2023 Mastery Challenge

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2022 went by in a bit of a blur. I managed to get in some decent game play, although not much mastery play. Work consumed the majority of my intellectual effort. Again.

Work will be an overriding concern 2023, and trump game time to at least the extent of 2022, and possibly more. 2022 is the one of very few years on record where stocks and bonds moved down together. This has happened once or twice in the last 100 years, and that's with an economy which isn't in a recession. As retirement approaches, I'm gainfully employed and mean to stay that way at least until the market is a bit more stable.

For 2023, if I have any goal at all, getting to H-index 16 seems like an attainable goal. If I get serious about it I'll create an epic on my personal Jira account and ticket up the plays. Which I just did.

Here are another few aspirations:

  • Work through the Heirs of Numenor, Against the Shadow cycle in Lord of the Rings LCG, I've been stuck on Battle of Lake Town, which is a really, really hard quest. It has me stalled out. It might be worth bailing out on this for now, and revisiting it later. The Battle of Lake Town defeated June 17, 2023

  • Raise my play count to 5 for either Winter War or Year of the Rat. I'm leaning towards Year of the Rat for this one, but Winter war is a close second. These are both very early and very good wargames which have stood the test of time well. Getting Phantom Leader to 10 plays is another good goal.

  • Learn some new games. Specifically, I have Hannut on the table right now as a learning game for the GOSS system. I'm intending on diving pretty deep into the game. It's 15 turns, and while I'll be surprised if I take to conclusion, I should be able to play out 5 or 6 turns. My usual wargame opponent really enjoys playing new games, and he has Cataphract, MBT, and Next War: Taiwan more or less in queue. I should also play through one of the HFD Vietnam games. We'll see how it plays out.

  • Something exotic, such as Chad The Toyota Wars, Liberia, or The Chaco War. Not sure which one, but I really ought to pick one of these and play it.

  • Continue work on Viet Nam, or Dien Bien Phu rebuilds. I also have four other vintage, 1970's games in PDF form only which I would also like to rebuild.

We'll see how it plays out. As usual, work is liable to trump any plans I make. That's just how it goes.

Updates

From time to time over the course of the year I'm liable to post updates of how the year has been going to date. These are informal and unscheduled, and on no particuler cadence.

November 25

Probably a little late for this update as it's getting close to the end of the year. Upshot so far is I'm a little behind where I'd like to be with LotR, and didn't get as many High Frontier games in as I'd have liked. For High Frontier, I had originally planned on getting several plays in with Contracts and M4 module which was scheduled for Q3 of this year, but has been pushed back to Q2 of next year (which probably means even later, but whatever).

Aspirationally, I might just get through Heirs of Numenor by the end of the year. I have a few plays of Blood of Gondor, and would only lack Siege of Cair Andros to polish it off.

August 27

Game 16 of Starforce brings H-index to 16.

June 22

I'm more than half way through a week of PTO, and have been able to play some games during this time. I finally beat The Battle of Lake Town, then followed up with a win against Peril in Pelargir, so I'm back on track with LotR. Doubtful I'll finish the whole cycle this year, but I will make progress. I'm two plays closer to H-index 16, and have some new games played including Cataphract, Next War: India-Pakistan, and Next War: Taiwan. Work has eased off a bit, but I've also put a fair amount of Saturday energy into plants and chore. So far, I've been able to get in at least 1 game per month.

March 31

It's been a very busy Q1 for me. I've worked one or both days almost every weekend. I know that common knowledge is working weekends leads to burnout and inefficiency over time, and perhaps that's true, but the sitation at work demanded a deadline, so no time to be burnt out. The economy is going to crap right now, and AI is coming on strong. I suspect what programming looked like last year will never look like that again. With the AI wave looming, I need to retrain more than I need to play games. Hence, work as much as I'm able, picking up new skills best I can.

My new target is playing at least one game per month. I'm going to leave my aspirations posted and we'll see how the year plays out.

There is a bright spot: I've been slowly getting the Nguyen Hue rules transcibed. The rules scan is really not very good, so it's much more tedious than Game Science Viet Nam was. I'm about half through the main text body of the rules. Game Science Viet Nam is also moving forward, but I have not put any serious work into Dien Bien Phu. The rules formatting for that will be much more difficult than any of the other games so far.

Here are the mastery challenges from previous years:

This is getting to be quite a collection.

H-index and plays

2023-12-31: Current average plays for count of owned games: 1316 / 130 = 10.00

  1. 304/248 Lord of the Rings LCG I average about 50 plays per year to date, so I expect that's about what I'll get in for 2023.

  2. 115/110 Absolutely Aces will likely get a few intermittent plays. I have introduced the game to a few people, but I always win which makes it no fun for them probably. And it's fast and fun to play solitaire as well.

  3. 71/11 Jump Drive I believe will be a perennial climber. I figured out a decent solitaire mode for it which will play very quickly.

  4. 64/64 Hive not anticipating serious play this year. This game is too addictive, interferes with work as I only play it online.

  5. 55/51 High Frontier 4 All I intend on at least a half dozen games this year, maybe more if Module 4 ships. This is also very addictive, but the play time is long enough that I don't ever have it out when I'm at work, and I won't play it online. I'd like to get 2-3 Futures games in as well. Those generally eat a whole weekend.

  6. 44/44 Ogre no plans for Ogre this year, but we'll see what happens.

  7. 35/35 Zombie Dice might be going back into rotation, my usual opponent and I have missed it. We used to knock out a game or two at the end of a Game Day, and got out of the habit.

  8. 27/27 PanzerBlitz no plans for PanzerBlitz this year, but who knows?

  9. 27/27 Star Realms going back into rotation for 2023.

  10. 22/22 Silver Bayonet saw plays in 2022, and is likely to see some plays in 2023. I'd like to continue on my theorycrafting on Scenarios 6a and 6b, and there is still the full campaign to play. My usual opponent and I have played almost every other scenario.

  11. 21/21 Race for the Galaxy no plans for 2023, this is another which I typically play on line, hence, don't want the distraction right now.

  12. 20/18 6 Nimmt! is out of my collection at the moment as I left it in Ft. Wayne. I might get some plays there, so I'm leaving it in the list for now.

  13. 20/20 Ogre: Objective 218 will likely see some solitaire action. From the last few solo games, I'm thinking there are more combos to find. Sometimes it's hard to figure there out playing solitaire, playing opposed provides exposure to different playing styles.

  14. 19/19 Fire in the Lake will almost surely find some play time with the new Fall of Saigon scenario.

  15. 16/15 Battle for Moscow is on my list for getting to H-index 16, the Jira ticket is already written.

  16. 16/14 StarForce is on the list for 2023 H-index 16. Jira tickets have already been created. It's almost surely coming off the H-index after the 16-th play. I like the game, a lot, but not enough to commit to pursuing mastery at this time.

  17. 13/13 Vietnam 1965-1975 will likely climb in the rankings. I'd like to do some theorycrafting on the Starlite scenario, and some solo plays of the Silver Bayonet scenario.

  18. 13/13 Vietnam Solitaire is on my list for H-index 16. Jira tickets have already been created.

  19. 13/7 GBOH will almost surely get a game or two in, possibly Cataphract or Caesar.

  20. 12/12 Hapsburg Eclipse not anticipating plays this year, considering selling it anyway.

  21. 12/12 Objective Kiev no plays this year, but will be back in rotation in the future.

  22. 12/12 Pandemic might play in Ft. Wayne.

  23. 12/12 Soviet Dawn no plays anticipated, but will be the next States of Siege game I play, and likely the only one I'm inclined to keep.

  24. 12/12 Target Leningrad probably not in 2023, but will definitely be back on the table in the future.

  25. 11/11 Leaving Earth I'd like to get one play in 2023. Even just the base game would be fine. It consumes pretty much an entire weekend of intellectual activity, not a game I can solitaire lightly.

  26. 10/10 Flash Point no plans for 2023.

  27. 10/10 OCS aspirational for 2023, given a goal of getting H-index to 16. Perhaps after that.

  28. 7/7 France '40 an aspirational entry, would like to play this more often.

  29. 7/7 Pax Porfiriana has its first appearance on this list in 2023. No plans to play this year, but I really enjoy playing this online at yucata,de, and I do anticipate playing a lot more of it in the future.

  30. 5/5 Phantom Leader has not appeared on this list until this year, which is an oversight. The game plays quickly, and lends itself to campaign play. No specific plans for 2023, but it will be a fast climber once it gets back on the table.

  31. 3/3 High Frontier 3rd Edition Might take it back out for a spin, it would be interesting to see how the rules differ from HF4.

  32. 1/1 Other COIN Unlikely to play, based on last several years experience, but I'm leaving it here as a reminder.

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 2023.

  1. 44 Ogre
  2. 27 PanzerBlitz
  3. 22 Silver Bayonet
  4. 19 Fire in the Lake
  5. 16 Battle for Moscow
  6. 16 StarForce
  7. 13 GBOH collectively.
  8. 13 Vietnam 1965-1975
  9. 13 Vietnam Solitaire
  10. 12 Hapsburg Eclipse
  11. 12 Objective Kiev
  12. 12 Soviet Dawn
  13. 12 Target Leningrad
  14. 10 OCS collectively
  15. 7 France '40
  16. 5 Phantom Leader
  17. 4 Next War series
  18. 4 Ottoman Sunset
  19. 3 The Arduous Beginning
  20. 2 Winter War
  21. 1 COIN
  22. 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.