2016 was a pretty busy year for me, especially in all the ways that I didn’t set goals around.  This post is going to be about the gaming stuff that I did this year – if you’re looking for how I did on my New Year’s resolutions, you’ll have to wait until next year!

Computer Games

I played a fair number of computer games in 2016, but nothing that really sticks out to me as amazing.  Starcraft-II was something of a slog, but once I got the DRM stuff sorted, it went a bit better.  Anno 2070 was certainly quite a bit of fun, but didn’t really hold my attention for very long.  It was really great to play through Path of Exile again and see the new added content, but once I hit the brick wall of progress, I bored rather quickly.

I’m still playing quite a bit of Guild Wars 2.  I got John to play with me for a few weeks, which was neat, though I was again reminded of why the early game was so bad – having to spread out playing the main quest line between hours of grinding isn’t really very fun.  Still, I managed to do a fair bit of the Heart of Thorns stuff with my main, and I plan on doing more as I find the time.

EVE Online is always right behind though.  I kept up on all the gossip and events over the course of the year, and I have been subscribed off-and-on throughout.  I keep thinking that I want to try out some of the other aspects of the game, but when I’m in client, I can’t help but manage my advanced weapons pipeline.  It’s challenging and fun, and if I’m not doing that, I’m…  …Not making ISK?  We’ll see, I may try to do some other things next year, but, for now, it’s worth keeping up with.

Board Games

This year, I have spent a fair amount of time playing board games, which I am pretty happy about.  We’ve got our weekly game time at the shop, which has really taken off.  Every week, we get the chance to put in some time to our ongoing Kingdom Death: Monster campaign or our ongoing Lord of the Rings LCG campaign.  I’ve also managed to get in the occasional game of Mansions of Madness or Eclipse that keeps me excited about those games.

In terms of our Kingdom Death: Monster campaign, we’re actually doing reasonably well for ourselves.  We have been tracking the family tree of our settlement, and now that we all have last names, I’m proud to say that we haven’t yet lost a last name from those that had one.  We did end up losing our matriarch and our Twilight Sword, but we’re still persevering.

In the Lord of the Rings LCG, I’m playing a Rohan deck which is pretty enjoyable.  I’ve got Theoden, Eowyn, and Eomer, and a good mix of horses and allies.  I’ve been enjoying the game, but I find that I don’t really have a lot to do after the questing phase, which is the focus of my deck.  I’ve also been looking into ways that I can quest better as if I’m only going to be doing one thing, I want to do it well.

War Games

I managed to get a few games in this year that I was really happy about, though not as many or varied as I would have liked.

The Warmachine Journeyman league was a ton of fun.  I had a blast escalating my Rhulic mercenaries, and getting the chance to play with a bunch of new people being introduced to the game.  I like the new rules, and I found that some of the improvements, though minor, really improved the play experience, so I’m happy for them.  I wish I would have gotten the chance to play my Khador or Circle Orboros armies at least once, but that’ll have to wait until next year; I can take solace in the fact that Garrett and Harry managed to get some use out of them during the Journeyman league.

I also really enjoyed the Apocalypse game this year.  Running as many walkers as I did made me want to double-down and run more next year.  Also, I was happy I got a fully painted and good looking Leeman Russ on the field – even though he didn’t do anything, it was still pretty cool.

I didn’t play any Firestorm Armada this year, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.  On the one hand, I really want to play it more often; on the other hand, I don’t really have someone to play with.  I’ll have to figure out how to deal with this dilemma at some point, as it is one game that I have never lost interest in.