My 2010 gaming wishlist #2: Boardgames

Preceding generalities in particular
I have already noted 2 key items on my 2010 boardgaming wishlist:

• More Battlestar Galactica.
• Other FFG games I'm keen to see hit the table in the new year are:

1. Descent- that old favourite, with a new Overlord at the helm.
2. Chaos in the Old World- a new game of which I've not yet got the measure.
3. The imminent Horus Heresy.

• New opponents to expand the sphere of my WW2 tactical gaming.
• Among the more recently published 2009 additions to my collection which I'm keen to play are:

1. Monty's Gamble: Market Garden: an 'area-impulse' game of Monty's ill-fated attempt to go down in history as the 'general who beat the Germans at their own game and brought the war to an end before Christmas'.
2. Panzerblitz Hill of Death: the most famous and popular WW2 tacsim ever, revamped; the 'Hill of Death' was Hill 112, which were the commanding heights of the Normandy battlefield in 1944, and over which the British and Germans fought several bloody battles before the final breakout in August.
3. Storm Over Stalingrad: another area-impulse game inspired by Storm Over Arnhem- Courtney F. Allen's groundbreaking 1981 design; which serves to remind us that the legendary Up Front was neither a fluke nor a flash in the pan.

And particularly?
There are 2 other boardgames the depths of which I'd most like to delve into next year. They're not both WW2 games.

Conflict of Heroes
Regular readers will be aware already of the immediate and strongly positive impression made on yours truly by Academy Games' 2009 Origins Award winner- Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear. Obvious sheer enjoyment aside, CoH interests me because it is a solution to the problems- of modelling WW2 battlefield C3i, radically different from that of the tack taken by Chad Jensen in his already successful Combat Commander series and his imminent Fighting Formations. I'm hoping that such conceptual richness will prove as fascinating in reflection as it will no doubt be thrilling in play.

Space Hulk
Space Hulk's presence on my 2010 boardgaming wishlist should surprise no one (although it did me at first, caught up as I was in thoughts of WW2 tacsims!). I have a shiny new edition still awaiting the application of paint; hulking is one of the peak thrills of contemporary boardgaming; and the rich background of GW's 40K Dark Millenium makes this fan favourite a hobbyist's dream.

I will be hulking in 2010. Watch this space! ;)

Related@RD/KA!
My 2010 gaming wishlist:
- #1: 2009 back at ya!
- #3: Roleplaying