Summing Up 2021

I guess I've played my last figure game of the year - of which more later - so I can assemble my total of games played by period and rules used over the last 12 months. This is the fifth year I've compiled such a list, and I can say I've been busy this year.

Well, that's quite a list! I aspire to a game a week, and I've smashed that out of the park, with a stunning 76 games - that's nearly three games every two weeks. Most of them have been by Zoom or equivalent, but there's a smattering of F2F in there as well. The number is more than double last year, but that was a year blighted by COVID and a failure to grasp the concept of on-line wargaming. The rise on previous years is probably down to things like not going on holiday and a run of midweek games by Zoom earlier in the year. Whether the upward trend will continue next year is moot.

Top of the pile for periods is the Spanish Civil War, which is no surprise due to the amount of work that went into writing the rules, which also topped the list for rules played. The number of periods at 16 is consistent with previous years (excluding 2020) and the same for different rule sets, which hovers around the high 20s more often than not. Ancients was the next most popular period which is normally up there. Then we have 18th century and the Russian Civil War, which are both periods I was/am developing rules in. As for rules used, I dominate the list (no surprise there) followed by home grown stuff from MNGr Richard.

The graph shows trends over the last 5 years. The yellow line is the percentage of games that I participated in that I organised, and that hangs around the 60% mark. I expect that if current arrangements continue then that will drop slightly as we are now sort of taking turns to run Tuesday's games. Prior to that the fact that I normally host in Shedquarters pushes up the numbers. The big dip is obviously the COVID hit, but the trends are clear if you ignore that.

The previous year, 2020, was a very busy one for rule publishing, with four sets being released. This year I only managed two, partly because the 18th Century rules had to be put on the back burner due to development issues. They should have been out in December. I got two done only because I accelerated the release of "Spartans and Successors" so I could take them to the Society of Ancients Conference, which took place despite it looking like it wouldn't. Alas I didn't publish any history stuff, and I can't see me doing so anytime soon either.

Rules sales are steady, with an increase this year on last year. I have seven sets on the market, all of which have hit their initial targets or close enough. Sales have been helped along by Richard Atkins of The Little Corporal who stocks most of them.  CP Models also stock the gladiator Dicing With Death rules and To Ur is Human in bundles with figures. That's in addition to Amazon and Wargames Vault. Overall the rules have funded my hobby comfortably, but that might be because I haven't been able to get out much and spend money at shows so much.

I did get out from time to time, however, and did two residential conferences, SOAC and WD's COW.  I made it to  Partizan with the Battlefields Society, which was great, and I also attended a virtual conference at the start of the year.

The wargaming year was severely blighted by the loss of two friends, Graham Fordham and Mike Ingram, men of a similar age to me. On top of that one of my regular wargaming friends and inspirations, Phil Steele, is still recovering from a severe stroke he suffered at the start of November. The two games of DBA in the chart above haven't been blogged. I played them yesterday in Phil's room in the rehab suite at Islebrook Hospital in Wellingborough. Say what you like about DBA, but it's certainly portable if you want it to be. My foldable DBA board has seen usage on visits to a couple of other wargaming friends in hospital too in previous years.

Visiting Phil isn't straight forwards. You have to book to visit, and turn up with a negative lateral flow test. You can also only stay for an hour. They finally noticed I was still there after a couple of hours, in which time we'd got in two games, both of which Phil won. I may have worn him out, but I reckon those two games probably did him a lot of good. I'll try and go back next week as well.

Next year holds the prospect of some change and a fair amount of uncertainty. Hopefully Mrs T and I will be able to resume our foreign travels at least in the second half of it. I have quite a few talks to various history societies booked in to do as well. With Mike's passing I shall probably pick up the reigns of the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society (as well as more speaking engagements), but that will need an EGM to confirm, and we'll need to shuffle round all the other jobs as well. The Society's future fills me with trepidation. We have a good profile and we perform an important role in local heritage protection. However, Mike was very much the public face and inspiration, with all the contacts and all the history stuffed in his head. I was very much the admin man - story of my life - keeping the records and ensuring that all the various plates kept spinning. Next year should be okay, as we'd done most of the planning before his passing. However our future shows presence relies very heavily on Phil's recovery, so that is very much in the pending box for now. There's other work to be done too, and it is hard some times to see it all as a series of opportunities rather than a whole heap of problems.

However, these things are sent to try us, and someone, somewhere, is having a lot worse time of it than me. So, blessings are counted, and onwards and upwards we go.

Have a wonderful 2022.