Year in Review: My Lead Legionaries "Bests" of 2022

Best of 2022 was returning to gaming in person! Here is me (maroon) with the Sunday Night Crew

Looking back at this year, it certainly had some gaming high points. From winning my first Saga tournament in January to us returning to in-person gaming on Sunday evenings, 2022 had some winners. This post is a look back at some of my favorite games, miniatures painted, conventions, and more of the year.

My 28mm Mongol army for Saga, using Curteys Miniatures (which are a bit on the small side)

Favorite Miniatures Painted: 28mm Saga Mongol army

The first painting of this army was begun in July of 2021, but they then they sat untouched for almost six months. It wasn't until January of 2022 year that the second batch was finished. So, I am counting it as a 2022 accomplishment! Much like with my Moorish Saga army, I did unique robes and patterns on many of the figures in this 28mm Curteys Miniatures army. As I began cataloging each unit finished over the course of the year, I talked about the great variety of poses in the now (I believe?) discontinued line. I really liked the faces on the figures, too. I decided at the outset to just paint the eyes as black, and not put in the usual black socket, white slit and color dot that I do for most 28mm minis. Budokan's horde (my name for the army - a nod at the classic album by Cheap Trick) has done well so far on the tabletop, going 2-1, I believe.

    Little did we know when we fought over Swingle's Saloon, we'd be using these rules a lot!

Favorite New Set of Miniatures Rules: Fistful of Lead

On the last Sunday of February, we finally returned to in-person gaming with a bang. We were back at "Wallace's Brewpub" (the basement of my home brewing friend Mike W) after a very long time meeting Sundays online on Boardgame Arena. For the occasion, Andy S ran Fistful of Lead miniatures rules. These are a line of rules that use the same basic "engine," but tweak it for a huge variety of periods. In due course over 2022, we would also play FFOL for periods as far afield as Star Wars spaceship combat to my own Post-Apocalyptic miniatures game. The thing I like most about them is the choices a player is forced to make. They usually receive one playing card for each figure (or starfighter or whatever) under their command. These not only sometimes provide tactical bonuses, but also dictate when it will act. Thus, players must choose which card to use to activate which figure - who's going first, who has the best shot and is the best fit for that card's bonus, and so on. As I said, I liked it so much I chose FFOL for my own Post-Apocalyptic games over a number of other possibilities.

 

    This trailer from Sarissa Precision (HEAVILY modified) is my favorite piece of terrain I built in 2022

Favorite Piece of Terrain I've Built: Post-Apoc (or Abandoned) Trailer

Although it has yet to be used in a game this year, this trailer was my favorite piece of terrain I built in 2022. It took a lot of time as almost all of the surfaces were modified. I used corrugated paper for the main facing of the home, as well as corrugated styrene plastic of various sizes for "patches" and affixed to the roof. I used "Granny Grate" from craft stores as the bars over the windows. The interior is painted, as well (see the link above), though I did scale back my original plans. No shag carpeting or posters on these walls. I think I was suffering from fatigue over the length of time it was taking to build. In fact, there IS a second set that I purchased. After how much work this one was, that second one still sits unbuilt. Oh, I plan to one day (a project for 2023?). It will be a much simpler version, though. Maybe I'll build it as the manufacturer intended (minus the cardboard awnings which are not doable, in my opinion). Look for that in the upcoming year!

    The First Command Wargames crew ran four of our rules sets at Historicon 2022 to great success!

Favorite Convention Roadtrip of the Year: First Command Waragmes Trip to Historicon 2022

It had been awhile since we'd done this, but the First Command Wargames crew packed up our games and headed to Historicon 2022 in downtown Lancaster, PA. I was running two sessions of my gang warfare rules, Mean Streets. I helped Jenny run two sessions of Wars of Insurgency, Mike and Jason S combined and ran Song of Drums and Tomahawks, and Steve V ran the War of Austrian Succession supplement to his Seven Years war big battle rules. We had great turnout for our games. I know that all sessions of Mean Streets and Wars of Insurgency were completely full. For our second game of "To Kill A President" -- the modern skirmish scenario set in a fictional, 20th century African country -- we even showed up on Little Wars TV. One of the hosts was playing the president's faction and enjoyed himself quite a bit. That seemed to be the theme of the weekend. Not only did our players enjoy themselves, all of us loved the venue. The wealth of restaurants and watering holes within walking distance of the convention center made it a great trip. We will definitely be back!

    I attempted to run a Saga campaign for our regular, twice-monthly Saga Ohio gaming group...but no

Biggest Flop of the Year: 'Strongholds' Saga Campaign

I love a campaign! I love running campaigns!! So, it stands to reason that everyone else will love the idea of playing in a campaign that I am running? Ahh, what is they say about hubris and the gods? This was definitely my biggest flop of the year. I misjudged the mood of our local group that gets together at the Guardtower East once a month to play Saga. I figured that since we'd been meeting regularly for more than a year that people would be getting tired of random, one-off matchups. However, I think part of the appeal of Saga is that there are so many different factions or armies to choose from. People like building and trying them out. Most Saga players are always in that, "What's my next army?" pondering, if not actively painting it up. And once it's done, well, they ARE going to want to play it, right? So, a Saga campaign that locks them into the same army for an indeterminate length of time is likely to go over like a lead balloon. Which it did, proving that hindsight is 20/20, and hubris dramatically near-sighted. The campaign lasted all of one turn and died a quiet, unheralded death.

    After being snake-bit in recent tournaments, it all came together in January for my Picts' victory!

Biggest Success on the Tabletop: Tournament Victory at Game Table Adventures Saga Tournament

Not to brag, but I have a better than average win rate at our Saga games on our monthly game days. However, to this point, when I entered a tournament, I fared poorly. If I remember right, I was 1-1-1 and 1-2 in my previous tournies. So, I was feeling a little snake-bit going into Game Table Adventures' Saga Tournament to start off the year in January. I had decided to play the Picts from the relatively new Age of Invasions book. I'd been playing them the last few months and was having a good time with them. They're an aggressive army that requires a fair amount of terrain on the board, so that concerned me. I was kind of waiting till I showed up at the store that day to see what the boards looked like before I decided for sure. I checked with the tourney organizer on how one of the mercenary units that allows you to alter terrain would work out in his tournament. When I arrived, though, I looked around, and felt there was a reasonable amount of terrain on the boards. So, I went with my plan of playing the Picts. Check out the link above to read my account of my three games. Suffice to say, I went 3-0 and scored my first and only Saga tourney victory to this point. So that was definitely a high point of the year (never mind that it occurred in January...ha, ha!).

    We had 24 players show up to our ATC 2022 Saga tournament - great turnout, great time!

Best Tournament (that I ran): Advance the Colors 2022 Saga Tournament

A good bit of my hobby time this year was spent preparing for this fall's Advance the Colors Saga Tournament. Last year in our inaugural tourney, we had 16 players. My goal for this year was to hit 24, which weirdly was exactly the number of players I had. At one point, it was in the 30's, but a Covid outbreak amongst the active Fort Wayne, IN, community meant a good handful of guys couldn't come. Still, ATC is a great venue for a Saga tournament. There is a ton of space in the Clark County Fairgrounds venue. We could have fit many, many more players (which means there's room for this to grow...?). Players had a lot of elbow room and could spread out, which was nice. It was a VERY easy tournament to run, too. I had a bare minimum of rules or scenario questions. All of my players were friendly and said they had a great time. There was awesome prize support from Gripping Beast, Father and Son Gaming, Jarls Workshop, Game Table Adventures and Saga Ohio, itself (um...that would be me, painting up six warlord stands to give away!). We ended up having a tie with D.J. Andrews and Daniel Broaddus both going 3-0 to tie for the victory. Great time, and I look forward to next year's tourney, as well. Dare I hope for 30 players this time...?

So, there it is - my bests of 2022. Hope you had a great year of gaming, too!