Hobby Year 2023 in retrospect and plans for 2024

 

Singing the Song of Ice and Fire

Pretty nuts... So I thought, that last year's (2022) 150 game sessions and 79 of the Song was a lot, but 2023 must be a record breaking year: I played 194 times and 134 out of those were Song!

Read on to learn about my hobby year higlights!

ASOIAF: Polish Nationals

 Largest Song Tournament in the World so Far!

With some mates from the club we had already discussed for some time, that visiting a tournament in Central Europe and specially in Poland (as they've had several large tournaments) would be cool. After a very positive experience in visiting Swedish Nationals in May, three of signed up for Poland. We expected the tournament to exceed 100 players, but it eventually 171 players from 7 countries battled it out. Many of the pictures are a courtesy from Warfactory Poland.

The Loot

Warfare 2021

After a couple years break, I was fortunate to be able to travel to a Wargames Show again - just before the Omicron variant of Covid messed things up again! So we dared beyond the borders of EU, all the way to the misty and far far away Island of Britain! Warfare was now arranged in a new location, I guess to make it safer. My experience from 2017 was very good, so I was really looking forward to this!

Hobby Year 2019 in retrospect and prospects for 2020

Year of the Song and Fantasy

That's the only way to put it, really. When I think of 2019, it is really dictated by a new game, The Song of Ice and Fire Tabletop Miniatures Game. I played lots of other games too, but this was a clear number one on my agenda, on any metric. Read on to learn how my hobby year 2019 was!

Salute 2019 Part 1.

Meeting friends, shopping and general goodiness

It was my second time in Salute (last years report here) this year and once again I was part of Dalauppror's team in preparing and presenting a demo game. I will post a separate "report" on that project. This post is about everything else in Salute.

Besides running a game and shopping, Salute is an event where I have the opportunity to meet face2face people and friends from my "international wargaming network". In this picture I'm shaking hands with Andy Lyons, whom is organising Saga World Cup this year. I'm organising qualifications in Finland. Read on to see what else was there to see, meet and buy.

Visiting Reading and Warfare 2017 -show

Wargames Tourism

Took the opportunity to combine business and pleasure and traveled to UK / Reading 

on Saturday afternoon to attend Warfare 2017 Wargames Show 

Definitive highlight of the day was to have long chat and a demo about Saga 2.0 with 

Grippingbeast's chief Chum Andy. Very interesting changes coming to Saga I must say!

Read on to learn what else happened!

Hamburger Tactica Day 2: Gaming with Friends

I woke up early to reach Tactica by nine, I had booked a slot for a Congo game at 9:00. On normal home Sundays I'd still be sleeping at nine... So committed.

I was even more happy when Micke joined the game as my team mate against two German fellows.

Hamburger Tactica - Day 1. Serious Shopping

First day of Tactica started with shopping frenzy,

focusing in to the Excellent fleamarket.

Hamburger Tactica - day 0: Lubeck

This time 4 out 5 from our Tactica-team headed towards

Lubeck instead of doing the @routine tour of Hamburg, as we have done quite a few times already. Change is nice!

Pikeman's Lament @ Little Wars Club in Stockholm

Business and Pleasure

I had a business trip to Stockholm and used the opportunity to visit my gaming pals at Little Wars -club in Stockholm.

As Pikeman's Lament had just been published by Osprey, we played a Great Northern War battle. You can find battle report by the rules co-author Micke here. Once again I enjoyed a great game in a beautiful terrain!

Some further pics and some story telling below.

UPDTED: Day 2. Visiting Little Wars in Stockholm - The Army Museum

The second day of Nopat-Club's "class trip" to Stockholm contained a visit to Sweden's Army Museum. An excellent museum and an obvious choice for a wargamer. After several hours in the museum we settled down to "fika" with our host for the day Micke aka Dalauppror and played a demo game of "La Belle Alliance aka Waterloo 1815" we have brought as a gift for The Little Wars.

Read on to see pictures from the museum and some comments on them.

Bolt Action Tournament

The Final Campaign of Bolt Action 1.0

A detachment of heroes from Nopat Club took on to a Bolt Action Crusade and headed to far away place called Lahti on an September Sunday. The day would not be peaceful...

Visiting Stockholm's Historical Wargaming Club Little Wars - DAY 1 THE GAMES

The Long planned visit

Here are the 3 brave Finns (Marko, Ludde and myself), that eventually made it all the way to this far western country of Sweden and two of our most generous host: Jesper and Micke

During the day we managed 3 excellent games... see how they went and how we felt about it all...

My Medieval 2015

Time to wrap up 2015

What a great year now behind us! I was fortunate enough to visit several Medieval related places and events during 2015 with family and friends. Here are few highlights...