Thinking about game systems

Five years ago, if I thought about how much I'd invested into games systems, I would have said that Commands & Colors: Ancients was top of the heap. I have the base game and all the expansions bar the Spartan one, so six altogether. By the time the Spartan expansion had come out I'd realised that while I loved the game I resented buying wooden blocks when nine times out of ten I was going to play the game with miniatures or on VASSAL anyway, and that in terms of game play I was getting diminishing returns from the series. Of course, now I wish I had just got the damned thing, but it's too late for that!

Naturally, C&C:A is not the only system I've bought into. I have four of the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series by the Gamers / MMP, three of the GMT Musket and Pike series, and three of the Gamers / MMP Civil War Brigade Series. The card-driven point-to-point area control games derived from We The People all share common features, but whether you would call them a distinct system I'm not sure - I guess Hannibal, Successors, For the People and Barbarossa to Berlin probably are linearly connected, but Sword of Rome, Twilight Struggle and Labyrinth are not so clearly among them. I suppose at a pinch I could claim those first four games as part of a system.

The A Victory Lost stable is represented in casa Prufrock by four games as well, along with four of the Undaunted series and three from the recent Littoral Commander system. 

But as I pushed an order through for a couple of Memoir '44 expanions last night, I found that Memoir '44 had overtaken them all. 

I did a quick inventory: two sets of the base game, the Mediterranean, Pacific and Eastern Front expansions, the Overlord and Breakthrough expansions, the Terrain Pack, the Equipment Pack, the winter/desert board, The Winter Wars expansion, and of the battle maps Through Jungle and Desert, Khalkin Gol and Tigers in the Snow. I can now add to those Sword of Stalingrad and the Dieppe Disaster (well, I will be able to when they arrive in the post!). So sixteen items altogether, and probably somewhere in the region of $1200 spent.

It is bizarre that I will now baulk at paying $140 for a GMT hex-and-counter or card-driven game, but will pay that for two Memoir battle map expansions. It is especially bizarre given that I had for various reasons refused to have anything to do with Memoir '44 until a few years ago.

It made me wonder what has changed in the way that I collect, play and evaluate the relative worth (to me) of board games and board game series.

I think it comes down to a combination of circumstance, stage of life, and time in the hobby. 

When I first got back into board wargaming I was living in Japan. I got games from the US, from the Japanese version of ebay, or had them given to me by the very generous Pat Hirtle. At this time I was still discovering what I liked, and would often choose games because they were available rather than because they were something I had a particular burning interest in. This was a great introduction to the hobby, and while there were some hits and there were some misses, that process is vital to discovering one's tastes.

The longer I have been gaming the more I appreciate those games that actually get played. As much as I like the idea of having Grant in the Wilderness nearby, and of Barbarossa on three maps, Marston Moor or Breitenfeld there for when the moment is right, the reality is, for a busy person with a family, those moments come seldom. When there is an exploratory text on a Thursday for a game day on Saturday or Sunday, realistically, choices come down to games that you know, that you can set up and take down fast, and that can be played to completion in three hours.

Another factor I've come to consider is system longevity. Most of the successful boardgame systems eventually get updates or reissues. There are new editions with new counters, rules, cards, maps; either you update or you are stuck with a first edition in a second (or third) edition world. It doesn't mean you can't still play the games, but player aids, errata, glitch-fixes, living rules and the like are now not a straight fit. 

Ironically of course, Memoir has out a new edition of the base game, but as it is a modular system and fully compatible with previous versions it is not the issue it is with, say, the Great Battles of History series, where you might have to replace a map or a bunch of counters to play the revised version of a scenario. 

So what am I trying to say here? I guess the point is that I've surprised myself by investing so much into a system at which I previously turned up my nose. Why I've done it is essentially the same reason that I painted up all my 15mm figures: I will use them. I hope that one day I will get to play out the scenarios in 2nd Fleet, that I will get my hordes of 28mm fantasy figures painted, that I will be able to set up Siege of Jerusalem or War in Europe, but I know that I will play the Memoir '44 expansions I just ordered, and at this stage of my experience in the hobby, that is something I value.

I would love to hear how others think about the way they invest in games systems, so please feel free to leave a comment!