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So, we are coming to the end of 2020, and it was not a great year for gaming. However, what game or genre of game did you play the most in 2020?

For me, I was surprised that I got as many games in as I did, about 24. I guess since my family and I were in lock down, I was able to force them to play some games with me!

The genre I played and painted the most was Ancients!
1. Men of Bronze
2. Wars of the Republic
3. Broken Legions
4. Heirs to Empire

Added Bonus:
There were three games I expected to play, but did not!

1. Frostgrave- I wanted to get my family into this game, but they never really wanted to give it a try. I thought the female soldiers and wizards would pull them in, but they were not interested.

2. Burrows and Badgers- I never got to order the models and get them painted.

3. Blood Bowl- My family actually really likes Blood Bowl, and we have plenty of teams. However, it never really hit the table this year. I am surprised about that!

Mostly Marvel Crisis Protocol, A Song of Ice and Fire, and Monsterpocalypse as those are the three games my wife prefers.

I played a lot of online dungeons and dragons, but for in person gaming...
- 2 games of Age of Fantasy with my wife
- 2 more games of Age of Fantasy with a friend from work.

Both times I had a lot of fun, and I have been mostly working on making scenery for games of Grimdark Future. Hoping to get one in before years end.

That means for me, this year was one of the best I have had for wargaming in nearly a decade, sadly enough!

Edit: As for "wanted to play but did not" I wanted to give Rangers of the Shadowdeep a go, but never got round to making the terrain for it.

I played mostly Frostgrave, some Mage Knight. Not much of anything. Few games of 30k and 40k

Next year should be all 40k

Since 2016 I've been keeping track of the games I play over each year.

Barring any surprise games in the next couple weeks, here's the total:

ADLG - 1
Battletech - 2
Bolt Action - 5
Brother Against Brother - 1
By Company Into Line - 1
Cruel Seas - 2
Domari Nolo - 1
Dracula's America - 1
Et Sans Résultat! - 1
Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket - 1
General d'Armee - 1
Konflikt '47 - 1
Man O' War - 4
Middle Earth SBG - 2
Mordheim - 4
Muskets & Tomahawks - 1
Rebels & Patriots - 1
Red Book of the Elf King - 1
Triumph! - 1
Warlords of Erehwon - 3
WHFB: Renaissance - 1

Wow, you play a LOT of different games!

I did get a game or two of 40k in around the 9th edition launch but pretty much everything else has been BattleTech. Below are a couple of recent painting projects for it.

I got exactly 0 games this year. However, I did get a decent sized army fully painted that I hadn't anticipated doing, and made good headway with another large project, so hobby swings and hobby roundabouts.

1 game of bolt action
1 game of blood bowl
Quite a lot of board games with the family , catan , awkward guests , stuffed fables and others


Not been the best year :p

Underworlds was my Number 1 game at the beginning of the year, but COVID completely killed underworlds in my area. Besides that, I've mostly played 40k (around 1 game every week or two), and AOS (about one game a month).

My Fiancé and I played a lot of Gloomhaven as well.

Few games of Warcry (started just before catacombs hit the shelves).
20+ games of Underworlds.

Solo AoS games mostly as the tournaments I wanted to go to were cancelled for obvious reasons.

Inspired by Infinity Array's blog, I also started keeping track of my games and painting on my blog. Here is my list:

High Noon- 4
Castles in the Sky - 1
AQ: Force of Arms - 1
Only The Strong Survive - 1
Heirs of Empire - 2
Black Ops - 1
Rampant Sun - 1
White Star, Red Star- 2
Turf War- 1
Broken Legions - 1
Men of Bronze - 1
Rampant Stars - 1
Aquanautica Imperialis - 2
Wars of the Republic- 3
Aeronautica Imperialis- 2

I played way too many games that I made and not enough games from other people!

Boardgamegeek has a nice log play function that lets you quickly log your games and later go back and easily review when/what and as much detail as you care to add (opponent/forces/mission/etc.)

Here are my miniatures game plays for the year

Pulp Alley 11
Kill Team 9
Frostgrave 1
Mutants and Death Ray Guns 1

Pulp Alley has become my go-to game. In those 11 plays for the year was one reskinning of pulp alley to play battletech (it worked very well) and one reskinning for frostgrave (also worked well for that game). It reskins easily and since there's only one rule set to learn that already doesn't use charts, it's way easier to remember and keep gameplay flowing instead of flipping through the rules like I have to do with Kill Team.

 Da Boss wrote:
Wow, you play a LOT of different games!

It's definitely thanks to my home being within 1-3 hours of a number of different gaming groups and conventions who put on games.

I did notice that I didn't have a single game that made it into double digits this year, but that may just be up to Covid making events like leagues and campaigns really difficult. My biggest number of games ever was back in 2016 when I played 36 games of Guild Ball back when that was all the rage.

 Easy E wrote:
I played way too many games that I made and not enough games from other people!

Better to play something than nothing at all!

Also, you reminded me that I've got a Badgers and Burrows pledge that needs to be worked on.

Maybe I'll try to resurrect my hobby resolutions. I don't think 2021 will be a good year to try to bring out a Wargaming 6x6 challenge, but maybe 2022 will.

Just a few games of Ghost Archipelago and Warhammer Underworlds I think.

For me, 2020 was a return to fantasy games. I started playing (and even DM'ed one game) of Dungeons and Dragons after more than a decade of not really playing. Additionally, I was starting to get in regular games of Age of Sigmar at the start of the year. Like 2019, most of my tabletop gaming was Kill Team. However, just before the pandemic shut things down the core of my gaming group all had full 40k armies. Although, I did get to play all three of my full 40k armies (CSM, SM, GSC) this year.

Best Game Played By Me of 2020:


The first photo above being my absolute favorite of the year. It was a 'handicap' match of Slaves to Darkness (me) vs. Gloomspite Gitz and Nighthaunts. This game was the first game I played with the S2D battletome. I liked this game because while my opponents had absolutely gutted my army, I managed to eek out my first AoS win through a combination of making better use of army, a battleplan that favors Leaders (Places of Arcane Power) and my opponents armies didn't synergize with each other very well.

Best Photo of a Game Played By Me of 2020:


This was one of the last miniatures games I managed to play this year. It was a quick impromptu game of just chucking dice to familiarize or re-familarize how to play 40k. It involved 2000pts of Black Legion (me), Death Guard and Hivefleet Leviathan. The photo comes from the fact that I got pinned in one of the table corners forcing to play more of a gunline as the Death Guard (pictured) charged into my force head on while the Tyranids chewed away at my right flank and rear. The Photo was taken just before the Black Legion charged the Death Guard. Hence the reason the Black Legion are all over the place while the Death Guard are still tightly ranked and used the terrain to protect their flanks.

The number 1 game of 2020 for me was Necromunda.

I also played a couple of games of X-Wing just for memories and got into classic Battletech with the delivery of my Kickstarter rewards. Shortly after that, I got absorbed into the wonderful world of game systems called "One Page Rules"

I played so many games of "WarFleets: FTL" That the author reached out to my friend and me to playtest the rules revisions before they went live. and I completely ditched 40K and AoS in favor of Grimdark Future and Age of Fantasy. I'm testing out the Kill Team version of One Page Rules as well this week and maybe ditching Necromunda/Kill Team in favor of One Page Rules as well shortly.

My year is dominated by a couple of games, despite me setting a goal (that I failed- thanks Covid!) to learn how to play and at least play 5 games of a few different systems. There's scattered Warcry games, a lot of Batman early in the year that's since petered out and been replaced by Legion, Infinity has started off again and I'm so deep into Malifaux it probably deserves its own entire post at this stage. Battlefleet Gothic made a few appearances as did Lord of the Rings and Blood Bowl, but for the new year the plan is to keep up with all of these games and get a couple more in. Necromunda and Bushido are both definitely on the cards, Blood Bowl should be kicking off again with the new edition and I've got a new Goblin team on the way for it too

Space Hulk with my wife.

I got in about 20 games of 40K, maybe a bit more depending on the next few weeks, and watched about the same number of games. But then we were lucky since we never went into full lockdown so a game a week was always feasible, more during holidays and during stricter lockdown since there was nothing else to do anyway.

Kings of War, mostly online.

A little Gaslands in the before COVID sent us all home.

What's my 2020 look like....

*D&D (5e) - counting tonight, 45 sessions of the Thur. night game. This is our typical average for a year.
D&D (5e) - 7 sessions of the "shop game" played at the local shop early in the year. And then the pandemic ended that.... And since the shop changed hours on the day it ran it's also not likely to return.
AoS (Path to Glory league) at the shop - 6 games. And then pandemic fouled it all up....
*AoS (matched) about a dozen games since the pandemic
*40K (matched) - about a dozen games of 8th/9th, pretty evenly split.
40K 9e (Crusade) - 5 games, Oct - present, all carefully arranged etc.
Flames of War (WWII) - several games back in Jan/Feb
Flames of War (WWIII Team Yankee) - several games back in Jan/Feb.
Flames of War (WWI) - 1 game in early Jan.
Black Seas by Warlord (sailing ships) - 1 game back in Jan.
Gaslands - 2 games this summer as a test of both system & interest. ++ Just crafting cars/terrain & waiting out the pandemic.
*Axis & Allies (assorted versions) - 15 games we play every few weeks. Winner picks the next version. The big 2020 difference is that with some of the players off/out of work the circle has played MORE A/A March+. We used to play once/month. Now it's twice. I've only made it to 15 of the 22 games :(.
*Many many board-games.

*Select circle: Playing games with these people during the pandemic poses no more risk to any of us than was already present during the week. Or will be present next week. So we might as well order a pizza, roll some dice, & spend another 6 hrs together....

I've also had plenty of time to build & paint.
Building?
Well, I'm always building something.... But this year I: spent several months doing the thread rigging on 3 Black Seas fleets (very tedious), built around 3k pts of new Necrons, built a Brown Water Navy river boat force for Flames of War (Nam), built 3k pts of AoS Lumenoth Elves, around 200 random minis (assorted systems/companies/uses), and now I'm starting on the SM 1/2 of my Indom box + several Primaris tanks.
I also crafted a few Gaslands cars, some terrain for that system, and a whole mess of trees.
Painting?
Normally I tend to paint randomly as the whim strikes. Or when there's a pressing need (say I'm working on commission).
This year though: 3 Black Seas fleets (I HAD to paint them 1st before doing the thread rigging). Just over 300 goblins (+ some orcs & warmachines) for AoS. About 50some of those random minis I built. The infantry portion of the Brown water 'Nam force. And everything else listed in the above build, save 6 Necron Tomb Blades & the Primaris stuff is primed & much has its base coat.
Terrain wise I painted up some Gaslands stuff.

WM/H and quite a few games of Malifaux with the latter being of more interest to me now TBH.

Rest of the year has been all about painting. Not only painting my models for the tabletop but also working on some random bits and bobs as well as branching out into busts and display pieces.

I did think about trying to get online games but it really doesn't appeal to me. War gaming is a in-person hobby for me

Before March think had a single game of Epic and a couple of board game evenings (Kingdom Death, Massive Darkness, X-Com)

Since March not really done anything. Have asthma which definitely put me on the list of people that need to be careful around covid, as well as usually gaming at a 'vulnerable' person's house, and as much as I love wargaming it wasn't worth dying for!

So since then it's nearly been all online board games, and a lot of painting, modelling and getting campaign stuff ready for hopefully a more active 2021.

3 games of 9th edition 40k following lockdown and a move away from my old gaming group to Edinburgh, before March I managed a couple of games of 8th edition.

Haven't tried TTS as that's a pretty big time commitment but I would like to!

I played two or three games each of Fallout Wasteland Warfare and Star Wars Legion before March. Since then I only played two games of Bolt Action.

Hardly a year of plenty, but at least all games I did play were great fun.

About 4-5 games of AoS
2 3-4hr sessions of AoS coop mode
7-8 runs of RWBY: Combat ready boardgame
1 match of Infinity
2 matches of Zone Raiders
3 games of Dropzone Commander
2 games of Root boardgame
1 match of Malifaux 3rd ed.

Root and RWBY have been the definite high points, which makes me question the miniature-side of this hobby thing...

Appallingly little.

2 games of Adeptus Titanicus
2 games of Necromunda
1 game of Frostgrave

All before the March lockdown farce. And that's it.

In order of most common:

A Song of Ice and Fire, it quickly became my main game just prior to lockdown. It also has a good tabletop simulator mod, so I kept it up.

Star Wars Legion, learned it on tabletop simulator and it's my solid #2 game right now

Warhammer Underworlds, I used to play it at work, but have recently go the steam version

Marvel Crisis Protocol, another game I learned on tabletop simulator. The X Men got me interested and Warcry's starter set price pissed me off enough to start this instead