Half-Year Gaming Report, 2025

29. Juni 2025 um 16:38

2025 is in the distant future, right? …nope, that’s right now. Actually, it’s halfway over already. So here are some snapshots from my board gaming in the first six months of this year.

The Raw Numbers

Let’s start with a statistical overview (as of June 29):

I’ve played 23 different games (slightly up compared to last year at this point).
9 of them were new to me (also slightly up).
These 23 games resulted in a total of 52 plays (lower than last year, but higher than 2023)
The month in which I played most games was January (with 17 plays), the months with the fewest plays March and April (4 each).
Of the 23 different games, 17 are historical. These account for 43 of the plays (twice the games, three times the plays compared to last year).
Just one of the plays was solo (utterly collapsing from last year’s 17).
32 of the 52 plays were digital, which makes for a digital majority for the first time since getting out of the pandemic in 2022.

The overall trend this year for me has been more digital and more historical gaming – or, from the other side, less on-the-table casual gaming. There are a few reasons for that, including me being mostly homebound for several months taking care of our cat which requires medication twice daily.

Most importantly: She continues to live a happy cat life (except for the few minutes in the morning when she has to take a pill that tastes very bitter)!

Besides that, I’m happy for the gaming I got so far this year. Here are some highlights.

BochumCon

Very early this year, I did in fact go to a convention – and what a convention it was! BochumCon is a small invite-only convention focusing on longer, more complex games (often with a historical theme) organized by designer Matthias Cramer. I got to play (among other things) two games of Weimar (Matthias Cramer, Capstone Games/Skellig Games/Spielworxx), one of Here I Stand (Ed Beach, GMT Games), and the very clever Heat (Asger Harding Granerud/Daniel Skjold Pedersen, Days of Wonder)… and I got to chat, connect, and laugh with a lot of nice people!

Rally the Troops!

I play more digitally these days because I lack some face-to-face opportunities, but I also play more digitally because the offers have gotten very good. My main platform is the admirable Rally the Troops! which allows you to play a variety of historical board games (especially block and card-driven games) in a visually appealing, rules-enforcing manner in your browser for free. I’ve used it to get back to old favorites like 1989 (Jason Matthews/Ted Torgerson, GMT Games) or Maria (Richard Sivél, Histogame) as well as to try out games about which I’ve heard my friends rave for years… for example, the game which I’ve played most often this year so far.

Austria (white) has recovered and is pressing Prussia (blue) hard in Silesia (east) as well as in the western reaches of Prussia proper. From the *Maria* implementation on *Rally the Troops!*

Julius Caesar (Grant Dalgliesh/Justin Thompson, Columbia Games)

One of my discoveries of last year – so much strategy and bluffing with so little rules overhead!

Pompeius (gold) holds Spain, Africa, and Sicily; but Caesar’s (red) march through the east all the way to Egypt proved decisive. From the implementation on *Rally the Troops!*

The struggle between Caesar and Pompeius for mastery of the Roman Republic requires sharp wits, calm nerves, and a little bit of luck when you cast the die crossing the Rubicon. The games are dynamic and play out in a variety of ways – sometimes, your armies stalk each other in the east, sometimes, you slug it out in bloody battles in Spain, and sometimes, amphibious landings turn erstwhile quiet regions into sudden flashpoints. May the gods favor you… but not too much.

I’ve played Julius Caesar around a dozen times since December last year, and it hasn’t lost its charm.

And, to finish this post, here are two new discoveries of mine on Rally the Troops!:

Vijayanagara (Cory Graham/Mathieu Johnson/Aman Matthews/Saverio Spagnolie, GMT Games)

I’m excited to learn new things from and with games. One topic I knew next to nothing about is the 14^th century in India. That, however, has changed a bit now due to Vijayanagara, a COIN-lite treatment of the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate’s hegemony under the challenge of invasion from the north (Timur’s Mongols) and centrifugal forces in the south (the nascent Bahmani Kingdom and Vijayanagara Empire).

My yellow Vijayanagara Empire has a few strongholds in the south, and, with the Delhi Sultanate (black) currently busy fending off the Mongols (red) in the north, will have some breathing space… yet the Bahmani Kingdom (turquoise) might fill the power vacuum. From the implementation on *Rally the Troops!*

Time of Crisis (Wray Ferrell/Brad Johnson, GMT Games)

Chaos – some games hate it, others, like Time of Crisis, embrace it. Whoever wants to be Roman emperor in the tumultuous third century must be prepared to deal with a whole whirlwind of challenges: Angry mobs want to drag your governors into the gutter, Barbarian tribes stand ready to cross the border into your provinces, and, worst of all, the rest of the Roman elite wants to be emperor, too, and will gleefully take whatever you possess. I have been thwarted in my imperial aspirations by my fellow bloggers Dave, Grant, and Michal, and have been loving every minute of it.