2022 Year in Review

The year 2022 is over and so it’s time to take stock and look back at the year. Just like last year it turns out I had a really busy time hobbywise and got a tremendous amount of things done.

Imjin River Korean War board

I finished the build of my Korean War Imjin River board, painted all the troops and designed the scenario for the three days of battle. This was the focus of so much of my activity across the year and resulted in some of my biggest highlights.

• I joined Tom Katzy on Episode 58 of the Hobby Support Group Podcast to talk about building the board and refighting the battle. Tom and Ed were able to play a few turns of the battle at Warfare where Tom’s legendarily poor dice rolling caused the Chinese to fall behind schedule.
• I got to meet quite a few of the guys from Little Wars TV at Joy of Six including Greg, Steve, Tom and Miles.
• I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that fathers, uncles and relatives fought in Korea. Almost all say that the veterans wouldn’t talk about it.
• A significant number of readers of this blog have said hello - thank you for reading and for introducing yourselves it means a great deal to me.
• The guys at Wargames Illustrated were kind enough to publish two articles on the board fulfilling a long term ambition I’ve had for 30 years
• The board won best participation game at Partizan and best in show at Phalanx. The Hobby Support Group podcast awarded it Best terrain project for 2022 and I was voted the favourite guest on the podcast.
• Refighting the battle at Fiasco in Leeds the Glosters were reduced to just 5 stands, from their original 31, at the start of the penultimate turn. Each of those stands were on 4 disorder, where a 5^th destroyed them. The Glosters were literally hanging on by the skin of their teeth, just as their historical counterparts had done.
• The Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum have agreed to take the board on long term loan- I will talk more about that in a future blog post.

 

Permanent Hobby Space

I have managed to persuade the wife to let me have a permanent hobby space. I have completely refurbished a largish room to create a space to be able to build more models and wargame in. I will post shortly with more details on this as I am now finalising the organisation of my tool walls.

 

Hobby Highlights 

• I got to game in Dan Hodgson’s war room again! This time David Wasilewski and I got to play test Dan’s Khartoum game on his fabulous 14ft by 7ft table. Over the weekend we played the game twice alternating between controlling Gordon and the defenders or the Mahdist forces. The Mahdists won both times. David defeated my forces 1 day earlier than I was able to defeat his, however I am certain that without my goading he would have waited several more days before attacking. I therefore claim a Moral victory! It was an awesome experience and a brilliant weekend. I believe Dan will be taking this to Hammerhead so make sure you check it out if you are there. A really big thanks to Dan and his wife Julia for their hospitality, and I’m looking forward to welcoming Dan to my wargames room shortly.
• I got to wargame on my Arnhem board, in Arnhem, on the Arnhem anniversary weekend. I caught some of the re-enactments and the parachute drop on Ginkel Heath.
• Whilst I haven’t posted much on the blog I have passed 50000 page views.
• Work on the WW1 version of the rules, All Hell Let Loose Great War, is progressing well with a host of core mechanics created, tested and approved.

 

Passing Regrets

• Neither of my kids are showing any interest in wargaming. I taken my kids with me to a number of shows this year, and whilst generally they both have a good time at shows they have no interest other than that. Both of them are still into Dungeons and Dragons and the eldest has now started painting his D&D minis, so I still have hope, but currently, I consider my job as a Dad only part done.
• I didn’t blog as frequently as I could have done
•  I didn’t produce any YouTube content at all.
• Other than shows and events I didn’t get much wargaming in, but it was still much more than I managed in 2021.

 

All in all I think 2022 was an excellent year. I am really excited about the future but I will cover my plans for the great things I want to do in 2023 in another post shortly.

 

Keep your dice rolling!

Charles the Modeller