Happy 2026 everyone!
So here we are, a quarter of the new century done already and what are we going to do with the rest of it? Well here are the thoughts of some of the key ZATU bloggers with what they are going to do and, in the case of those who’ve done this before how well they did against their previous resolve.
2026 is the Year of the Horse so let’s saddle up and get going!
Steven Gibney
At the start of the year my resolution was to “go big” and tackle some larger games, mainly by adding a few big games to my collection. If I’m being honest it goes into the category of mixed success. I did manage to play some bigger titles, though not always the ones I'd planned. Deep Regrets turned out to be much larger than expected—not necessarily in box size, but in the surprising amount of strategy involved. On the simpler side, Potion Explosion has been one of my highlights. With its tray of marbles and massive stack of potion tiles, it's big in its own way, and it quickly became a family favourite.
On the other hand, I still haven't managed to carve out time to play Scythe as much as I would have liked, my wife and I have played it but I’ve yet to introduce it to my main gaming group. It remains sitting on my shelf, intimidating but tempting. Maybe this will be the year.
Looking ahead, I want to take things in a slightly different direction. I've been having fun doing some solo play recently, and I've realized I have half a dozen games sitting in my collection that have solo modes. There's Mycelia and Scythe on the larger side, and even Welcome to the Moon and Power Plants have solo modes I've never explored.
Hopefully, by this time next year, I'll have discovered some new favourite solo experiences - and perhaps finally gotten Scythe back to the table, even if it's just me playing!
Director Dan Street-Phillips
Last year's resolution was to focus more on small box games due to moving to a smaller flat with less shelf space for my ever expanding collection. I am happy to say that throughout 2025 I did indeed find great small box games to fill my shelves with highlights being Rebel Princess, a trick taking game with a twist, The Gang, a cooperative take on poker and Flip 7, an amazing push your luck card game that seems to have exploded onto the scene. It even brought the purchase of Energy Empire, the new reimplementation of The Manhattan Project games. This was probably the first of modern worker placements when it originally came out, and with that being my favourite game mechanism I was thrilled to see that this new version came in such a small and tightly packed box!
This got me thinking about 2026. Going into this year I am going to focus on those mechanisms that I love and narrow down the games I have in that genre to find the ones that I truly can play over and over again rather than filling my shelves with lots of games that essentially do the same thing. Being the tabletop magpie I am, the shiny new will always catch my eye but I hope to focus a little more on curating my collection rather than simply collecting for collecting’s sake. I already feel 2026 will be a challenge!
Luke Pickles
I tend to steer clear of a resolution. At any time, not just new year’s. Mostly for the turn of phrase, which for some reason, doesn’t sit too well with me. Maybe it’s my lack of willingness to accept there’s anything wrong that I need to dramatically fix. The exception to that is my space for board games, and my much lessened play time these days. Because of work and other life things happening last year, my gaming has been reduced to Board Game Arena and about 25% of my usual physical plays. A drop from around 500 to 184. So this year, I’m resolving to play all of my games at least once. With my collection currently standing at 180 games, plus expansions and spin offs of the same title (looking at you, Unmatched, Dice Throne and Villainous!), which is a play rate of about 4 a week.
Which I’m hoping I’ll be able to do easily with my new gaming table. This is probably my true objective – to bring the pay/play ratio down!
Ross Coulbeck
So here I am again, just a boy, looking at his New Year's resolutions, asking himself what happened. Well ok it wasn't too bad, I did pick up some games that have been sitting on my shelf for too long, but maybe not enough, so let's keep that one. Learning/enjoying games I own more and not focusing on new games. I’ve also been enjoying playing some solo RPGs, specifically Colostle. It’s great fun and gives you a bit of solo down time, which is good for mental health. So I’d like to keep that going into the new year as well.
On the miniatures front, I’m going to take a short break for a month to give myself a reset and figure out what I’d like to focus on. That said, I got the Star Wars Shatterpoint core set for Christmas, so this year is going to be very Star Wars focused. I can’t wait! Apart from that I think some more Warhammer books are calling me. I always feel more excited for the miniatures when they are connected to stories I’ve read, so I’d like to step that up a gear this year. Oh and in case anyone was wondering, yes, the Cheesestealer Cult is going well and is a lot of fun!
Ian Paczek
What do I want to achieve this year? Well, there’s “Blue Prince” that I’m halfway through. It would be nice to find my uncle’s 46th room in his 45 room mansion. So, that’s one thing – make some time to get the little grey cells churning.
Next, I think I need to inventory my board game collection. I mean, I’ve used BGG, but it’s probably out of date as games arrive and life gets in the way. So, I need to check that everything I have is catalogued and ones that I’ve sold are de-catalogued. Then, having properly figured that out, I can see what is on my “shelf of shame” and focus on getting them to table.
Two come to mind straight away and they are both solo games – Final Girl, Nemo’s War. So, after the inventory, 2026 should be the year of solo. I have a few Final Girl episodes to tackle and that sounds just perfect for cold winter nights.
Finally, I seem to have a lot of minis that are all a rather unattractive and utilitarian shade of grey. I need to change that – so I declare 2026 to be the year of inherited mansions, cataloguing, unshaming, solo gaming and mini painting.
Steve Peach
With soo many games in the game room, a wonderful table to play them on and a wishlist that keeps on growing, one could argue I should have the resolution of spend less on games!! But that would be boring and impractical given I already have tickets for To Boldly Game and the UKGE, not to mention any Kickstarters I have on order. It will only take great new releases to very quickly ruin my new year’s resolution.
Therefore, I have decided that this year’s gaming resolution will be the following: to try and play at least 1 big game, 1 miniatures game and 1 co-op game per month. I pick these, because I love big games (I am looking at you A Feast for Odin and Inferno), and I am a fan of miniatures games, but these are often harder to table because of time commitments. The added co-op caveat is because it is not a gaming style I generally lean towards, but we now own a few so I do feel getting at least one co-op game in a month would be nice.
The best bit, is for January, I have already done 2 out of 3.
Neil Parker
Well, I don’t normally do resolutions as if I’m planning to do something, I’ll just get on with it. This year, however, I have a few that I’ll happily make public, largely because I should be able achieve them.
First up, is making a serious dent into my miniature painting. I have made a healthy start to my Warhammer Quest Cursed City models and I’m enjoying the game too. At some point I’ll also make a start on the Darkwater minis. If I can achieve just this, I’ll be happy. I have six out of ten Cadian shock troops already painted, but I’d like to finish off the set. I have plenty of other minis to paint but honestly, they are not priorities.
I’ve started a new job, so getting settled, then comfortable is a realistic goal. It’s a four day a week role and so along with this goal, I’m looking to make constructive use of the time spare.
Back to games to finish off with for me and I’ve got a Warhammer 40K Wrath & Glory campaign which is about to reach Tier 3. I’m looking to take the players to Tier 4 so I need to get planning. I think that’s it. I’ll be happy if I meet these resolutions over the next three to six months.
Panto Pete Bartlam
Looking back on last year’s resolutions I think I did as well as could be expected. As predicted Frosthaven did take up the first three months of the year until I called a ‘temporary’ halt. It’s a big, beautiful game in every sense. When I tell people it’s forty pounds they say “that’s reasonable” until I say that’s the weight of the box not the price! (I wish!)
Jacqui did get her final op but not in February it was mid-September! Fortunately it was a great success. Inevitably the delays chewed up a lot of time with endless appointments and unnecessary repetition. We went through three separate pre-op procedures.
Another time consumer was guiding our daughter Alessandra and Son-in-law Lewis through their return from New Zealand. This did mean we had everyone together at Christmas and played three drunken games of Hitster plus a surprising return of Trivial Pursuit after the Christmas Dinner.
The U3A games group continued apace with new members joining and we did play Western Legends and Big Boss though the most played was Heat. This is a great game and is flexible for different numbers of players. I have both the expansions Heavy Rain and Tunnel Vision so can accommodate 8 cars with the easy to use automata running any empty seats.
Talking of which I’ve just made a hand built expansion to 6 players for The Quest For El Dorado, my favourite game, and played it with the group to everyone’s acclaim.
The hard core game group came and went. Starting in January with Earth and ending after 10 months with Brass Birmingham. Not the game’s fault but the result of personal differences.
Ken, on the other hand, continues to provide excellent table-top miniatures support. Recently we’ve been playing through last year’s top game Star Wars: Battle of Hoth. These are the droids you seek. And this year we’re finally going to immerse ourselves in Ares’ War of the Ring – as soon as I’ve added the extra leaf to the table!
Which reminds me this year I’m going to focus more on painting up my miniatures and will finally get some Star Wars Legion action on the battlefield.
2026
So that’s it as we ride our Horse off into the sunset. How will we all do? Find out next January and maybe join in with your own gaming goals.
