Somehow, we're already in March, and in February, I managed another 67 games, bringing 2024's total played games to 148 in comparisons to 2023's 502. I'm hopefully going to post some series numbers of plays this year, although it's not an aim to play as many games as possible. The aim is to record more accurately the games I've played, 2023 was a very hit and miss. February feels like it flew by, with my focus largely being on A Gathering of Gamers. I thought I'd game slightly less than January, and not having a 3 day board game event would also impact the number of plays.
In stats, February was 67 plays, over 40 games, of which 4 were new to me. Apparently that translates to 66 hours of board gaming, although I'm not sure how BG stats calculates that.
I managed to somehow play 40 different games, with Obsession topping the charts with 6 plays in February. And despite that, I'm still not obessed with it. In my last game the marker once again became super stale and this churn of tiles that nobody had the reputation level to use, yes there's late game planning but when you see such a heavy high level reputation oriented market its difficult to enjoy.
But let's talk games, February started a great day with a games day of the War of the Ring, and what an epic game it was. We threw in nearly all the expansions, apart from Kings and we had an epic game that lasted all day, taking twists and turns, seeing the Free People of Middle Earth marching on Mordor, only for forces of evil to hold on by a single orc, with Gondor largely eliminated by their own campaigns into the depths of Mordor, Minias Tritith was ripe for the taking and somehow forces were mustered to take the grey havens from the elves. However, the shadow took Middle Earth and the free people fell to the hand of Sauron, and I can't wait to play War of the Ring again! War of the Ring was followed by games of Air, Land and Sea: Critters at war, a perfectly retheme of Air, Land and Sea. Retaining all the greatness of the original and a great new theme.
And what's better to follow a game day of War of the Ring? A day of Frosthaven, we managed two scenarios in a day, and ventured further into the world of frosthaven. It's huge, overwhelming, and almost too much. Frosthaven was followed by a game of Red Rising, which I won't lie, since reading the books, I want to come back to Red Rising and see if my enjoyment of the game has changed. The books have gripped me, to the point at which I've laid in bed the last dew nights hunched over my kindle reading chapter after chapter.
I've also played a couple of games of Ancient Knowledge and I honestly don't get it. It feels like a game in which, I generally achieve nothing, as soon as I've got close to something, I've been forced to discard cards by my opponents and found myself struggling to get anything from the game. Am I missing something obvious?
I managed a game every day in February, which is an achievement! Even on 29th February, checking a day off my list of days I've not played games on. In fact I managed two, Castles of Burgundy and Draftosaurus.
Boardgamearena has seen me massively increasing my amount of games played, I've found myself with normally 20-30 games going at any time. And it's been really enjoyable. I've also got myself regular games on chess.com which I've found myself enjoying the analysis of. And I've not lost a game of Chess all month, which makes a change, I was on a 10 game losing streak but I've turned that round and gone, I think 7 or 8 games without a loss.
February has also seen multiple plays of A Feast of Odin, and it definitely is one that is a must play with the expansion for me. I'd like to try it with the promos too, but I'm not going to play £10's for a few additional cards or tiles. I'm yet to master A Feast for Odin, well I felt like I did well and scored 119 but still came last! Although its not the winning that counts, it does feel like I'm playing against very good players.
Clans of Caledonia is another one that consistently hit the table, with a game pretty much every week. Again it's not one I'm great at, I made a mistake and that saw me lose about 15 points and was the difference between 2nd and 4th. I had accidentally sold goods when I should have took a random contract through a port bonus first and then seen what I needed to buy or sell. But it is what it is, but after 115 plays, I've won 9 of those games, meaning a mere 7% win ratio. But, I love Clans of Caledonian. It's one of my all-time favourites, and I can't wait to get it to the table, although I do regret selling my copy. I'm excited to see what the expansions when they eventually make it to release offer.
Akropolis is another game that made it to the table every week. It's simplicity is a key reason, its ease of getting it to the table and ease of teach, means I've been able to introduce new players to the game and importantly they've wanted another game afterwards.
And of course Wyrmspan made it to my door, after two plays, I enjoyed it more than Wingspan and there was alot more game there for me. But I'm not sure it's going to be anywhere near the top of my game lists, but only time will tell.
My least favourite game of the month? Probably That Escalated quickly, I don't think I'd actually play it again it was just all kinds of meh!
I also revisited Sagani, after recently getting Nova Luna to the table. And I didnt enjoy Sagani at all, so I know I made the right decision in getting rid of Sagani and keeping Nova Luna.
So all in all, February has been a good month, with alot of games, with friends and online. And I'm excited to see what March brings, its March 9th at the time of writing and I've only managed 4 games so far.. maybe it'll be a quieter of month, there's no Airecon for me either! But that doesn't mean I won't be gaming, see you in April!