Past and Future II

Here we are! A bit late but here's my 2011 retrospective / 2012 prospective. Basically what I've been playing in and what I will (hopefully) be playing soon. I'm one of those anal types who log every single time I play on Boardgamegeek.com and using those statistics I can reveal my top played games in 2011.

Board Games

In first place I'm happy to say we have Earth Reborn! I mentioned something about it making this list next year back in 2010 and indeed it did. It might sound strange that it got so many plays since it's fairly complex and not always easy to introduce to new players, but we played it pretty intensively for a few months. It's been a while now but I'm feeling a resurgence coming! It's definitely my board game pick of 2011 as I think it's awesome in pretty much every way.

Then we have Lord of the Rings: The Card Game that also saw a lot of play when I first got it. We haven't played it for a while now, but I'm getting excited about the new Khazad-Dûm expansion! So far I have also only got the first Adventure Pack and would like to complete the Mirkwood cycle before delving into the depths of Moria. What I really haven't started doing yet is deck building. Probably about time though...

Number three on the list is Gears of War the Board Game which me and my group of friends found to be a lot of fun! We still haven't managed to actually win a game yet, but I'm sure we'll get there. So far it goes splendidly well in the beginning and then we muck it up right at the end.


Below the top three we find Mansions of Madness, Race for the Galaxy, Claustrophobia and... well it goes on and on. Overall I think these top three games correlate well with what I consider the best new board games I played last year. Games I'm looking forward to playing during 2012 are Rex: Final Days of an Empire, High Frontier, X-Wing, Merchants and Marauders, Star Trek: Fleet Captains, Dark Darker Darkest and the reprint of Merchant of Venus (whoever publish it) to name a few. Besides discovering new games it would be fun to try more expansions like Shards of the Throne for Twilight Imperium and Banners of War for Runewars (which I think I might just buy at the end of the month.

Roleplaying Games

 

We finished The Gathering Storm campaign for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd ed. during the spring and after that I was certainly ready for something different. It's not the fault of the game, but rather the adventure - it's a bit too... conventional. My friend Anders told us that he would GM a session or two but in the end that didn't happen. So I started looking for something fresh and different and returned to Diaspora, discovered Mouse Guard and experienced the joys of Fiasco.

We've only played Mouse Guard twice so far but it's been great fun and I really want to play it more. I think Diaspora might be next up though as my friend Jimmy fell in love with it when I first showed it to him, so he's very eager to get going and between the two of us I think we can rustle up a couple more players. Our Farrely brothers-esque session of Fiasco was a blast! From now on I'll simply always bring it and a bag of dice with me to all our gaming nights and pull it out when we want something different.

For 2012 I'm looking forward to more of the same as well as trying new stuff. I've been reading Pelgrane Press' Ashen Stars and Trail of Cthulhu as well as the Dragon Age rpg and Apocalypse World. Not to mention The One Ring which is right behind Diaspora on my want-to-play-list. It will be interesting to see what FFG does with the Star Wars license - I would definitely be in the market for a non-D20 version of Star Wars. For quicker pick-up games it'd be fun to try 3:16 - Carnage Amongst the Stars and Lady Blackbird. Hmm... it'll be a busy rpg year!

Miniature Games

Well... I think you already know. Yes, Infinity which actually was the second most played game overall! That certainly surprised me since we play a lot more board games than miniature games these days. But again it proved popular with the group of friends who I introduced it to. Sure they still haven't actually painted anything, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'm really happy that we took the plunge with Infinity, especially since we all seem to enjoy it and it feels like something that's here to stay. Would like some proper  terrain though, and with the new Project Infinity releases from Sarissa I think an Ariadnan frontiers town might be in the cards. Really love the look of their designs!

I also squeezed in a couple of games of Firestorm: Armada. It's decent enough but it doesn't quite click with me. I'm not sure why but think the rules might work better in a traditional naval setting like Uncharted Seas or Dystopian Wars. I'm in the process of writing a review of the game that should be up soon where I expand on my thoughts.

15mm sci-fi deserves a mention as well. I've only played a single game of Gruntz so far but I've been painting a fair bit at least. My EarthSec army is currently the largest with a small group of Reds and some other random elements as well. We should see some additions during January thanks the Gruntz painting competition. I'll prooobably end up painting another EarthSec squad and their ride. Oh, and there's still time to get in on it! Robin will hand out the 1.1 version of the rulebook to the winner and I heard something about Critical Mass Games also contributing with the beautiful new Imperator Mecha. Good stuff!

During the coming year I'm looking forward to a lot more Infinity! That's my number one priority at the moment. But I would also like to finally get my Heavy Gear Blitz army all finished as well as continue on my AE: Necromunda project. I mentioned Dystopian Wars in my last Past and Future post but I managed to hold it off for a whole year. With the release of the French faction though, I think my defences have finally crumbled. There are a few other games I've been looking at but I try not to get (more) distracted. Tomorrow's War is high on the list, but especially I would like to try some more realistic spaceship battle game, with fewer ships but more details. Currently looking at games/minis like Cold Navy, Zandris IV and Squadron Strike. Although the upcoming space supplement to 5150: Star Army (aka 5150: Fringe Space) is looking interesting as well, check out The Ceres Crossroads for more info on the project.

EDIT: I just remembered something miniature game related that I really want to get into during 2012 and that is airbrushing! It's something I've been wanting to do ever since I saw it first used on miniatures in my early teens, but even more so during these last few years when it's become more and more popular. And just looking at the results I feel like I'm missing out. Jarret over at Minijukie.com recently made an excellent Airbrush Equipment Video that has also really inspired me. Check it out!


And, there you go! It's actually fairly similar to the post I did at the end of 2010. I'd say the biggest new things are Infinity and 15mm sci-fi... and perhaps the addition of the new wave of Indie RPGs. Hmm, that's pretty much half the list so I guess there are some changes afterall! Haha!