Editor’s Note: If you’re used to seeing only Fantasy Football posts on the blog, your confusion is understandable. “My friend Jackson Warfield” has joined me to expand on one of my other major hobbies.
No better way to start writing about board games than to talk about the wellspring from which my game nights flow.
I’ve seen a number of different formats for Check Out My Collection (COMC) posts on Reddit. This one won’t follow any of them – though I’ll eventually put it on Reddit. I’m going to go “shelf by shelf” through all the wall-cardboard I’ve amassed at this point in my gaming career.
I know what you’re thinking – 17 years? Long time, what’s up with that?
Note: Unless specified, all game links are referrals to help support the blog.
I had 4 different “starting” points to choose as the time when I “entered the hobby”. Here they are, roughly:
Option 1: The first time I played a notable non-mass-market board game and genuinely liked it (1998 – the game was Field Command [BGG]).
Option 2: When I started playing non-mass-market board games regularly (2006 – the primary games were Catan and HeroScape).
Option 3: Imperial 2030 knocked my socks off and I never looked at Risk the same way again (2010, I believe).
Option 4: When I went nuts, started curating a collection, tracking it on BGG, logging games played, etc. (2017 – all my BGG “games played” before roughly the 2nd half of 2017 are estimated).
I went with option 2. The amount I played HeroScape and Catan, with plays of modern games like Race for the Galaxy and El Grande [BGG] sprinkled in, is enough for me to say I was “in”.
Without further adieu, let’s take a tour of the Warfield game warehouse household. All game links are Amazon referral links if referral links exist.
Shelf #1 – Home Base
Nice shelves, but why are we looking at the FRONT of a bunch of expansion boxes? This is actually in my unfinished basement. There’s a gray concrete wall behind this, and I used a mix of expansion boxes, binder clips, and MacGyver ingenuity to get it all covered up.
One day this collection will reside in a room that’s less dungeon-like…but this is the core of it all, for now.
What kind of games do you tend to like? My taste in games is pretty varied – I have just as much fun playing a good party game as a heavy euro, provided they were busted out at the right time and in the right context. I really like trying widely acclaimed games – especially lately as dad life has taken up a lot of would-be gaming time. I rarely regret trying a highly ranked title.
If I had to choose a favorite genre, it would be Area Control/Dudes-on-a-Map.
Don’t lie, how many of these have you actually played? Before March, 2020, my “shelf of shame” was down to a single digit list of games. Since then, I’ve probably bought as many games as I’ve played. Most of the yet-to-be-played games are on top of the shelves.
Cull much? Nope.
What’s Your Favorite Shelf? Probably the Strategy Game Shelf (dead center) with Dominion, Cosmic Encounter, Battlelore 2nd Edition [BGG], and Pursuit of Happiness. Cosmic and Dominion are all-timers for me – Cosmic because the fun upside is as high as it gets, Dominion largely because it’s in my wife’s top 5 (and I like it, too). Battlelore is a game I would love to play more and have the main army expansions for. Pursuit I’ve only played once and it was a bit of a drag, but I have enough hope for future rounds of the game that it doesn’t ruin the shelf.
Honorable mention to the Party Game Shelf (mid-lower-left) with Balderdash, Mysterium, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, and Dixit.
Most played game? From what you see here, and not counting the games that the expansion boxes support, Pandemic.
What’s the oldest game in the picture? The game I’ve owned the longest, whish is a decent proxy for oldest, is Balderdash. Balderdash has stood the test of time, IMO. I used to drive around with a copy in my trunk back in high school. This copy, in fact.
How about the bin at the top right? I highly recommend these organizers from Michael’s for organizing small games with bad boxes (like Qwixx), no boxes (somehow I got a copy of Unlock! The Formula like that), or playable duplicates of a game (I keep getting gifted Exploding Kittens in various forms).
Shelf #2 – The Big Ones
What are we looking at? A bunch of card boxes that hold all of The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, save for a few Gencon/Fellowship Event scenarios. Under that, we have two 90-gallon bins that together hold all the official content for HeroScape, including a copy of Magic: The Gathering: Arena of the Planeswalkers (M:TG:AOTP).
Why didn’t you move the red mat? No reason, it’s blocking a duplicate copy of M:TG:AOTP that I bust out when my 2-year-old wants to paint miniatures with me.
How can you have this much invested in more than one lifestyle game? My HeroScape obsession peaked from about 2006-2013, followed by LOTR LCG from 2014-2020.
It’s 2023…surely you have a new obsession?
Shelf #3 – Collectibles
You collect electrical panels? Not yet, maybe that will be my obsession from 2025-2028.
What is the current obsession? Warhammer 40,000 and miniature painting in general. In late 2021 I broke the seal on miniature painting and haven’t looked back. I needed a new “solo-able” hobby and took the jump with a few coworker friends so we have fun sharing progress. I don’t play the game very much, but combination of having a cool collection to look at and the prospect of putting the armies into action once an eon is enough to get me going. Trust me, once you get started with this…it’s called plastic crack for a reason.
Do you buy every Lord of the Rings game automatically? Not quite, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t want to.
What about the cards? I jumped into the Pokemon TCG resurgence in late 2020 after having not really touched the cards since I was 11. My kids like opening packs but aren’t quite old enough to play the game yet.
Meanwhile, the combined value of the baseball and sports cards is less than the boxes they’re packaged in. Except there’s one or two cards in there that came with issues of Sports Illustrated For Kids that are surprisingly worth something.
Shelf #4 – Future Gifts and The Time Before Time
Future gifts? To Yourself? Maybe. Sometimes I see a game that’s a good enough price that I know it’ll be a solid holiday gift to a friend, relative, or one of the kids. Those are the sealed games on the top shelf. Sometimes I will change course just decide to rip one open and add it to the collection, but that’s the exception.
Which are the games and which are the reused boxes? The middle shelf is games in their original box, the bottom shelf is reused boxes. These are mostly games that have the old-school “wide” box that dominated before someone discovered how to actually fold a board into a reasonably-sized box.
Shelf #5 – The Kids’ Realm
If you had to play one of these every day for the rest of your life, what’s your pick? It’s tough, but Zingo! isn’t that bad as far as Age 4+ kids’ games go.
Shelf #6 – The Cats’ Realm
What are your cats’ favorite games? Probably Pete The Cat: Cupcake Party [BGG].
It’s amazing where games will end up when you start introducing kids’ games into the fray. I don’t have a desire to keep them with the game collection, and I want the kids to have access to them, but I also consider them to be real games.
Is that everything?
Not pictured: I have a miniature painting backlog that rivals my board game Shelf of Shame at this point.
I also use another plastic bin with game bits inside to prop up my work computer monitor. A few years ago, my in-laws figured that my interest in games meant that I’d appreciate their cabinet of mass-market games (many of you have been there). I couldn’t justify the space, but I wasn’t shameless enough to donate them to the local library right away, so I ditched the boxes and packed them all into a bin the size of one large game box.
Thank you for accompanying me on a tour around the basement, I mean thank you for checking out my collection. I look forward to supplementing this post with gaming-related content from time to time.
Perhaps this menagerie inspires you to get your games played!
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