[Consim-l] #400 for me

[John Best]

Dear consimmers,
    (First of all, my apologies if you see this twice.  I sent it yesterday, 
12/124, but didn't see it 12 hours later, and when that happens it's usually 
a sign it's not going to appear at all.)  We're still a few days away from 
posting what we played and bought in 2006, but I thought I would mention 
this milestone now as we celebrate this period of conspicuous consumption 
and wretched excess in the US, because there are those who would say I'm 
guilty.  In November 2006, I bought a copy of Against the Odds magazine at 
Prosek's Military Model and Garden Shop in Winfield, Illinois, US.  The 
magazine contained the game "The Big Push", which is about the British 
offensive on the Somme beginning in July 1916.  I bought it despite the 
concerns raised by the reviewer David Nicholas in Paper Wars #63.  After 
trying to play the game, I agreed with the reviewer's concerns, but that's 
not what I'm writing about here.  When I entered the data from the game into 
my Excel spreadsheet, I discovered that it was the 400th wargame I've 
acquired over the last 32 years or so.  Which means I've been acquiring them 
at a rate of about one per month for most of my adult life.
    I can't really say that it was a "goal" exactly to have 400 games, 
although I've been aware that I've been getting close for the last couple of 
years.  But if it wasn't a goal to have that many, then how come I kept 
buying them?  There are a couple of other questions raised too.  Such as, 
"how many wargames does one person need or want?"  Or, "What are you going 
to do with all of them, now that you have them?"  Let me say that, in 
response to the first question, I really have slowed down in my purchases a 
lot over the last several years.  I'm really pretty selective in my 
purchases now, and generally, the new games don't tempt me too much.  That's 
also partially my answer to the second question too:  I'll probably keep 
buying games once in a while, and there are a couple of games that I'm on 
the hunt for.  But generally, at this point, I feel like I have all the 
games I need or want.  Now the last question:  What are you going to do with 
them all?  I just divided the 401 games I now have (I also purchased the SCS 
game Guadalajara) by 12 and came up with a figure of over 33 years, if I 
wanted to play them all one time at a rate of one per month.  Given my 
current age (56) that would take me out to 89 years old.  So I doubt I'm 
going to play them all.  But I have fun using them in other ways too.  For 
example, it was fun, and it suited my needs, the other day to be able to 
look at and compare something like five or six different divisional-level or 
lower countermixes for the Waterloo campaign (Napoleon's Last Battles, 1815, 
Last Days of the Grand Armee, Armies of Waterloo, Armee du Nord, etc.).  It 
was fun just to look at them and see how they were similar and how they were 
different.  So what will I do with the games?  I plan on using them in a 
number of different ways, in part just to study them as objects themselves. 
And for sure I'll continue playing some of them.  Ok, let's end with a 
trivia question:  How many counters do I have in the 401 games that I own? 
Answer: 120091, averaging just 300 counters per game.  Thanks for reading, 
and here's hoping you have a merry celebration of the season with your 
families.
John Best
jlbest at advancenet.net
Currently playing: Armee du Nord
Currently reading: Soissons, 1918