2016 Retrospective

I started 2016 with a long list of gaming goals. In the event, the realities of life meant that most of the items on the list ended up either annotated "2017?", or simply crossed off as unlikely to ever happen. That makes this post a rather short review of my achievements for the year.

As we're out of town for the holidays, the photos in this post have to be repeats of ones from earlier in the year, rather than anything new.

The Flames of War competition at ValleyCon was the first event of the year, and as always it was an enjoyable two days. The location was excellent, the comp had a great format, and I played seven games with people I hadn't met before. The majority of the army hasn't seen the light of day since, but the infantry that I painted for it did form the basis for a mid-war event in December and my army for VC17 next month.

The Brandywine refight in March was another fun day spent with a bunch of great people. I had painted up two battalions of 28mm Perry Continentals for it, which was a nice change both in colour and scale from my usual painting, but to be honest I was glad when I finished them. Afterwards I acquired another painted battalion, and enough leftover sprues to make a fourth, so if any other AWI games come along in future I will be able to contribute a full brigade.

A highlight for the year was supposed to be Warmachine Mk III. I preordered the rules and spent quite a bit of time touching up my collection in preparation for it, but I have still not played a game of it. Part of the reason for this is a feeling, of course without being backed up by the experience of trying it and seeing first hand, that my unit-heavy collection needs a major revamp to make workable lists under the new edition, and the infantry that I had so lovingly repainted no longer have a meaningful role. It's still there in the background and there are a few other kits I wouldn't mind getting simply because they're amazing models, but to be honest I can't see myself playing it in competitions again, and at this stage there is no WM on my 2017 list.

One goal of 2016 was to pick up another system, and to that end I bought a second hand army of Italian Wars Florentines for Impetus, played a couple of games with them and quite enjoyed it. I had planned to add some light cavalry, start repainting the figures, and then play in V3 in May, but all of that was pushed back into next year at the earliest.

One thing that I have actually started, however, is picking up Team Yankee, and in 15mm rather than 6mm as I had originally intended. I don't plan on going overboard with it (I'm still not totally convinced about the scale) but the Battlefront kits are beautiful, and the idea is to build a couple of 60pt armies, starting with the Soviet starter box that I have bought to paint over summer.

The major news regarding 2017 is the upcoming release of the 4th Edition of FOW. I have mixed emotions about this. Version 3 is a good game, and it sounds like Version 4 makes major changes to it that are in line with the "TY is a closet open beta for V4" school of thought. Some of these changes sound refreshing, but others have left me wondering. Very little is certain at this early stage, but I do fear that 4th Edition will do to FOW, a game that has been a passion of mine for the last 15 years, what Mk3 did to my interest in Warmachine.

So, to summarise, what are my aims for 2017? In approximate order of priority:

1. Finish my ValleyCon army. I still have the portees, carriers, transport and objectives to paint. It seems like a lot when listed like that, but it's not difficult painting so should be achievable with four weeks to go. I also have to paint a platoon of Panzer IIs for the list my son will be taking. I had hoped to put together a new table of terrain for it, but that doesn't look likely to happen.
2. Flames of War 4th Edition. I have a decent quantity of 8th Army and Afrika Korps for a 1942 setting, and hopefully there'll be a fair amount of interest in giving it a go. I want to rebase the British teams I have to match my early war infantry, with the goal being to be able to play any Mediterranean setting from 1940 to 1944 just by using different vehicles and gun teams.
3. Team Yankee  - extension to 60 points of Soviets through the addition of Shilkas and an infantry company in BMPs, and getting a game or two, as there are a couple of people locally looking at trying it in 15mm as well.
4. Finishing off a number of other odds and ends for Flames of War - a squadron of Comets, various Shermans, M10s and Matildas, and the last few units for my LW Gebirgsjager. There might end up being a new army in there, depending on what competitions I am able to make it to during the year, but nothing planned at this stage.
5. Getting around to adding that Italian light cavalry for Impetus.

Hopefully I'll have more success keeping to these (slightly more limited) goals than I did in the year just gone. So, happy new year, and thanks for reading this blog. All the best to you for the year ahead.