2023 End of Year Awards

This is informal – feel free to submit your own favorite contributions from 2023!  2022 version for reference

These are my favorites from what I’ve done:

Fleet of the Year: For a fleet I created, I’d probably go with the SACCing Fivers fleet I used back in April, but also really enjoyed using Woelf’s Denial of Service Attack fleet (in Tampa) and this Spanish 0+2 fleet more recently.

Pictures of the Year:

With former Wizkids employees:

CG4 becomes the first documented game to surpass 10,000 total points in play.

Debut of the Maelstrom mat:

“Creaturegeddon”

I think I took more ship pictures outside in 2023 than any other year, but the various shots of the Super Rare Black Pearl at sunset in Mt. Rainier National Park are probably the coolest:

Game of the Year: Very tough to pick here… I did play a couple 1v1 games on VASSAL early in the year that were both very tight and exciting.  For a true personal favorite, I’d have to go with either my CG4 turn (linked above), the 4×100 in Tampa (also linked above), or the 5×40 in Bellevue with former Wizkids employees.

Video of the Year: I’d have to go with unboxing the Adventure Book.

Podcast of the Year: Finally an easy category! Without a doubt, the 8+ hour interview with Mike Mulvihill.

“Thing” of the Year: Meeting and talking about the game with Mike Mulvihill!

Theme of the Year: Probably taking pictures and video reviews of ships while in nature.

Event of the Year: I loved being in Tampa for Gasparilla Pirate Fest and the games that followed the day after.  Close seconds would be meeting up with Mike Mulvihill, Tiffany O’Brien, and Becky Wilson and her husband for the 5 player game in August, as well as moving my “current” collection from Washington to Vegas. The main event could have been WotC’s patent expiration in October, but not much news on that front so far….  As usual the CG4 turn was super epic, but I suppose that could compete for almost all the categories.