2, Naval Thunder WW2 was my surprise big hit, I have played live on-games with Si in South African and Drew in Australia, who would have thought it! It has been an especially big hit with Simon Elliott, who is now running WW1 games for a great deal of other players. A 40k campaign began, and I know know a lot more anout Tyranids now.
There were a lot more games that I ran for others but I didn't count these as a win or loss, but enjoyed all the same, including two of Last Days, a Kobold adventure, an assault on Dybbol in Black Powder, two games of Cruel Seas, plus the start of the Transnistrian War!
I could never have predicted 10% of the new games I hae ended up playing. The 1 hour wargames and AVBCW were from Leighton Buzzard Club via Mort, these were great fun, and I really like those rules. A lot of the fun was with the Shrewsbury chaps who kindly invited me into their on-line games, the games were a mix of old favourites such as Crossfire and Principles, and the others were a mix of homebrew and new too. Steve from Milton Keynes Club has been running an online ww2 tank company campaign, we have made it to 1944 on the Eastern Front as Germans, man it is hard work to survive! I love them. He comes up with brilliant scenarios, and runs them via WhatsApp, and you never know what is coming next.
I am not predicting what I will play in next year, it's not worth it, as I will be wrong!

Painting: Lack of real games led to the pint box being open permanantly. I smashed all previous records by painting 4709 figures this year, of which 2382 were my own.

The beginning of the year began happily enough, converting and painting Hausa, with skills taught by Techno, picking up on random projects, like my Peaky Blinders (in 28mm, eer thought I would ever do that) and steadily working on other people's commissions, it was great. Then lockdown hit, and for March/April and the majority of May, while schools argued whether they should be paying me, I could not afford materials for others basing etc, so I started to clear some figures that had been sitting around (some since the 80s or 90s) and repainting other older projects or working on ideas of my own (such as 1809 Austrains). Then the pay came through (phew) along with a stready influx of other people's commissions, like Si's Romans and Dacians. I started an Italian WW2 fleet as Naval Thunder took off, and was quite happily doing three or four ships a fortnight between other projects. These all took a (well deserved) hit in June/July/August/Spetember/October when Adrian and Roger basically moved in for a day a week and started rebuilding (in some parts, literally) large areas of my house. This means I now owe them a lifetime of painting armies (hence the Hafsids and soon the Goths), to be honest, I think I might be up on the deal here, and I also now know how to plasterboard and how to lay sewer pipes, all good life skills really. The 'to-do' list continues to remain steadily full. I really cannot complain! What will I do next? Who knows. I am keeping my options well and truely open.

It's more fun that way!

2021, let's see what happens next.

Happy New Year All!
You may refer to me as: Your Grace, Duke Speedy of Leighton.
2016 Pendraken Painting Competion Participation Prize  (Lucky Dip Catagory) Winner