It’s almost Lunar New Year (shout out to fellow Year of the Snake people), so what better time to take a moment and look to the year ahead? Last year I did a most anticipated games list, and since it was pretty good fun, I decided to do it again! First, though, I want to reflect for a moment on last year’s list and see how I did both in terms of predicting what came out and what I managed to play.
Overall, I picked eleven games for my most anticipated list, of which only six were actually released in 2024, which gives me a hit rate of just above 50%. I expect three of them (Seljuk, Halls of Montezuma, and Cuius Regio) will probably come out this year while the two others (Libertadores del Sur and 1066: Year of Destiny) probably won’t. Of the remaining six games, I managed to play four of them. Pax Penning and Sedgwick Attacks both sit on my shelf of shame, but I am confident I can play at least Sedgwick Attacks this year. Of those final four, Tanto Monta was ultimately disappointing but the other three were a lot of fun. Two of them made my best of list for 2024. 1812: Napoleon’s Fateful March is the one released title from the list that I don’t own, and had I played more than one intro game it may also have made the best of list – it’s a fascinating design but I just haven’t played it enough.
So last year I got about half of my guesses right, slightly worse if you factor in that I ultimately didn’t like one of the games, so I have a target to try an exceed for this year’s predictions. In honor of my forgetting Pax Penning last year and adding it on to the end of the list after I published my post, I am once again choosing eleven games. The list is ordered based on approximately how confident I am in whether the game will come out this year rather than how excited I am for them. Without further ado, then, let’s get to the list:
Most Anticipated Games 2025
By Sword and Bayonets by Allen Dickerson (GMT Games)
I didn’t get along with Great Battles of the American Civil War when I tried Into the Woods and Dead of Winter, but I’m generally willing to give the series another shot and By Sword and Bayonets is promising to be a good entry point into GBACW. I’m not super excited about the chosen battles, but single map GBACW with a manageable number of units promises to avoid some of the problems I had when learning it before. Who knows, maybe I’ll fall in love and P500 the upcoming entry on The Wilderness.
Korea: the Fight Across the 38th by Trevor Bender (RBM Studios)
I’m currently living in South Korea and last year I started what I intended to be a small project looking at operational games on the Korean War – it just so happens that at the same time there has been a surge in games on the topic. There was a solitaire game in a recent issue of Strategy & Tactics magazine, Vuca Simulations is supposed to be publishing an edition of Jun Tajima’s game from Game Journal, and there’s this upcoming game to be included in C3i Magazine. While I’m probably a little more excited for the Vuca game, there’s no real information on when it will come out while this should be out in the spring so it takes a spot on the list. I haven’t played any of the other games in the same system from previous issues, but they have been well received and I’m interested in seeing what this take on Korea looks like.
I would be remiss if I didn’t add that Rodger MacGowan, the man behind C3i Magazine and many other games, and his family lost their house and home office in the Palisades Fire. You can donate to their GoFundMe to help them recover and to get C3i back up and running as soon as possible.
Shakespeare’s First Folio by Kate Bertram and Kevin Bertram (Fort Circle Games)
I’ll confess that this wasn’t high on my anticipated list when I first heard about it – I wasn’t sure if this was the kind of game I’d enjoy. However, the buzz I’ve heard from conventions has been great and I’m hoping this year to try some more historical board games of a less wargame-y form, because it’s nice to have something lighter to break up the complex hex and counter games. Also, Fort Circle always does amazing productions on their games and I trust Kevin Bertram to know what he’s doing both as a designer and developer. Ask me in a month and I could probably substitute another Fort Circle game in here instead. The slate of releases they have set for 2025 looks really promising.
Gettysburg the First Day by Steve Carey (Revolution Games)
There is very little public information on this game yet, but it was being playtested at SD Hist Con last year and will supposedly be out this year. This is the next volume in the Blind Swords series from Revolution Games. Blind Swords is one of my favorite hex and counter systems and the first day of Gettysburg is an excellent subject to wargame – I love games with a large approach to battle element and the first day has that in spades. This topic was technically covered already by series originator Hermann Luttmann in a game from Tiny Battles Publishing, but I’m excited to see what designer Steve Carey and the development team at Revolution bring to this new take on the battle.
Oblique by Amabel Holland (Hollandspiele)
I have a low-key obsession with Frederick the Great, especially since I read Tim Blanning’s excellent biography of him before visiting Berlin a few years ago. I also love games that introduce the challenge of managing supply and even if I don’t always love them I am continually fascinated by Amabel Holland’s designs. I love blocks. All of those elements together mean that I’m very excited to see what Amabel does with Prussia’s gayest king. I must also give an honorable mention to A Battle, Furious, Bloody, Repulsive, Crimson, Gory, Boisterous, Manly, Rough, Fierce, Unmerciful, and Hostile also by Amabel, I’m excited for the return of Shields and Swords as a system but skeptical of the dry erase map, so it only gets honorable mention status while Oblique secures a full spot on the list.
No Turning Back by Dean Essig (Multi-Man Publishing)
There is a copy of To Take Washington sitting unplayed on my shelf, so perhaps I shouldn’t be getting too excited about more games in the Line of Battle series, but I’m a sucker for games about The Wilderness and as a newfound fan of OCS I can’t help but be excited by the release of one of the late Dean Essig’s last designs. Do I have room for four maps? Absolutely not. Do I have time to play it? Probably not. Will I pre-order it anyway? Almost certainly.
Thunderbolt Deluxe by Richard Berg, Mark Herman, and Alan Ray (GMT Games)
I’m nothing if not a disciple of Berg. I don’t always love his designs (see previously mentioned problems with GBACW) but I think there’s always something interesting to his games and I love his approach to crafting a hypothesis for each of his designs. Thunderbolt is his opus that was left unfinished on his death – a massive operational scale ancients’ game and the final part of his trilogy on the subject. Mark Herman and Alan Ray are finishing the design and GMT are packaging all three games into one box, and I can’t help but be excited to try it even if it ends up being too big and too much.
The Pure Land: Onin War in Muromachi Japan 1465-1477 by Joe Dewhurst (GMT Games)
I’m not the biggest fan of the COIN series – I enjoy it but I’m not a super fan, usually I’m content to move on after one to two plays of each entry. However, COIN’s take on pre-Sengoku Jidai Japan is the kind of thing that I can get behind – especially since it seems to tackle the role of the peasantry within the conflict rather than abstracting the populace away. I also generally trust Joe Dewhurst to know what he’s doing based on his previous development work for the series, so I’m tentatively excited. I want to give an honorable mention to Brian Train’s China’s War as well, which is another really interesting topic to tackle in COIN from a designer I have a lot of respect for.
Castelnuovo 1539 by Francisco Ronco (Draco Ideas)
I’m a sucker for siege games and I’m a sucker for block games, put them together and you’ve got my attention. This is a game on a somewhat obscure (to English speaking audiences at least) siege of a Spanish garrison in Albania by the Ottoman Empire. Draco Ideas have made some excellent games, the production looks beautiful, and the subject sounds fascinating, fingers crossed the game is good!
Baltic Empires: The Northern Wars of 1558-1721 by Brian Asklev (GMT Games)
Big multiplayer game about early modern competition in Europe with art by Nils Johansson? You better bet I’m interested! Brian Asklev designed 1812: Napoleon’s Fateful March which was on my list last year and is a fascinating game, and the buzz I’ve heard about Baltic Empires is that it’s amazing, so I’m incredibly excited. Because it’s a big multiplayer game I don’t know if I’ll get to play it this year (assuming it comes out), but I’m hopeful!
Crown & Courage by Petter Schanke Olsen (Tompet Games)
This is only coming to Kickstarter this year, so chances are it won’t deliver within 2025 given how these things go, which is what earns it the bottom slot on the list. While Halls of Hegra, the previous game by this designer and publisher, won’t be making my top 10 favorite games list I was impressed with how it brought Eurogame mechanisms to historical games wrapped in a stunning production covering a subject I knew nothing about. I don’t know a lot about Crown & Courage but it promises to do similar things and so it has my attention.
Top 5 Most Anticipated Games I Own
Last year I also picked five games from my shelves that I was most excited to get to the table in 2024. I managed to play three of the five. Glory we covered on an episode of We Intend to Move on Your Works, I wrote a brief piece about learning Musket and Pike but ultimately I think Banish All Their Fears is more to my taste, and I am currently playing a game of Korea: The Forgotten War. Sadly, neither Give Us Victories nor Granada: Last Stand of the Moors made it to the table, and for that I will have eternal shame. Hopefully this year I can do better than 3/5, but I am reasonably happy with that result all things considered. Continuing the precedent, here are the five games I already own that I am most excited to play in 2025.
Give Us Victories by Sergio Schiavi (Dissimula Edizioni)
Look, it’s simple, it was on last year’s list, and I brought it with me to Korea because I failed to play it then. I’ve clipped it and sorted everything into trays and bags. I swear this year I will play this game if it kills me.
The Korean War: June 1950-May 1951 by Joe Balkoski (Victory Games)
Next on my list of Korean War games once I’ve finished playing Korea: The Forgotten War. This is often held up as the gold standard for games on the Korean War and my copy of the Victory Games edition is clipped and sorted. Balkoski has certainly proven his operational game design chops to me via the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War series, so I’m very excited to see what he did with “The Forgotten War”.
A Greater Victory: South Mountain, September 14, 1862 by Steve Carey (Revolution Games)
I have three Blind Swords games on my shelf right now, and if you’d asked me last year, I probably would have picked one of the others as my most anticipated since they’re on Chancellorsville and Vicksburg, two battles I have a longstanding interest in. However, playing Fire on the Mountain last year left me both unsatisfied with that game and looking for a better take on the Battle of South Mountain, which this promises to be. Who doesn’t love grueling uphill attacks in the woods?
Verdun 1916: Steel Inferno by Walter Vejdovsky (Fellowship of Simulations)
A very recent addition to my collection courtesy of the Homo Ludens Secret Santa, this is a beautiful CDG about the Battle of Verdun that looks like it makes lots of interesting decisions. It’s a big ol’ game in terms of table space and CDGs are not my favorite games to play solitaire so I’ll need to persuade someone to be my opponent, but I’m really hoping I can get this to the table. Between this and Labyrinth (which I’m currently playing) 2025 might be the year I get back into CDGs.
Bulge 20 by Joseph Miranda (Bonsai Games)
An upside of being in Korea is that it’s suddenly much easier for me to get my hands on otherwise difficult to track down Japanese games. This new edition of a classic game from Victory Point Games got my attention because of Nils Johansson’s amazing art, and while Bulge games don’t usually get my blood going this looks like an interesting design and I love the small package it comes in. This one will require some work as I need to print out English references for the cards, since they’re obviously in Japanese, but the game is supposed to be relatively simple so hopefully I can convince someone to play it with me.
That’s my list, what games are you looking forward to this year and what games that are on your shelf are you hoping to finally dust off and play?
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