2021 Mastery Challenge

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Once again, it's New Year's Eve, which means it's time to write my annual Mastery article which snapshots the state of the preceding year's game play, and may or may not make predictions about game play during the upcoming year.

2021-12-26: Current average plays for count of owned games: 1063 / 121 = 8.74.

Here are the challenges from 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020

Purchase limiting via the Mindful Spending Challenge for 2021.

The focus for this year is surviving another year at my current job. That sounds depressing, and it is. (And as noted below, I didn't succeed.) That said, the 14th play of Ogre: Objective 218 bumped my H-index to 14.

December 19, 2021

Almost the end of the year. Normally, I'd be looking forward to taking a week or so off over the holidays, but with the new job, that's not happening. I'm also going to Ft Wayne in mid-January, so I really can't afford to take a lot of time off anyway. So I won't be getting many games played during this time. I have been able to get a few games in since I started the new job, mostly High Frontier and Lord of the Rings. That pattern is likely to continue through the first half of 2022. I don't have the energy to dive deep into new games right now.

October 31, 2021

I start a new full time position November 8. So the party is coming to an end. I'll be hammering hard at work through the end of the year and do not anticipate getting much game play for the rest of the year.

But September and October were pretty good. I visited my parents and played some family games with them. Got more High Frontier played, including some actual cooperative games with other people. Finally finished On the Doorstep Hobbit saga for Lord of the Rings LCG. Played a game of Flight Leader, with Vietnam-era jets, so it counts for my Vietnam games. Also played The Dark Sands and The Dark Summer, a couple of Ted Raicer games my usual wargame opponent owns. Pretty cool system. In total, I played 8 games new to me, most of which are not in my collection. Would have been nice to perhaps play a few more out of my collection, but that's ok.

The amount of High Frontier I managed to play is worth a bit more discussion. The game has a bit of a reputation, probably for good reason. The designer and developers have been playing various incarnations of the game for decades, and seem to be blind to new player's experiences. At the time of writing I have 35 plays, with about a half dozen being the "full" game with the Core and Module 0, 1, and 2 rules. There is no way I would have been able to learn as much about the game playing occassionally on weekends. This break from work, however unwelcome it may have been, I consider reasonably well-spent digging into High Frontier.

For the remainder of 2021, I'll do well to get a clean win on The Battle of Lake Town. I'm going to gave to build a deck for it. Since I'm traveling over Thanksgiving and Christmas, if that's all I manage to do, it will be enough.

August 29, 2021

I'm still not employed, but I have been getting in some games. Specifically, I got in a nice run of High Frontier plays, and I've played a number of new games belonging to other folks. I have not gotten many plays of new games, nor many second plays. For second plays, I have First Team: Vietnam, The Company War, The Wreck of the B.S.M. Pandora, Panzer Leader, and Combat Commander as good candidates. For new games, Firebase Vietnam, Dinosaur Table Battles, A Distant Plain, Luftwaffe (a friend wants to play this), Flight Leader, Battle of South Caobang, Gondor, and Front Towards Enemy. This is a lot of games, almost surely more than I'll be able to get through before starting back to work. But we'll see how it goes. Getting even a few of each is worthwhile. I also want to get a few long games of High Frontier played, using up to Module 2 Colonization and Futures. I haven't yet played that one, and the first couple of plays are going to be slow while I ingest the rules. And I still need to finish On the Doorstep.

July 18, 2021

Q2 turned out to be pretty good gaming. Probably getting a game per weekend on average. Some of these are solo, some with friends now that the 'rona lockdowns are (temporarily) over.

As it turns out, I am currently between jobs. This means: game time! I've going through some of my older writings, here, on mastery, and I have the time to pursue some mastery. Here's the breakdown:

  • Play 8-10 games new to me, at the cadence of one game per day for regular games, and one game every two days for wargames.
  • Get a second play of a number of single play games.
  • Finish On the Doorstep Hobbit Saga for Lord of the Rings LCG. I'm likely going to need to deckbuild for this, and will probably break theme to do it.
  • Play a whole bunch of High Frontier, specifically short games recording how the patent deck operates. I want to put these into a set of spreadsheets so that I can analyze the results of the games.

This is incredibly ambitious, and even getting one of these done is a win. I'm in the middle of a job search at the same time, and I need to do a lot of interview preparation.

April 18, 2021

I'm getting a fair amount of games in for 2021. Normally Q1 doesn't see much activity at all. Along with semi-regular weekend games, today I found out that my car was stolen. I found out when I went to go drive to the grocery store and my car was gone. It turns out it had been stolen and the exhaust header removed, most likely for the palladium in the catalytic convertor. The cops found it a few streets away. What does that have to do with games? Nothing at all. But it's something to note.

For games, I'm continuing my focus on Lord of the Rings LCG, slowly working my way through the Hobbit saga this year. I'm on the fourth quest "Flies and Spiders," and while I haven't beaten it yet, I have a pretty good idea how. Other games will probably wait until I take some PTO from work.

H-index

This is the third year in a row where I've been sure I will reach H-index 14, if not deliberately then as a by-product of regular play. We'll see. I could actually still do this for 2020 as (I am writing this) there are still 18 hours left in 2020. But as usual I have other things to do today.

No special plans this year, work still absolutely dominates my life. Would be cool to get through some Lord of the Rings progression style with a work colleague, but that's going to depend a lot on both of our work schedules.

  1. 208/143 Lord of the Rings LCG I now have a colleague who is interested in playing at least some of this progression-style. If his interest remains, should get a few plays with him to augment my main goal of getting through the first Hobbit box.

  2. 107/101 Absolutely Aces will almost surely get some plays, almost surely solo, no idea how many. Good game for when it's light in the evenings.

  3. 64/63 Hive Not anticipating any plays this year. As mentioned, this game cracks my head open, and I just don't feel like putting in the time to deal with it right now.

  4. 44/44 Ogre will see some plays once the plague lifts.

  5. 37/4 High Frontier 4 All is a new entry to this list for 2021. I'm getting some decent plays in, I enjoy the game, and I might have some local interest for players (we'll see). Will definitely be getting a few more plays of this during 2021. If nothing else, even playing the "family" scenario is fun, and deeper than it looks at first pass.

  6. 32/31 Zombie Dice catch as catch can, as usual.

  7. 27/27 PanzerBlitz Nothing planned for 2021.

  8. 26/26 Star Realms looking to be a customary wrap-up game for Lord of the Rings days.

  9. 21/21 Race for the Galaxy probably limited to online play.

  10. 20/20 Silver Bayonet nothing anticipated until plague is lifted.

  11. 19/19 Fire in the Lake again, waiting on the 'rona to go away.

  12. 17/17 6 Nimmt! probably not in 2021, don't have anyone with an interest in it.

  13. 15/14 Battle for Moscow now has a very spiffy browser-based implementation, and it's conceivable that I play a fair number of games this year, in the browser.

  14. 15/15 Cathedral don't have this one, not going to get it as it's solved and the IP owner exerts strenuous control over the property, which is fine. These plays were all with someone else's copy.

  15. 14/13 Ogre: Objective 218 might get some solo plays in this year. It's bound to play about as fast as Absolutely Aces, the stumbling block being hidden hands. As it turns out, the 14th play of this bumped my H-index to 14 as well. Not really planned, but sort of inevitable.

  16. 14/12 StarForce perhaps. I have an interest in digging deeper into the solitaire rescue scenario, even though it's basically pure luck once the initial shuttle loop is set up.

  17. 13/13 Vietnam Solitaire this is one of those "We'll see" type of games. I periodically haul it out with the intent of playing several games in a row, but I really only have the juice for one at a time. If I didn't log every turn, I could probably get in more plays.

  18. 12/12 Hapsburg Eclipse who knows? I think I've beaten this once, it's a hard game. I think I might end up selling it.

  19. 12/12 Objective Kiev probably not this year, planning on focusing on Battle for Moscow.

  20. 12/12 Pandemic this is a big "maybe." I ought to get it out since we are, indeed, suffering from a pandemic. Seems appropriate.

  21. 12/12 Soviet Dawn a definite maybe in 2021. This was my first States of Siege game, and I think I like it best even though I haven't played it in years. If I only have one States of Siege game, it will be Battle for Moscow.

  22. 12/12 Target Leningrad focusing on Battle for Moscow instead. Will return to this later.

  23. 11/11 Leaving Earth a disappointment not to have brought this out for even a single play in 2020. Even once in 2021 would be nice. High Frontier seems to have stolen my attention.

  24. 10/10 Flash Point didn't get out in 2020, no plans for 2021 although it is a game I enjoy playing solo.

  25. 10/9 Jump Drive is new to this list, but seems like it could get some regular play, so I'm adding it in for 2021.

  26. 10/10 OCS looking to get at least one play of Burma in for 2021.

  27. 7/7 France '40 Probably not, and this game is likely to drop off my top 25 games by play count as High Frontier and Android: Netrunner pick up plays.

  28. 6/6 Android:Netrunner my potential opponent for A:NR is focused on Lord of the Rings right now, which is not a bad thing as we're playing that one co-op. We'll get back to A:NR at some point, possibly not in 2021.

  29. 3/3 High Frontier 3rd Edition I had combined counts for 3rd and 4th editions, then decided to split the counts back out as the games are listed separately online. I'm keeping it here as I'm probably going to 3rd edition back into rotation at some point.

  30. 1/1 Other COIN probably not in 2021, and COIN in general is probably going to drop off this list. I don't enjoy the COIN games as much as I think I ought to, which is disappointing.

Wargame-specific H-index

My wargame-specific H-index started 2019 at 10. Wargames are so much more time consuming that this index will increase much, much more slowly than the overall H-index. I do not expect much progress on this list in 2020.

  1. 44 Ogre
  2. 27 PanzerBlitz
  3. 20 Silver Bayonet
  4. 19 Fire in the Lake
  5. 15 Battle for Moscow
  6. 14 StarForce
  7. 13 Vietnam Solitaire
  8. 12 Objective Kiev
  9. 12 Soviet Dawn
  10. 12 Target Leningrad
  11. 12 Hapsburg Eclipse
  12. 10 OCS
  13. 7 France '40
  14. 5 Phantom Leader
  15. 4 Ottoman Sunset
  16. 3 The Arduous Beginning
  17. 2 Winter War
  18. 1 COIN
  19. 1 Combat Commander
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What to play next?

Deciding what to play next is always a tough call when faced with a closet full of games, all of which were purchased with intent to play. Here's one I'm dealing with the decision.

  • Something New: this means both something new to me and a game which has been published recently, within the last two or three years.
  • Something Classic: I've acquired a number of games properly considered "classic" which haven't yet been played. The current example would be PanzerGruppe Guderian.
  • Something Again: mastery requires constant practice, which means playing games many, many times to allow nuance to appear.
  • Something Vietnam: as I'm on a Vietnam binge. I don't have all the Vietnam games ever published, but I can say that I have a lot of them, and probably more than most people.
  • Something Obscure: as it's fun to poke around in the dustier corners of game design.
  • Something Different: break away from the same old publishers and try a game from one of the new kids on the block. Or, conversely, dip into legacy with a classic tried and true.
  • Something Light: once in a while it's nice to actually finish a game all the way through in one sitting, in an hour or two.
  • Something Heavy: if possible, it's nice to set up something big and complicated which can be left out for days or weeks or even months, for a leisurely stroll through a very large or long game.

There are surely many more ways to choose, but the above method keeps me busy enough, helps me get both breadth and depth into my play, and provides me with a sense of progress.

The odd man out

When there is an odd man out:

  • Have a solo game ready to play.
  • Keep score or advise on a game in progress.
  • Referee a game in progress.