History, Medieval, Retrospective
Stuart Gorman
The Battle of Castillon – A Reflection

Today is the anniversary of the battle of Castillion. A year ago today I submitted the final draft of my manuscript for Castillon: The Final Battle of the Hundred Years War to my editor. Now, once again on the anniversary of the battle, my book is out and I thought it would be interesting to write something about the experience of writing it. 

If I’m honest, though, I feel kind of disconnected from the book now. I finished it over a year ago, and while I’ve re-read it in that time as part of proofreading and making the final tweaks to the text, as a project it has felt finished for a long time. In the intervening time I moved to South Korea and started a new job, and I haven’t had much time to think about what that day in 1453 might mean to me still. 

The Battle of Castillon – A Reflection

Eurogames

, , , ,

The Playte Tier List (Part 2)

, , , ,
The Playte Tier List (Part 2)

I have something of an obsession with Korean publisher Playte Games. I currently live in Korea, so it is very easy for me to buy their games every month thanks to their low price point, but even beyond that they also feel tailor made for my interests. They do lots of reprints of classic games from simpler times (I am curmudgeonly about the current state of many hobby games, if I’m honest with myself), and in small boxes that I can easily fit on my shelf. I hate big boxes, get out of here with that shit. Gimme games that I can toss in my bag and bring with me. I don’t have a huge basement, I don’t drive to my gaming meet up, please don’t give me games that take a boardroom table to setup and weigh 10 kilograms. So yeah, Playte is like laser focused on what I want out of games, even if I don’t love everything they make.

My enthusiasm for Playte has caused me to deviate from my normal reviewing behavior, which is to focus on historical games and wargames, and write about how I feel about their latest and greatest. I usually don’t review these kind of games, not because I don’t like them, but because I struggle to have much to say. I focus on historical games because I am a historian, so I have a lot to say about games that tap into history and try to represent it accurately. My compromise for my inability to say much about traditional hobby games besides “it’s fun” or “it’s not very much fun” is to do a tier list. I already did part 1, which you can read here, this is the Playte Games Tier List (Part 2).

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2025 in Review – Top 7 Games

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2025 in Review – Top 7 Games

Normally I start these posts with a rundown on my year in gaming and life, but not much happened in 2025 so there’s not much to report, especially compared to 2024 when I moved to a new continent and started a new project. I am still living in South Korea and enjoying it, so no news there. I started a new job in the spring, which ended up eating up quite a lot of my free time, especially in the autumn, so I didn’t learn nearly as many new wargames this year as I would have liked.

We Intend to Move on Your Works didn’t go into a total hiatus, but we also didn’t get very many episodes out this year, which I’m a little disappointed by. My project to play more Korean War games progressed by playing a longer campaign of OCS Korea, but I did not manage to try out Joe Balkoski’s classic Korean War game. Overall, it was a much better year for Eurogames, especially those published by Playte Games in Korea, than it was for wargames.

, , , ,

The Playte Games Tier List (Part 1?)

, , , ,
The Playte Games Tier List (Part 1?)

I mostly write about historical wargames on this website because that’s what I have the most thoughts and opinions about. However, I also love me a classic mid-weight Eurogame. Something German and from the early- or mid-2000s can really get me going. I would love to write more about them, but I don’t have anything interesting to say. In the words of a great philosopher, I just think they’re neat.

When I moved to Korea, I was interested to learn what, if any, games were being made locally. I had previously dug around a little in the Japanese board game scene when I visited there in 2019, but I had very little idea what to expect in Korea. I cannot understate my excitement at discovering Korean publisher Playte. This small operation has published several games for the first time, but it also republishes many classic German-style games with brand new art, usually lovingly made by artist Wanjin Gil. They are also known for their L-Board boxes, where the box itself unfolds into the game board – something that is sometimes brilliant and sometimes feels a bit gimmicky.