Thinking ahead to 2019...and back over 2018

Forgotten Realms action at Dice Saloon

Well, that's almost it folks. 2018 is drawing to its conclusion. It has been a relatively busy year on the gaming front, which is a good thing. I've had the privilege of meeting and gaming with some new people and trying out some new games. You can't ask for more really.

I managed to get to Dragonmeet and unboxed and played both Cubra Libre and A Distant Plain from GMT's COIN series. My Frostgrave campaign has rumbled on sporadically, while a projected Blood Bowl tournament sadly has come to nought for the time being. But I managed to get some Vietnam gaming in and played in a suitably ridiculous Judge Dredd excursion into the Cursed Earth.

Other highlights have included Trail of Cthulhu, where the protagonists of a WW1 scenario have gone on to further perils in Egypt, and the completion and execution of an Achtung Cthulhu WW2 scenario, featuring the German Kriegsmarine in December 1939.

I've also parachuted in occasionally on a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, a hex crawl which has allowed for party members to appear and disappear sporadically. My 10th level druid has become somewhat of a Gandalf figure, occasionally there, but frequently away on other business.

I've also tried to keep up with a parallel Adventures in Middle Earth campaign, where redoubtable hobbit scholar Bagbo Biggins was reborn after his seeming demise at Linden Way to help with the defeat of a brooding evil in Mirkwood. Bagbo now has a new role as a treasure hunter working for soothsayer Ragnar MacDervish in Frostgrave - more on that in a future post.

Given how busy I've been on the work front this year, it has been quite gratifying to look back on 2018, and realise just how much gaming I was still able to pack in.

Brighton in 2018

But now to the year ahead...

Elvis appeared in Judge Dredd

An exercise I've performed in the past, and with limited success, has been laying down some plans for the future - what I'd like to try to achieve on the gaming front in 2019. These plans rarely survive contact with temporal reality, but still, it is an entertaining exercise to ponder these alongside New Year resolutions.

Achtung Cthulhu 1940 - with the 1939 chapter now on the playing table, it will be time to start brainstorming the sequel. This takes place less than six months after the events in the Hebrides, as a British agent travels to Istanbul to awaken a sleeper cell there that used to be active in WW1. I may run 1939 again at Free RPG Day in June if I can make it to that.

Planescape - my pal Ben has been muttering darkly about running a Planescape campaign using D&D 5e...I missed out completely on Planescape first time around in the 1990s, and Wizards has deigned not to support it thus far with the new edition. But if someone can put in the homework to run it with 5e, all the better in my view.

WW2 skirmish - I'd like to focus on a small number of projects in 2019 and one of these is likely going to be playing some platoon level WW2 games. My objective is to eventually write my own home brew rules set, but to get there, I still need to test out some other games, including the likes of Bolt Action, Battle Group, Combat Patrol and Chain of Command.

Frostgrave - this is a great little game, short, tense, playable in an evening and not bogged down in complexity. It is a worthy successor to Games Workshop's old Mordheim game from the 1990s, and I think its success has been what has delayed any foray by GW into the relaunching of Mordheim. I've enjoyed the campaign thus far and another Frostgrave adventure took place this month, when the parties went underground for the first time to raid a lost library. Kelvin got the better of me, 3-2!

Conan - this year I did some Conan gaming in January using RuneQuest and it seemed to go quite well, although since then both my kids seem to have become very busy with their academic and social lives and the exploits of the thieves of Shem have fallen a little by the wayside. I'm pondering whether to start a new campaign using D&D, but adding in elements from the old d20 Conan game and taking some hints from the approach to D&D taken by the writers of Adventures in Middle Earth. I'm going to feel my way on this one, but think I'll again go with a bunch of rogues in Shem, this time assaulting the Tower of the Serpent.

Viscounts & Vagabonds - yes, I've been talking about this for ages, but in 2019 I really do want to see if I can start the ball rolling on V&V. This is my game of politics, intrigue and social climbing set in Hanoverian England. Part of me is still leaning towards adding elements of urban fantasy to this as well, although it could just as easily be played straight.

Colonials - my colonial armies have been sadly neglected recently. It would be good, should the opportunity arise, to get them on the table again. I'd like to also beef out my Sikh army to give my East India Company boys some daylight. Again, this is one that boils down to choice of rules. I've accumulated a fair few now. I really need to get the paint brushes out and get to work on these figures and do the Sikh Khalsa some justice. I think one of my NY resolutions needs to be to either paint these guys or sell them.

Trail of Cthulhu - I've absolutely no idea where my ToC series is going, other than into the bowels of an Egyptian tomb by the looks of it. Do come back to this blog if you want to find out what happens to Lieutenant Topless and his fellow reprobates!

I'm off to bed now, as I'm still recovering from the effects of flu. More from me hopefully before the end of the year, when I shall recount the latest tale from MacDervish and his band of stalwarts, as they descended under the haunted ruins of Frostgrave to ransack an ancient library. Who should they find down there - none other than some familiar looking goblins...