SGMT

It's IGA time again

Already??

A long while back I got invited to work the historical wargaming selections committee for "The Gamer's Choice Awards" which morphed into "The International Gaming Awards". We actually take this duty fairly seriously. Well, it's decision time again, and we had to submit our top ten list of the games that were published in 2005. This will be winnowed down to a top 3.

My preliminaries (note that this is not in any order):

Conquest of the Empire (Eagle)

It's a reprint, yes. However, the addition of the Martin Wallace rules makes a simple plastic piece pusher into a very interesting strategic game with loads of eye candy.

Wellington (GMT)

Hands down my favorite wargame of 2005 (personally). Mark McGlaughlin's succesor to the Nappy Wars system surpasses the parent in a CDG system game that is just a pleasure to play.

Empire of the Sun (GMT)

Mark Herman (my old Booz Allen colleague!) is a wargame designer of note, who is constantly breaking new ground. Empire of the Sun is deserving of praise..

Men of Iron (GMT)

I usually like Berg's designs, and I really enjoyed playing this particular one. A bunch of smallish battles with a funky initiative system..

Bonaparte at Marengo (Simmons)

This game is in contention for top spot in my mind. On the face of it, it seems very simple block pushing game with the regular fog of war. The addition of the unique terrain rules really makes it a contest.

Down in Flames WWI (Verssen)

I am a big fan of the Down in Flames WW2 series from GMT and was very disappointed it never got published as a commercial product. However, Dan Verssen's new DTP company is cranking out professional looking products that require a little assembly.

Fire in the Sky (MMP)

MMP's translation of Tetsuya Nakamura's Pacific War game received a lot of raves in 2005, and with some justification.

Battleships at War (Minden)

Seems like this is pretty old for 2005, because I remember buying it a while ago. In any event, I'm a big fan of both Minden and their miniatures style ship system. Battleships at War basically is minis with paper, combining just about everything that's been published in the series so far.

Silent War (Compass)

Even though the game is hideously high priced (in my own opinion) I can't deny that Compass Games has finally put out a game that I have been jonesing for since the late 90s.

Gazala 1945 (avalanche)

This is my personal favorite of the "modern micros" that Avalanche has been publishing lately, most of all because it's not about the Eastern Front, but also because I love the graphics work done on this design. The map is wonderful.

2005 was a great year for wargame designs, which made my choices a lot harder than in years past.

I peruse blogs quite a bit and interact with a buttload of boardgaming blogs. This seems to be the time of year for people to wistfully proclaim what they played and didn't play in the previous year. Well, I can't do that. At least, I can't present a detailed gaming diary like some of my compadres can, come 01 January. What I can do is talk about trends in gaming, as it applies to me.

Looking back upon the previous year I can see that my boardgaming hobby is starting to overtake the miniatures hobby somewhat. I still love to collect minis, paint minis and run games, but it's so much work any more, I just don't have the time I used to have to do it. So I played in more miniatures games than I ran and I ran less than I did last year.
A disturbing trend.

Boardgames got more play this year, and card games before boardgames. Why? Well, that's simple. I play mostly with kids these days, and they have the attention span of chipmunks. So games that can be resolved in an hour or less are preferred. Big hits in 2005: Wings of War (particularly with Garrett), Balloon Cup (several plays), Battleground: Fantasy Warfare (three plays so far), Cheapass' Give Me the Brain and Very Clever Pipe Game, Castles (I didn't care for it, the kids did), Before I kill You Mr. Bond (it sucks, but the kids like it), Fluxx, Nanofictionary, Once Upon a Time, Cthulhu 500, Gloom.

I played a surprinsing amount of board wargames last year, but didn't keep a diary or anything. Standouts in my memory are FRIEDRICH (multiple plays), WELLINGTON (multiple plays), BONAPARTE AT MARENGO, REVOLUTION: THE DUTCH REVOLT, LILY BANNERS (multiple plays... for a magazine article), 3DOG version 3, GRINGO, DOWN IN FLAMES, FLYING COLORS, WARP WAR, OGRE/GEV, ICE WAR, and quite a few others that I haven't recalled. I seem to recall a spate of pulling out SPI games very early in the year, and playing some S&T games, but I can't remember which.

I played an even larger portion of either Euro, Family, or borderline strategy or fantasy/sf games last year: ACQUIRE (many times), ARKHAM HORROR, WAR OF THE RING, CONQUEST OF THE EMPIRE, BOOTLEGGERS, KING OF NEW YORK (yes, I have a weakness for plastic pieces), but also SETTLERS (for the first time) METRO, ARENA MAXIMUS (sucks), CIRCUS MAXIMUS, PLUNDER, and quite a few others that aren't on the forefront of my brain.

PBeM is down, via utilities like Cyberboard and ADC2. PBeM via Web or just via Email has gone up to a great extent, due to the convenience factor.

I've done a lot of solitaire gaming, but very rarely with solitaire designs. Most of this was to try out a scenario at least once for a review I was writing. Sometimes it was something small, like a magazine game (Catherine the Great -- the jury's still out) or playing myself in a microgame (I still like these). I don't have a dearth of opponents, but I do have a dearth of time to get out except for maybe, possibly once a week if I am very lucky. One final thing about 2005-- once again I was not a flavor the week kind of gamer. I played a lot of older products last year.

So those were the prevailing trends of my 2005 gaming.. for what it's worth.