2025 Confessions of a Megalomaniac Wargamer and Amateur Historian

I wasn’t a happy chappy when I wrote my reflections on 2024. I did lots of stuff, but only played six games, and didn’t achieve many of my annual goals. It was a wargaming disaster. So what is on the megalomaniac agenda for 2025? Do I tone back my ambitions or try to make up for lost ground? Megalomaniac, right, so it has to be “make up for lost ground”. Same goals as last year, plus a few. As usual I present this as a brain dump of my active projects, i.e. those all projects that are more or less “in progress”. The list is then split into three parts: likely in 2025, unlikely, and background activity.

Likely projects in 2025

The big periods for 2025 are Macedonian Wars, Seventeenth Century (Thirty Years War, English Civil War, Northern Wars in Eastern Europe), the War in the North in South America and WW2. My rules focus is Crossfire, Tilly’s Very Bad Day (including Populous, Rich and Rebellious) and Deep Battle.

I’ll start with the War in the North from South American Wars of Liberation. John Fletcher really got my hyped last year and I’ve been furiously painting. So I want to get Bolivar’s Patriots on table using Bolivar’s Very Bad Day, my draft variant of Tilly’s Very Bad Day

I’m also revamping my armies for the Macedonian Wars and adding lots more phalangites. I will get them on table either using somebody else’s rules (the experiments continue) or another variant of Tilly’s Very Bad Day, but for the Rise of Rome (tentatively called “Hannibal’s Very Bad Day”). Finishing the armies is the priority. Writing new rules a distant and lower priority.

I largely retain the same objectives as last year for pure play Tilly’s Very Bad Day. We played only one game of Populous, Rich and Rebellious in 2024 and so finished the 1643 campaign year. In 2025 I want to finish 1644. We might have to drop down to two battles per year to achieve this – I’ll see who turns up. In the east, my Zaporozhian Cossacks are desperate to launch themselves at their Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth overlords. (I’ll ditch the idea of writing some more small Thirty Years War scenarios – it ain’t going to happen.)

For WW2 I’ve got ambitions for both Crossfire and Deep Battle.

For Crossfire I’ve kept the same three big aspirations as I had in 2024. The first is to play more games. It was bad in 2023 and pathetic in 2024. I don’t care if they are Eastern Front (1941-45), Burma Campaign (1942-45) or Italian Campaign (1943-45). I wanna get some kit on table. Next I want to publish the second official Crossfire freebie. I need to revisit Arty’s feedback and do something about it or publish without Arty’s endorsement. Third is to finish the revised anti-tank rules. (I’ve discarded the small aspiration to make some more feature buildings for Crossfire. That can wait for another year)

Lastly I want to play test Deep Battle, my Operational level rules for the Eastern Front. Hopefully publish a beta.

Yes, those are the same goals as 2024 but with the War in the North and the Macedonian Wars added. Insane. But this year I’m determined to get to “done”.

Unlikely projects in 2025

Here are the “active” projects that I don’t think I’ll get to in 2025. Actually some of them are now looking so unlikely that, if I’m honest with myself, I should start categorising them as “will never get to” e.g. Catalan Company. But the figures are so cool. And I have the source material. Oh, it is such a lovely project, and I have the unpainted figures, so I just must leave it on the list. I’m doomed.

Background activity

I have to catch up on my photography for Steven’s Armies. No urgency but I’d like to do some of these this year.

• Ancients including Biblical
  • Biblical
    • Hittites for Big Base DBA
  • Rise of Roman
    • Polybian Roman for Big Base DBA
    • Later Carthaginian Army for Big Base DBA
    • Seleucid Army for Big Base DBA
    • Later Macedonian for Big Base DBA
    • Gallic
    • Numidian
    • Sicilian Greek
  • Fall of Rome
    • Late Imperial Roman
    • Germanic Horde
    • Alan
    • Hunnic
• Dark Ages including
  • Arthurian
    • Strathclyde Welsh (Northern Cymry) including gods and dragons
  • Reconquista
    • Muslim wizards, paladins, sneakers etc
    • Andalusian
    • Murabitun
    • Almohades
• Medieval including the Reconquista
  • Later Visigothic
  • Feudal Spanish and Portuguese
  • Medieval Spanish and Portuguese
• 30 Years War
  • Dutch
  • Saxon
• Northern Wars
  • Zaporozhian Cossack
• Peninsular War
  • French Army
  • Anglo-Portuguese Army
  • Spanish Army
• WW2
  • Eastern Front
    • Soviet Motorised Rifle Battalion
  • Italian Campaign
    • Kiwi Battalion
    • US Battalion
    • German Battalion in Italy
  • Modelling
    • buildings / Ruins e.g. features on AYLAFRED, Commission Figurines, Iron Clad miniatures, Magnetic Displays, Mark IV Minis, Sarissa Precision, and Wargames Tournaments.
    • Railway Embankment
• Portuguese Colonial War
  • Insurgents
• 1967 Arab-Israeli War
  • 1967 United Arab Republic (Egyptian)