2009 - My Wargaming Year in Review

I've been enjoying the year in review articles from several of the other wargame bloggers that I follow and I thought it might be nice on this new years day to look over what I've done in the hobby over the past year. For me 2009 was a great year for wargaming. Most of my friends know that I'm a man with many hobbies: Wargaming, Radio Controlled Airplanes and Gliders, Board and Computer gaming and traveling, especially in our RV in the summers. Of all of those hobbies I tip back and forth as to which is my 'primary' hobby between wargaming and model airplanes. This year Wargaming has definitely been #1.

It's obvious from reading some of the blogs out there that a lot of wargamers enjoy the collecting and painting of figures as much, or even more than playing and hosting the games themselves. Although I enjoy collecting and painting figures a lot, the primary allure of the hobby for me has always been the gaming. I enjoy the social aspects of wargaming even more than the competitive aspects of them and I'm starting to enjoy hosting games a lot, both at my home, and at our club's monthly game nights. This year was a very active one for me. I hosted the following games:

• 28mm Volley & Bayonet Battle of Yorktown (alternative history scenario) in my basement
• Three 15mm Napoleonic Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory 'tournament' games in my basement. One session we had two different games running on my split 12' wargame table. 
• WWI Blue Max air-to-air combat game that I ran at Historicon with my good friend Rich Oster
• 28mm AWI Carnage & Glory (computer moderated) Battle of Bemis heights game I ran at our club's game night
• 15mm Napoleonic Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory Dennewitz game in my basement in January
  
• 15mm Napoleonic Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory Dennewitz game at our club's game night in February
  
• 15mm Napoleonic Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory Dennewitz game at our club's game day in September. The Dennewitz game was the most photogenic of all my games and earned the 'photo of the year' honors at the top of this post.
  
• I started a 15mm Napoleonic 1813 campaign in October that will continue into 2010 and has already generated two battles
• 15mm Napoleonic Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory 'Battle of Muttenz' game for the campaign - hosted in my basement
• 15mm Napoleonic Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory 'Battle of Muttenz/Nyon' game for the campaign - hosted in my basement 

In addition to all of these games, I played in a lot of GREAT games with my club, both at our game nights, and at friends' homes. These included several Field of Glory ancients games, WWII ship combat using Axis and Allies War at Sea (slightly modified), Crossfire WWII and DBA ancients in our club's 'First Man of Rome' mini tournament. In  the tournament I was the best Roman player and declared the first man of Rome. This mini tournament is a lot of fun. Although I won for the Romans, the enemies of Rome collectively did much better than the Romans did this year. I think all four enemy players had better win/loss records than I had!

In addition to having a lot of fun hosting and playing in games, 2009 was a very productive year for me as far as my figure collection is concerned. This year I purchased a large amount of 15mm Napoleonic Prussian figures from GAJO and Dragon Painting Service which comprised the majority of a new Prussian army that I built almost completely in 2009. I also purchased the entire infantry and artillery of the Old, Middle and Young guard for my French army. Volley & Bayonet in 2/3 scale, which we use, is quite economical as far a figures are concerned. A typical infantry brigade only requires eight (8) figures, so purchasing units is something I can afford to do as long as I also paint figures for my armies as well, which I did this year. Here's what I painted myself in 2009:

• 44 Foot, 19 Mounted, 4 Guns - 15mm Napoleonics - Including a complete corps of Saxons for my Dennewitz game, Prussian Landwehr and Dragoons
  
• 25 Foot, 6 Mounted, 2 guns - 28mm AWI - Including two batteries of American Artillery, Six American and French Officers, two battalions of American Rifle skirmishers and the British 33rd Regiment of Foot
  
• 84 Foot - 15mm Ancients - Roman Velites, Roman Triarii, Italian Extraordinarii, Italian Light Foot
• 6mm Terrain - I modeled and painted 8 sets of town walls and painted a dozen houses and a couple bridges for my Dennewitz game to start my 6mm terrain collection
  
• 15mm Terrain - 43 15mm Trees for Muttenz/Nyon game, made a dedicated terrain mat for Dennewitz that also doubles as a Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory generated battle ground cloth
• 25/28mm Terrain - Built a large hill and two redoubts for my Bemis Heights game.  

Finally, the one wargaming thing that I'm most happy about in 2009, I was voted our club's 2009 Sportsman of the Year. I believe this was mostly due to the large number of games I hosted at the club during a year in which scheduling games was unusually challenging but also I'm happy to be recognized by my friends as a good sport. This is something I'm sure I haven't always been very good at but as I've aged, I've tried to work on this aspect of my wargaming. I only hope that I can continue to be worthy of the honor in the future. Our club is a great group of friends that I'm very lucky to have.

Here's to an even better 2010 for everyone!
AJ