2013 New Year's Resolutions and Wishlist part 2

Before I go ahead with this second part of my goals and ambitions for 2013, the previous instalment playing goals require additional comment.

In 2012, I resigned from a position and workplace that was making me physically and mentally ill. After 4 months, I was able to find a better role in a much healthier environment. The codicil to all this was that for the first three months of the year I was trying to get the headspace working properly. I then had a nice smooth 3 months of good ASL; but as I started the new job, ASL took an understandable back burner while I delat with the stresses of the new role and the lingering aftereffects from my previous job.

It was only in the last few weeks that I've been able to face ASL and gaming again, but in that time I've also come to the realisation that to manage 30+ ASL games in that time andwioth oustide factors weighing in is a pretty good achievement by my standards. I doubt I'll ever break the 100 games per year unless I get a position that doesn't require 4/5hours commute/transit per day.

What looking at the numbers from 2012 does do is convince me that even with a conservative playing schedule, I can come damn close to 80+ games per ASLOK year and around 60 in a non ASLOK year. The trick will be in managing my FTF games so I actually get to play longer, more in depth scenarios.

2013 Purchase list

The coming year looks to be a fairly intensive one ASL release wise and the list below will be my core purchases:

• Festung Budapest (MMP) - I passed up buying FB as it was released just after I resigned and money was not available.
• Rising Sun "Code of Ho" (MMP)- the new core modules are just too good to pass up. Code of Ho looks to be another win for MMP in terms of the total package.
• WO2013 pack (MMP) - I really think MMP are on a winner with this release each year, as it starts the year off with a couple or three scenarios that generate discussion and much play along with the new board(s).
• Decision at Elst (MMP) - I don't like the fact it's an HASL for ASLSK, as I feel ASLSK has already gone as far as it should in terms of it's focus and development. Once someone has reached ASLSK 3 level, they shouldn't need trainer wheels beyond that. I'll be buying it, but i won't be playing it SK style.
• Poland in Flames (BFP) -Early War has always been the highlight of my SL/ASL involvement, ever since the release of Crescendo of Doom. Given the quality of previous releases, I doubt I will be disappointed with this one.
• Scenario Pack releases - Hopefully we see the return of Friendly Fire at ASLOK and the usual set of releases from Schwerpunkt, East Side Gamers et al. I may pick up a few CH items on the down-low and discount market, but they are a very low priority.
• Holy Grails & older releases - Just a few now to go, but the acquisition of King of the Hill pretty much convinced me that 2014 (a non ASLOK attendee year) will be the go to year for picking up the remaining Grails.
• Dice and accessories - A Pleva dicetower,  a complete set of Battledice and hopefully some RAACO, Hozan and Box-Box storage should round out 2013 nicely. 

I also intend to pick up a few things at ASLOk that might seem mundane: a couple of poster frames and a portable playing mat similar to the one I saw Mark Pitcavage using at ASLOK 2010 plus some US letter sized page protectors and hopefully a good portable mapcase for the boards.

Final Resolutions

1. Have fun.
2. Don't sweat the hard stuff.
3. Be realistic.
4. Finish the US vs World challenge with a .500 average or better after 6 or more games.
5. Play more FTF and get in some HASL scenarios.
6. Play a few non-ASL boardgames to break up the year.

2012 in Review Part 2: Scenarios

So today I reached the magic number of 30 scenarios played for the year.  Of those 30 games, I managed to scrape out 7 victories, which looks pretty harsh in the cold light of day. It has been a very good year when you take into account I did not play any ASL from January to March and from July to October.

The Breakdown

There was a bit of a theme to many of my games as I played through the scenarios from several products in series.

6 scenarios were from Friendly Fire

5 scenarios were from SOCALASL's Mèlée Pack III
5 scenarios were from Journal 8
3 scenarios were from the Winter Offensive 2011 and 2012 packs
2 scenarios were from Journal 7
2 scenarios were from an upcoming Action Pack
2 scenarios were from Paratrooper

2 scenarios were from BFP
2 scenarios were from Schwerpunkt
1 scenario was from Doomed Battalions

So 50% of the games I played were published by MMP with the majority of the remainder coming from the usual recommended suspects in Third Party publishing, with a significant sample from a more esoteric publisher. The absence of LFT from this is purely because I am yet to arrange a theme opponent for a playthrough, plus I am tempted to wait until i can arrange some KGS Cholm play. Other publishers just didn't feature because I haven't looked at them this year.

Opponents

An axiom of ASL is that you learn more from playing a wide variety of opponents than you do from playing within a small playing circle. If that's the case, then I have learned a lot this year.

Apart from  John Knowles (8 games) and the Cleavinator (6), I played some 14 different opponents, 11 of whom were first time opponents.

So since ASLOK 2010 , I have pretty much quadrupled the number of people I have played in three short years.

 My 2012 shortlist

FRF 30 Biderman's Escape
SP    87 Fangs of the Tiger
BFP 30 Mèlée near the Coast
ASL 12 Confusion Reigns
MP   17 Bagging Burcorps (the only scenario I played twice in 2012)

So all in all, a much better year for actual play than I've managed in quite some time, and I will probably get two more games in by the end.

next up...what ASL crack did I get this year...and why Festung Budapest did not make the cut.

Playing To Do Part II

With my PBeM schedule currently down to one game and given I'm much more up to speed with the mechanics of PBeM now, I've managed to add a couple more games and new opponents just through a quick Opp Wanted ad on Gamesquad.

The best thing is I'll be playing through packs from start to finish so my To Do plan actually survived first contact. Friendly Fire Pack 1 and either BFP's Operation Cobra or High Ground will be the other theme to run through.

I'll be playing Paul from the UK in FrF 01 Jarama Proving Grounds and Whit from the USA in one of the BFP scenarios.

I'm definitely loooking forard to this. The opportunity to be exposed to new play styles and tactical approaches will do my game no end of good. I guess I'm lucky in that I enjoy PBeM a lot and find it a relaxing way to really appreciate the game.

Pete

Currently listening to: Glenn Miller -Signatures

ohgawdohgawdohgawdohgawd,,,,

I got home today from work to be greeted by the 9 year old monkey saying,

"Your parcel with stuff for that game is here."

And sure enough, I spent the next 15-20 minutes unwrapping and checking out Crucible of Steel (CoS). Thankfully only a few counter blemishes but nothing that actually impacts the printing, just extra care needed when clipping.

Immediately I went online, only to see several blogs had broken the news that Festung Budapest (FB) was available for pre-order. Now I'm not one for duplicate orders of HASLs but maybe this time I might just do so, after missing out on A Bridge Too Far and regretting the temporary poverty ever since.

Other blogs have already posted the PR blurbs and review pics of both CoS and FB so I'll not duplicate their industry. Suffice it to say that my BFP stack of items is starting to scare me and I definitely have to get my act together re the Hozan, Raaco and Box Box storage systems.

The down side is that currently I have to pass on the MMP pre-order blitz of releases that look to be coming out/released at Winter Offensive 2012. I have spousal approval to pre-order but as we live on my salary alone, it's an imperative that i mind the dollars and cents right now to make sure I can cover the probable 6 week gap in between my last pay-cheque at the multi-national bank and the first one at the new position (yet to be confirmed).

So a bittersweet ASL day, but I'm still playing, although no PBeM logs today which is also a mixed blessing.

2012 was ment to be my quiet year for ASL expenditure but Journal 10, AP8, WO3 and Festung Budapest in January/February alone are going to kill that pipedream stone dead. Oh well if the new job pans out, I will have regained 4 hours a day of my life due to the lessened commute which means i could get back to generating hobby income through painting again.

There's always an upside.

Feeding the addiction

There are times when you just have to go "Stuff it!" and spend money on ASL crack. I just saw that Operation Chariot is now OOP (but I have my copy), so I have made damn sure that I don't miss out on Cholm. in case it goes OOP as it may well do, given the more familiar subject matter in terms of Eastern Front as opposed to one off large scale commando raid.

Of course this probably wouldn't have had the same sort of impact if I hadn't also snuck under the pre-order wire for a copy of Crucible of Steel from Bounding Fire. I effectively bought this without any knoweldge of the actual contents other than the subject matter was Kursk, it had a monstrous scenario called "Flying Turrets" and there were multiple sheets of counters, both new and improved reprints from previous BFP modules. Imagine my thoughts when I actually bothered to look at the product info and saw there were 6 freaking mapboards (three of which are double sized) and 32 scenarios.

I didn't even blink at the price either, which shows either I'm addicted (yes) or am still blasé about paying half as much for Crucible as I did for BV in 1986.

I have just realised that I've bought all these very nice examnples of ASL eye candy from BFP starting with Into The Rubble and I'm actually yet to play a single freaking scenario from any of them, whereas Le Franc Tireur have managed to get a few playings out of me inthe last few years , admittedly via the Journal exposure.

I wonder if I could make it a theme to complete 100 BFP scenarios by the end of 2012?

Update: Kampfgruppe Scherer: Cholm and From the Cellar 6 are now ordered, the Cleavinator is ordering Friendly Fire 7 on my behalf and I've pre-ordered Action Pack 8 for us both as well.

Bloody Cleavinator

So I'm slumming on VASL 'cause the Cleavinator emailed me and while I'm watching poor Damon's dice cause at least 4 escalating PMCs on himself against Aaron in Vienna Woods, Aaron whispers something about Blood and Jungle. Not really paying much attention to B+J because I'm still waiting to pick up Operation Cobra and Beyond the Beachhead 2 first, but now Aaron's saying it's freaking awesome and available locally from Warchest! Oh gawd, just as I got my annual bonus as well.

So I'm now up for a shedload of expenditure from one TPM this month. And next month it's LFT and then HOB. And I still haven't found a copy of Orsha!

I think I'm going to be on a PTO kick this year. Watchtower was really good (haven't been able to find a copy yet) but I want to try a little more and really grok PTO properly. Seems a shame to have Chapter G for all these years and not really pay attention to it. Blood and Jungle looks as nice as Into the Ruins which I was really impressed with.