2017 Mastery Challenge

Dec 31 2016

Recapping 2017

2017 was a partial success. I achieved H-index 12, got all the Dimes but one, played several new Vietnam games, and maintained average plays around 6 for most of the year. The goal for Nickels was not achieved, my interests (and that of opponents) just didn't gel around the list of games I selected this year. I still believe all are fine games, and that all of them will end up in Nickel status at some point in the future.

Finding myself temporarily unemployed, I also played through nearly all of my unplayed non-wargames, Zombicide and Caverna being the exceptions. One of the new games, Lord of the Rings card game, has gone into regular rotation.

My initial plan was to focus more on H-index and not worry overmuch about average plays. I found, though, that I like having a high average play count. "High" in this context means 6 or above. Going forward from here, I am going to put next year's floor at 5. This will get me a load of new games to play. If I only play new games one time, I can get through 31 games for a play average of 5.0. Seems reasonable.

Updates

While the main content of this article won't change much, irregular updates below chronicle my state of mind over the course of the year.

2017-02-19

For various reasons, I'm currently without gainful employment. This is probably going to change my focus from building H-index and average to learning the rules to new games. Learning new games, especially the kind of wargames I like to play, can be quite time consuming and intellectually intensive. So much so that it can interfere with intellectually demanding employment such as software development. Since I have what will be a too-brief window of recreational opportunity, getting a load of new games to the table makes sense. On the other hand, I don't see any reason I won't make H-index 13 this year, possibly sooner than later.

2017-03-14

Still not working, but having a blast! Or at least having a very happy, satisfying time working around my apartment to declutter, doing some stairscaping and whatnot. The "learning new games" mentioned in February's update is in full swing. I've listed 10 new games over the last month. The new games goal is to play all my non-wargames (which are out of shrink), and get a first play in for a selection of wargames which I believe will have considerable replay value. I tossed a couple more games on the list because it seemed like a good time to get them played. That's a load of games, nearly 30. I doubt I'll be able to get through all of them by the time I start a new job, but I will have made a serious dent in the list. Once I start a new job, I'll probably put my focus back on H-index.

2017-04-29

Still not currently working, and have cut back on game plays in favor of writing a lot more code. That said, I have DAK2 and Fire in the Lake both set up right now. I suspect I'll start working through both of them over the next few days, as I've done quite a lot of coding lately. I need a bit of a break from it. After a big run of new game plays, my average for played games dropped to around 5.2, with the number of games at 94. This number is now creeping back up again, as I'm working my way through second plays of a number of games. The plan is to have a minimum of 6 plays, preferably 7 or 8 plays, between new games I own. In addition, now that the "new games" excursion is over, I'm back to focusing on Nickels, Dimes and H-index.

2017-06-18

It's been a busy couple of months as I've focused on building more programming and interviewing skills, with very little game play during this time. The one game I have played I've really sunk my teeth into, and that's a new entry: Lord of the Rings LCG. I haven't played anything new during this time, so the average plays is creeping back up. It might even get to 6, and if it does, LotR will be a big part of that.

2017-07-26

July 2017 saw a fair amount of game play, mostly Lord of the Rings card game. I'm starting to get a decent grip on that game, enough to know I have a very long road to mastery on it. Part of the mastery process, for me, is determining the "Rules of Engagement," that is, how much help I accord myself before starting or during a scenario. For many of the scenarios, I've ultimately resorted to using other people's decks, which has been plenty hard enough even with proven decks. Building my own decks increases the complexity of the game. And how much looking ahead on new scenarios? Should I examine the quests and the encounter deck in advance, or let it be a surprise? Should I watch other people's play throughs? If so, when?

For 2018, I'm going to put a 2-play list up. This is for getting second plays of games I've only played once. If any particular game on the 2-play list is good, it will be considered for the nickel list in 2019. A bunch of the games going on the 2-play list will be Vietnam games.

Game play average: I'm going to let this slip to 5 in 2018. I have too many unplayed games I want to play to try and keep this metric at 6. Another benefit is that it's a lot easier to recover to 5 than to 6. This will also help me get through more of my Vietnam collection, which is the only part of total collection I'd like to play completely at least once.

2017-08-19

This month sees me employed at a new job with Hinge Health, a health care and wellness company conveniently located at 818 Mission, right next to Dennys (heh) and across the alley from Bloomingdales Westfield. Rereading through entries from previous months, I like the direction emerging for 2018: get some second plays in, and let my average plays drop to 5 from 6. That will get me at least 20 new games on my list of plays. Given I work through a list of second plays, that will add two more. With my current play habits, I'm likely to result in more than 25 new games played next year while staying above 5 average plays. I'll get the overall H-index to 13 pretty easily, and there is a good chance I'll get the wargame H-index to 11 with a few plays of OCS. Perhaps if I can maintain 6 average plays and get to 100 games by year's end, I'll target an even 25 new games for next year.

One question I'm pondering is whether to go all in for 100 plays of either Hive or Lord of the Rings card game (or both) next year. Both of these games reward concentrated play over intermittent play. Choosing both risks one becoming a distraction for the other. I'm not currently active with Hive at the moment, due to the total brain burning it does to me. I'm thinking about kicking off another round some time in early fall.

2017-09-17

After an initial blast of plays over Labor Day weekend, September has been a slow month so far, and will likely remain slow. Work responsibilities are trumping everything. I'm also back to cooking, and have 6 pints of chana masala and 7 pints of tortilla soup in the freezer. Hoping to add a couple of quarts of potato leek soup into the freezer today as well. So, busy. But nobody cares about that.

Reading back over the monthly entries for the year, two goals continue to stand out. The first is getting 25 new games played from my collection. This is going to be challenging, as it's two games per month on average. The second is bumping at least 10 games from one play to two plays. For the games already on my H-index, Ogre and PanzerBlitz most likely won't move very much if at all. Many of the remaining will sit idle in 2018. In fact, I'm not inclined to move deliberately move on the H-index in 2018. Where ever it lands will be fine. On the other hand, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the wargame H-index to 11 with 3 plays of OCS, and one play each of Fire in the Lake and Hapsburg Eclipse.

2017-10-14

Slow month for playing. Work is really crunching down on me. On the good side of this, I'm getting responsibility commensurate with my ambition and capability, on the other side, it feels weird to be put on projects which aren't either doomed out of the gate, traps, or both. While I am able to completely submerse myself in work, the side effects build up after a while. My apartment gets increasingly untidy, I start to get behind on laundry and other chores, and playing any sort of game is set completely aside. So what to do? Here's the plan through the end of the year.

I'm intending on setting up the front room for long playing game through the end of the year, starting with Ukraine '43 over Veteran's Day, Burma over Thanksgiving break, and Baltic Gap over the Christmas holidays. The difference is I'm intending on inviting 3-4 other people over to work through these games during that time. I intend on making a hosted party of it, handling the majority of the food and drink. What I currently lack is one more side table, and two folding chairs. I don't mind acquiring these as they will go into the garage when not in use. It may be that I'll need to do certain chores such as laundry while these games are underway, and that's ok. Having several people here allows me to do those chores as well as function as a host (cooking, etc.).

I can't think of any other way to get these games played.

2017-11-24

Very slow month for playing anything at all. The Fire in the Lake entry for November 12 is really just a wrap up for a game which was put on the table in March.

The reason is work. The situation at work is very odd, and requires spending a lot of intellectual and emotional engagement. The tough part is this engagement is for simple survival, and not advancement, very disheartening. Being distracted by anything, games included, tanks my motivation to work. Distractions do not provide any stress relief, just the opposite, distractions increase my work-related stress tremendously. Even cooking is turning into too much distraction for work, and that's bad. Hence, remove all the distractions.

H-index

H-index is the number of games played number of times. For example, an H-index of 5 means 5 games played 5 times. It would be far too easy to fill up H-index with lightweight games, totally defeating the purpose of acquiring wargaming mastery. Given that, I'd like to get the total H-index to 12, and the wargame-specific H-index to 10. Here's a list of the top candidates for getting to H-Index 12:

68/0 Lord of the Rings LCG: A new contender for the H-index, and already made the grade. This one showed up as I've had an interest in collectible or expandable card games for a while, but the Android and Game of Thrones are just really hard to solo. Which is a real shame. Lord of the Rings is more or less designed for solo. Modulo deck building, setting up and logging, it takes about an hour to get a game in. There will be many more in the future.
63/40 Hive: This will almost certainly remain my top played game, as it's a favorite with one of my f2f opponents, and I'm playing it intermittently on an online site against live opponents. I do count online plays, but only against live opponents.
35/34 Ogre is on the backburner right now, in favor of a few other games. I intend on getting back into it, but next round I'd like to track scenarios and stats better.
27/27 PanzerBlitz: Not planning on playing any PanzerBlitz this year unless someone specifically has an interest and asks for it.
27/13 Zombie Dice: I now have both expansions for this game, and two people who like to play it locally. We usually get in a game at the end of the day. I have both expansions, which provides some nice variation in play. This game will continue to rise.
18/0 Star Realms My first pure deck builder.
17/8 Silver Bayonet: This is in my Dime list below, but I believe it will get a lot more plays than 10, as I'm toying with notions of small scenario balance assessments. The idea is playing the same scenario over and over, while logging the outcomes of each action, the end goal being a more quantitive assessment of scenario balance.
15/10 6 Nimmt!: Another filler game which hits the table typically after much heavier fare. Great for more than 2 players as well. This may or may not get onto H-index this year (or ever), but the plays will continue to increase as its pretty popular with all the people I play ftf with.
15/14 Cathedral: This is a favorite of one of my ftf opponents. I usually lose, but I'm getting better by losing by less on average lately. And I do win once in a while.
15/0 Race for the Galaxy: At the beginning of 2017, I purchased a bag full of small games, including Race for the Galaxy. The game is very small, but plays fast, and the card interactions are intricate.
12/12 Battle for Moscow: Also done for now, although there is a fair chance I'll get a couple of plays in as it's a favorite of one of my f2f opponents. No harm in getting a jump on H-index 13 or higher.
12/7 Objective 218: This probably won't make it onto H-index this year (if ever), but it's likely to get to Dime. It can be played solitaire well-enough, but I think I'm going to reserve it for ftf play.

2017-01-07: On the other hand, we're finding more depth in this game than originally appeared during first plays. Looks like it's going to get to the table more than I thought.

The 12th play of this achieves H-index 12.
12/10 Objective Kiev: Another one where I'll knock out two or three plays successively. The focus going forward will be on how to win as the Russians.

The 11th play of this achieves H-index 11.
12/12 Soviet Dawn: No need to work on this until H-index gets to 12. At that point, it's worth knocking out 2-3 games in a row, more efficient to play several games while the rules are fresh in my head.
12/12 Target Leningrad: This one is done for now unless one of my f2f opponents wants a rematch.
12/7 Pandemic: I hope to play Pandemic with its various expansions ftf with larger groups. The both times I've done this, we won, and that's too boring.
11/10 Fire in the Lake: I didn't get as many plays in 2016 as I had anticipated. It's a really long game to play out solo, takes a couple of weekends worth of time because I always write out the whole game as I go, so I can keep track of where I am. My goal for 2017 is to get 2 plays in, with one of the plays being a 4-player campaign game. Perhaps I'll do one more solo game before that to get reacquainted with the rules.
11/11 StarForce: Another game I thought I'd get more plays of. My goal for 2017 is to get 2 plays, which will keep StarForce on the H-index.
11/10 Vietnam Solitaire: When I sit down for this one, I'll knock out 2 or 3 games back to back. Once I take the trouble to get the rules refreshed in my head, it's good to keep the momentum going while the rules are fresh. Also, these next plays will be with original rules. I've played the Special Edition and Easter Offensive rules, but haven't yet really cracked the game yet. So it's time to go back to the original rules and crack that first.
10/10 Flash Point: I pretty much only play this solitaire these days, haven't had anyone asking for it. So far I haven't gotten into the expansions yet, but I think that will be the next step. Good to keep it interesting.
10/6 Hapsburg Eclipse: Part of my Dime list effort below. Doubtful this will make it onto the H-index this year, but I'm thinking it will get there eventually. I'm having a hard time getting past 15-17 cards, and that's annoying.

10th play of this is make wargame H-index 10.
8/6 OCS (added 2017-01-15) Normally, I count plays by the number of individual, base games. For OCS, it's unlikely I'll ever get any single game on this H-index. Any individual scenario from any game is basically an all-day commitment. Hence, all OCS plays, regardless of individual title, are lumped here together. While this might not be "technically" kosher with respect to a strict definition of H-index, it serves my purpose for H-index, viz. motivating me to develop mastery.
7/7 France '40: More small scenario development at Sedan and at Dinant.
1/1 COIN specifically, all COIN games other than Fire in the Lake, which is tracked by itself. I like the COIN system a lot, but as OCS, it's too committing to play very many games solo, and there aren't that many people willing to put in the effort for a major game. The single game listed here is a play of Cuba Libre. My hope is that seeing this count listed will inspire me to play more of these excellent games.

Fire in the Lake is an obvious candidate for advancement, but my usual opponents either don't care for it, or don't have time lately to commit to the effort of playing it. Solo play is really committing, takes many, many hours to complete a play.

There may be other games that get added to this list as the year goes by. For example, in 2016, Hive and Silver Bayonet were both games I enjoyed playing enough to add on to the H-index, as I'm reasonably confident I'll play both many more times.

Wargame-specific H-index

My wargame-specific H-index started 2017 at 9, and will almost surely get to 10, possibly 11. Wargames are so much more time consuming that this index will increase much, much more slowly than the overall H-index. And that's fine.

35 Ogre
27 PanzerBlitz
17 Silver Bayonet
12 Battle for Moscow
12 Objective Kiev
12 Soviet Dawn
12 Target Leningrad
11 Fire in the Lake
11 StarForce
10 Hapsburg Eclipse
8 OCS
7 France '40
5 Phantom Leader
1 COIN
1 Combat Commander

If France '40 makes its Dime below, that will do the job for H-index making it to 10. Hapsburg Eclipse as well. I can see plays of Phantom Leader being in my top 10 most played once I start digging into the campaigns. Getting wargames to 11 should be pretty easy, possibly even this year. Getting past 11 will be hard, and will require taking on a new project, perhaps Panzer Leader or Combat Commander.

Average of plays versus owned games

The following statistic is more or less meaningless, as I don't list games as "owned" until I get a play logged. Further, I count plays of games I don't own into the average. However, these shenanigans help me stay focused and motivated to keep a good balance between always playing the same old games, versus always playing something new.

2017-12-31: Current average plays for count of owned games: 638 / 101 = 6.31.

Dimes

Dimes are games with 10 total plays. Here's a list of games which I anticipate playing to dime status.

7/7 France '40
14/8 Silver Bayonet Games 9, 10, 11 and 12, Game 13.

10th play on 2017-01-15.

Ok, so many of the Silver Bayonet games were very small scenarios, some of them just a single turn. However, along with playing those scenarios multiple times, I've been taking notes on them and working through some of the statistics. It's really a lot of work. Check the linked articles for details.
10/7 Pandemic, will be using expansions to make it more interesting. Games 8 & 9.

10th game played 2017-02-24.
10/6 Hapsburg Eclipse Game 7, Game 8.
10/7 Objective 218 started out as very low priority, without much intention to play it, but two things have changed my mind about it. The first is I have a regular opponent who really likes it. The second is the he and I both are discovering that there's quite a bit more game here than it first appears. So I'm pretty sure this will make the dime, and may even move right on up the H-index after all. Game 8, Games 9 & 10.

10th play on 2017-01-22.

That's 15 total games to play, doable depending on work status. There may be new games added to nickel or dime list. These will be marked as being added after the year starts.

Nickels

Nickels are game with 5 plays total. Here's a list of games I anticipate getting to nickel status.

2/2 Winter War: From the end of my last play, I think I've cracked it for the Soviets. These next plays are most likely solitaire as I explore the Finnish response to the Russians getting through the Mannerheim line very quickly.
4/4 A Study in Emerald: this can be played solo, much more fun with a group. I would play this a lot more if I could find 3 people who liked it to play it on a regular basis.
2/0 Arduous Beginning: The last of Chadwick's East Front games, which I've been putting off. I suspect this will end up on the H-index, but probably not this year. Game 1.
2/0 Ottoman Sunset First Play.
3/3 GBoH Alexander
4/4 LnL Forgotten Heroes Vietnam
5/1 Phantom Leader: a new solo game exploring the air war against North Vietnam between ~1965-1972. I've followed along with the playthrough in the rules, and it looks really, really good, with good replayability. Should not be hard to get 5 plays in over the next year. Game 2, Game 3, Game 4, Game 5.
2/2 Year of the Rat (added 2017-01-16): I'm not sure how easy this is to play solo, but I'm going to give it try. I've added it because it's a cool little game, full of hard decisions on both sides, and plays fairly quickly with two players.

The list shows 21 total games to play, which isn't that bad at all in terms of number of games. The challenge is maintaining interest in playing all of these 5 times. I do not expect I'll succeed at all the nickels, but I'm sure I'll knock out a few.

Vietnam

I intend on playing at least 5 new-to-me Vietnam games in 2017, of which 3 will be obscure or vintage. The obscure and vintage plays are solo efforts, I'd prefer not to burn out any of my usual opponents on games they aren't really interested in, and which, to be perfectly honest, aren't very well developed.

Here's a selection from which I will choose:

Tet Offensive First play
Search and Destroy First game.
Hearts and Minds, 2d Ed. First play.
Green Beret (Train) First play.
Downtown First play.
Tet (Chadwick) First game.
LZ Albany Game 2.
Operation Pegasus
Meatgrinder
The Vietnam War (Guild of Blades)
The First Indochina War
TBD (Warp Spawn)
Recon Team: Vietnam
An Loc
Victory in Vietnam (Schutze)
Platoon

I reserve the right to add, subtract or substitute entries for the list above.