Annual Review and Preview (Belated)

As the calendar turns to 2019, I will jump on the review/preview bandwagon and take a quick look back at 2018 and forward to 2019.

Before I start that, I again want to thank all of you that regularly (or not so regularly) read my blog. I’m not always good about posting, but I really appreciate your views and comments about what I'm doing. So, thanks for reading. 

Reviewing 2018 

I had limited goals for 2018 and not a lot of new projects showed up during the year. The early part of the year was taken up with work on the two joint games with Kevin for Enfilade 2018. First up was the Illustrious project, which covered the air attack on HMS Illustrious on January 10, 1941 during Operation Excess convoy to Malta.

HMS Illustrious and HMS Nubian for the project

Overall, I had a good time with this project. It was fun to go through the research, find the appropriate ships and aircraft, and paint up the ships. I think the playtests and Enfilade game went well. This was definitely a successful project.

Illustrious under attack by SM.79s

Next was the Falklands - Attack on San Carlos game. This was an easy project that really only required me to clean up my Falklands models and come up with a challenging scenario. I worked through a lot of options for the game and I felt like the final scenario gave both sides enough choices to make the game interesting. As with the Illustrious game, I think the game played out nicely at Enfilade.

Argentinean A-4s attacking HMS Antelope

After Enfilade, Kevin and I settled into painting planes for a semi-successful Malta air war project. We both painted up a number of aircraft (although mine started shifted to the Western Desert) and played a few (but not enough) games.

CR.42s for Malta and Western Desert

During summer, I had the chance to play some Song of Drums and Tomahawks, What a Tanker, and some solo naval action for International Naval Wargaming Day.

Spanish-American War for International Naval Wargaming Day

After summer, there was the NHMGS game day at the Museum of Flight and DANG. Both of which went well.

Looking back on 2018, I didn’t get much done in the way of other projects. I’ve got number of figures and ships that are partially completed, so I’m a little disappointed I didn’t finish those. On the brighter side, I did more blog posts this year than I have since 2011. I also picked up a Cruel Seas starter set, which gives me a few ships to put together, but I’m not sure how far I will get into the new larger coastal forces scale.

Overall 2018 was a good year for gaming. 

Previewing 2019 

As with 2018, I’m still a little short-handed at work and expect work to suck up a lot of time. So, I’m not anticipating a lot of extra time for projects and will keep my expectations low.

Kevin and I are planning a couple air games for Enfilade using David Manley’s unpublished Air War 1940 rules (which reminds me that I need to send some more play notes to him). The first will be a revamped version of the attack on Tirpitz game from 2013 and the second will be an air battle over Malta, revising and improving some of our 2018 games. Because most of the ships and planes for these are already done, they should be fairly easy projects.

For other projects, I would like to get back to my modern submarine rules and let a few people look at/comment on the rules and ideas. I’m considering running a rule playtest game at Enfilade this year to get me motivated again.

I also want to focus on finishing up some half-finished projects (Western Desert air war, Lion Rampant Muslims, etc.), along with some coastal force stuff (yes, I’ll do some Cruel Seas stuff).

Other Odds and Ends – I want to get in more face-to-face gaming this year, so that might take priority over some of the half-finished projects. As usual, DANG will take up the last couple months of the year and since I let the gamers vote on the project, it is hard to know what it will be. I’m also sure there will be some other new, bright, and shiny game/object that will take my attention.

Overall, nothing to tough or strenuous is planned for 2019, which should make it easy to meet the goal.