2025 Mastery Challenge

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Another year has gone by. More games have been played. Not as many as I’d hoped at the beginning of the year, but possibly enough. I believe this is the first year where I actually acheived the goal I set out: Finish The Ringmaker cycle in Lord of the Rings LCG, which I did in October. This year, due to family-related matters, I am not setting any goals. I also do not believe I will be playing much solitaire, at least through Q1.

As noted elsewhere, work priorities have consistently trumped game (or any other) priorities in the past, and there is no reason to believe this will change in 2025. My current gig is tracking to switch from contract to full time W2, which means it will take over my life. This is how it goes in the startup niche.

Mastery challenges

Here are the mastery challenges from previous years:

Updates

Roughly quarterly I jot down a few notes recapping recently game play, or lack thereof, as the case may be.

July 26, 2025

The year is turning out a bit better than I thought it would. At least up until the start of Q3 when I was on an on-call rotation from July 11 to July 25. This halted even the conception of game play during that period, although I did get some light games played before the rotation got emotionally oppressive. Hopefully I’ll get another game from my 2025 Aspirations list knocked out.

Anyways, Q2 saw further progress on 2025 Aspirations with the second to last scenario in Silver Bayonet. Got some family game time, and Star Realms is back in rotation in a big way with two different regular opponents. Got in a few games of Jump Drive as well. All in all, not bad.

April 6, 2025

Q1 was pretty good for game play. I was enticed into making a list of games for 2025, for which I listed 6 rather the 12 which was solicited. I’ve had experience with these sorts of lists in the past, evidence in many of these Mastery articles from previous years will attest to that. Since many of the games will require multiple plays to acheive the listed goal, I’m comfortable with 6 instead of 12. And indeed, I’m already 6 games into High Frontier alone, and will need at least one more play to achieve the goal of a fully competitive game with Modules 0, 1, and 2.

Likewise, Silver Bayonet is liable to require a couple of prelimnary games to get my opponent back into the rules. So while it’s 6 titles listed, it will be far more than 6 plays to get everything done.

H-index and plays

2025-09-28 Current average plays for count of owned games: 1530 / 148 = 10.28

Normally I would have some remarks with each entry describing my plans for the year with respect to each of these games. As of the time of writing, I just don’t have any plans at all. We’ll see what the year brings.

  1. 378/369 Lord of the Rings LCG I’d like to finish out the Angmar Awakens cycle, but that is aspirational at the time of writing. My usual collaborator is MIA, and as of the start of Q2, no games in 2025.

  2. 116/115 Absolutely Aces will likely get a few plays. I enjoy it as a solitaire game, where the fun is attempting to predict who will win in how many turns. I don’t usually succeed.

  3. 96/79 Jump Drive I did not have any plans to play Jump Drive, but a friend is starting to get interested in heavier games, and this is a great gateway game for modern games. I like playing solitaire as well.

  4. 64/64 Hive no plans.

  5. 63/56 High Frontier 4 All looks like I have a regular competitive opponent. I’m anticipating get a lot of plays in this year. We’ll see how it goes. Also, the most logged plays by a single person on BGG is currently 72, so I have a shot at taking the lead on this one. Probably not this year though.

  6. 44/44 Ogre no plans, but as of March, a new potential opponent is expressing interest, so we’ll see what transpires.

  7. 49/28 Star Realms has gone into rotation with possibly up to 3 people this year. It’s definitely in rotation with my usual opponent, and I’ve introduced it to a couple of other people who like it. Note that this tally includes the original base Star Realms game, along with Colony Wars and Star Realms: Frontiers.

  8. 35/35 Zombie Dice as opportunity presents. The game has been tucked away, and if I had it at hand it would probably get played more.

  9. 33/29 Silver Bayonet My usual opponent and I hope to play Scenario 9, which is a half campaign. I’m playing a number of solitaire games on Vassal to renew my acquaintance with the rules. Scenario 9 played June 28, 29.

  10. 27/27 PanzerBlitz no plans.

  11. 24/22 6 Nimmt! is out of my collection. I play it in Ft Wayne.

  12. 23/23 Fire in the Lake no plans. Will play if someone is interested. Would like to get a 4 player game of it going.

  13. 21/21 Race for the Galaxy no plans, but this is a game which is amenable to impulse playing, so who knows? I don’t recall ever winning a game of this.

  14. 20/20 Ogre: Objective 218 will likely see some solitaire plays. It’s fast and easy and can fit between chores.

  15. 17/16 GBOH will see Hoplite for sure, as it’s coming from GMT some time early in the year. 2025-03-01 Hoplite has arrived. 2025-03-30 Mantinea.

  16. 16/16 Battle for Moscow no plans, but I played it incorrectly on my last game, so I really should get another play in this year to rectify that mistake.

  17. 16/16 StarForce good chance this will get played at some point. I have a new opponent for F&SF games, and this could be right in his wheelhouse.

  18. 16/16 Vietnam Solitaire no plans, but might set up the Easter Offensive later in the year.

  19. 14/14 Vietnam 1965-1975 vague plans for setting up The First Volley.

  20. 13/12 Pandemic Play in Ft. Wayne. This is a great game and I should play it more.

  21. 12/12 Hapsburg Eclipse no plans. I think I want to sell both this and Ottoman Sunset. Then again, I have a nascent interest in WWI, so maybe I’ll keep them.

  22. 12/11 Leaving Earth I’ve been working on programmatically generating a spreadsheet tracker, and it’s ready to go. All it lacks is some game play.

  23. 12/12 Objective Kiev no plans.

  24. 12/12 Soviet Dawn no plans, but it’s getting time to get this back out.

  25. 12/12 Target Leningrad no plans.

  26. 11/11 OCS no plans, but I would like to get Luzon on the table for my Usual Opponent.

  27. 9/9 Phantom Leader will likely see a campaign this year. The last campaign was timed with an unfortunate work transition, so I need to overcome a bit of a hurdle there.

  28. 7/7 France ‘40

  29. 7/7 Pax Porfiriana no plans, but open to play if anyone has any interest.

  30. 7/0 Star Fleet Battles - Cadet: 6 - Captains: 1

  31. 6/6 The Agents is a new entry on this list, because I like the game a lot, I believe it’s underrated, and I could conceivably have a shot at getting the top plays spot on the forum. That count is currently at 22. The main thing with this game is I haven’t found a regular opponent. I may have to do a couple more solitaire games to get the rules memorized, than start teaching to others.

  32. 3/3 High Frontier 3rd Edition no plans, leaving it here as a reminder. I’d like to play it again sometime.

  33. 1/1 Other COIN no plans, but would be totally open if someone else wanted to play. I am interested playing the rest of my titles, then selling or giving them away.

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 2024.

  1. 44 Ogre
  2. 33 Silver Bayonet
  3. 27 PanzerBlitz
  4. 23 Fire in the Lake
  5. 16 Battle for Moscow
  6. 16 StarForce
  7. 16 GBOH collectively
  8. 16 Vietnam Solitaire
  9. 13 Vietnam 1965-1975
  10. 12 Hapsburg Eclipse
  11. 12 Objective Kiev
  12. 12 Soviet Dawn
  13. 12 Target Leningrad
  14. 11 OCS collectively
  15. 9 Phantom Leader
  16. 7 France ‘40
  17. 7 Star Fleet Battles collectively
  18. 5 Next War series collectively
  19. 4 Ottoman Sunset
  20. 3 The Arduous Beginning
  21. 2 Winter War
  22. 1 COIN
  23. 1 Combat Commander, which is on this list because it’s the kind of game I will like, once I find someone who is willing to play it.

And that’s emough fpr mow.

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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.