[Consim-l] 2006 in review - Wargaming in Adelaide, Australia

[Chris Harding]

Hi Team,

Hope you all had a good 2006 and looking forward to a better 2007 :) Well
it's that time of year again when we review the year that was. I was
certainly pretty happy with my 2006 both personally and gaming wise :) But
of course it's the gaming that counts :) I had four regular FTF opponents
and 5 other friends who I gamed with occasionally during the year. I was
also able to have 3 games with my 11 year old son.

FTF I played:

ASL 42 games 4 opponents

Air Cav (WEG), 5 games 1 opponent

Napoleon's Later Campaigns (Markus Stumpner's Rules for NLB), 4 games 1
opponent

Up Front (AH), 4 games 1 opponent

Singapore (S&T), 3 games 2 opponents

Wellington's Victory (TSR), 2 games 1 opponent

Blood and Iron (Command),  2 games 1 opponent

Red Parachutes (Avl Press), 2 games 1 opponent

Fighting Wings (CoA), 2 games 1 opponent

Hannibal (AH), 2 games 1 opponent

Great War in the East (SPI), 1 game

Bitter Woods (MMP) 1 game

1815 (GDW),1 game

Lest Darkness Falls (S&T), 1 game

The Sedan Campaign: 1870 (S&T), 1 game (but I also played my 11 year old son
twice)

Borodino '41 (CoA), 1 game

Drive on Frankfurt (CounterAttack), 1 game

Games I played FTF but not to a conclusion

Patton's Third Army (S&T), once

Red Steel (Avl Press), once

Avalanche (Avl Press), once

War at Sea (Jedko), once with my son

Dagger Thrust (S&T), twice with a friend who was doing a review of the game.

I did only a little bit of solitaire this year, mainly because my 'free'
time was taken up with firstly releasing my own DTP game and then doing work
on my next game (s). That took up a lot of time and hence my overall FTF
gaming was down this year. The only 'new release' I played was "Lest
Darkness Falls" and I only played that as I was a playtester for it and I
wanted to see how the final version compared to what we had been
playtesting.

I purchased 31 games and 3 modules, whereas a number of the games I
purchased were from wargaming shops the only 'new release' I purchased was
"Armies of Oblivion", I haven't actually bought my own copy of "Lest
Darkness Falls" but as soon as it's on special I will :)

But I sold 44 games and 15 modules, so my wargame collection shrank for only
the third time in the last 30 years. I too did the maths like John Best, and
worked out I would be long gone before I ever had a chance to play them all,
and some of them no matter how long I lived I would never play them :)

I also have been playing via the Internet, using Cyberboard, (Prague, GDW),
Hank Burkhalter's play aid (TRC, AH) and good old PBeM (Lutzen, DG; Mersa
Matruh, CHS).

I have also done a bit of "Battle Tech" by FASA, with both my oldest
daughter and oldest son, and that has been a lot of fun, and I played "Basic
Training" by Jedko, with my two youngest kids and very nearly lost as the
Japanese to my 7 year old!

I would like to acknowledge my great gaming buddies, NJ, Markus, John and
Pete, gaming with them is what really enhances my wargaming enjoyment, and
at the end of the day its what keeps me gaming, great guys to game against
:)

So I would like to wish all of you a great 2007 in everything you do, but I
sure hope the dice are good to you :)

Regards

Chris