2025 - A Brief Summary - 2026 What to expect

Well it's soon the end of another year and probably time to take a look back on the past one, and to share some thoughts for the coming one.

2025 - Status

Yet another year, this is still a 'small blog' regarding number of blog posts and followers, but it's still the most active year so far with:

Blog posts:   59          (2024: 53)
Views:          109 000 (2024: 31700)
Comments:   260        (2024: 125)

In September 'something' happened and the number of hits on this blog increased dramatically. Usually my wargaming blogposts gets many times more hits than my model railway posts, but now it was the other way around. I belive this increased number of hits did not only happen to this blog, but to other wargaming blogs I follow as well. I don't think the interest and number of  'real' visitors have increased that much for the whole 'wargaming genere', so I suspect we've been targeted by web crawlers and search spiders, and that different A.I. services can provide better information about 'Wargaming' in 2026. It would be interesting to see what and where 'information' from this blog and in which context shows up again. If at all. It looked like this phenomenon only was active in September as from October on everything was back to 'normal' again.

So where does the viewers come from?

1. USA: 38 500 views (2024: 6302 views)
2. Hong Kong: 19 600 views (2024: 8750 views)
3. Singapore: 18 600 views (2024: 6540 views)
4. United Kingdom: 4 410 views (2024: 2023 views)
5. Mexico: 4 300 views 
6. Norway: 4 180 views (2024: 1855 views)
7. Brazil: 3 330 views
8. Vietnam: 2 020 views
9. China: 1 530 views (2024: 192 views)
10. Germany: 1 430 views (2024: 810 views)
11. Canada: 1 270 views (2024: 383 views)
12. France: 1 190 views
13. Austria: 853 views (2024: 100 views)
14. Netherlands: 761 views (2024: 187 views)
15. Russia: 477 views
16. Argentina: 470 views
17. Australia: 469 views (2024: 130 views)
18. Ireland: 424 views (2024: 94 views)
19. Iran: 405 views (2024: 121 views)
20. 'Others': 4 880 views (2024: 2990 views)

I'm not sure if so many actual viewers are from Southeast Asia, but I suspect most views from these countries actually are web crawlers or search spiders??

Last year I think many of the hits from Norway was by myself. This year many of the hits from Norway are still by me, but an increasingly numbers of them are by other Norwegian readers. It seems that model railway and exhibition blogposts are more popular by the Norwegian audience, and the wargaming blogposts are more popular by every one else but the Norwegians.

- And from which other web pages does the viewers enters from?

1. Google: 7 060 entries (2024: 197 entries)
2. Facebook: 2 695 entries (2024: 1878 entries)
3. Wargame Miscellany Blog: 669 entries
4. Bunker Talk Blog: 316 entries (2024: 236 entries)
5. Projects and Procrastination Blog: 257 entries (2024: 60 entries)
6. Duckduckgo.com: 234 entries (2024: 64 entries)
7. Wargaming with 54mm Toy Soldiers Blog: 166 entries (2024: 164 entries)
8. Bing.com: 133 entries (2024: 57 entries)
9. Re-directs from this blog: 117 entries (2024: 239 entries)
10. Oracle.com: 107 entries
11. Priceline.com: 71 entries
12. Duolingo.com: 69 entries
13. 54mm or Fight Blog: 65 entries (2024: 122 entries)
14. Glasdoor.com: 54 entries
15. Apartments.com: 53 entries
16. 'Others': 97 100 entries (2024: 28 300 entries)

I'm pleased that the blog has several re-directions from other blogs, and I am very grateful and appreciate all of you who are linking to it through your own blogs. - You all deserve a big 'Thank you'!!

- And what was the most popular views last year? 

1. More Garden Railway Rallies - 3 meetings in only 4 days (4040 views)
2. NEW! Kato Narrow Gauge UNITRACK (4020 views)
3. The Battle Benchy Board Game 1.0.0 (2540 views)
4. Räder müssen Rollen für den Sieg! - And a completion of the 'season' (2180 views)
5. Old West Mini-Wargame: Showdown at High Noon - A Wargame in a Matchbox Epilogue (1150 views)
6. 3 running-sessions and another Grand Opening - In just 10 days (981 views)
7. Benchy Battle (914 views)
8. One-Hour Skirmish Wargames (780 views)
9. "Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust" Dueling Game (684 views)
10. 1 BC (One Brain Cell) Toy Soldiers Rules (2022)  (653 views (2024: 391 views)
11. Print and Play for Free (2023 Prehistoric Wargame) (631 views) (2024: 401 views)
12. The Portable Wargame: Modern (2024) (614 views) (2024: 566 views)
13. Making "V"-miniatures on a budget (2024) (585 views) (2024: 172 views)
14. In war (-gaming) your soldiers need protective cover! (2020) (511 views) (2024: 292 views)
15. Wargame in a Wee Matchbox Challenge (Part 3) - The Finale (2024) (491 views)
16. Cowboys vs. Aliens in a prequel "V" Wargame (2024) (468 views) (330 views)
17. Frost and Fire - Intersection of Chaos (452 views)
18. FUBAR (2022) (450 views) (2024: 116 views) 
19. Close Wars (2022) (450 views) (2024: 134 views)
20. The Bots are Coming! (401 views)

... -And the least viewed post from 2025 was........

Two Grand openings and a Closure with 'only' 45 views

Here are some impressions from the wargames I played in 2025 (click on the text below the photos for a Battle Report):

One Hour Skirmish Wargames

One Brain Cell Toy Soldier Rules

Snowball Fight Rules

Wargame in a Matchbox

Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust Dueling Game

RISK

Lunge, Cut and Stop Thrust Dueling game adapted for ranged combat

Basic Battles 2.0

Benchy Battles

The Battle Benchy Board Game 1.0.0

Basic Battles 2.0

The Bots are Coming!

Holiday Season Wars Featherstone-style 

It's only been some 12 tabletop wargames played last year, but I've been busy preparing and running my garden trains as well. In 2025 I joined 22 different running-sessions on different Garden Railways belonging to members of our MRC and other friends.

2026 - What to expect

I've had several plans what to wargame or model in 2025, but sometimes these plans have been overtaken by other emerging projects and events. So I'll guess I'll have enough postponed wargames and modelling projects to keep me busy in 2026 as well (in addition to everything else "upcoming"). Which again reminds me that's just 2 weeks left for this. What do you wish for?

Me?! -1:32 scale reissues of the not so 'Modern' anymore 'Cold War' German, British, U.S. and Russian infantry.

Inspired by the illustration at the head of this blogpost, Linus and I had a good time enjoying some treats while trying to recreate it. It's not very easy trying to give a Jack Russell instructions to try to recreate a spesific motif and I think this was the closest we got:

The best shoot was actually before we started the photoshoot. Not as chaotic as the reference,  but still a Jack Russell and some army men:

I am very thankful to all of you that during the last year have been visiting or following my blog, reading it, and contributes with your comments. It all means a lot to me and you all makes it worth creating this blog I hope you all will continue follow, reading, comment and share your thoughts in 2026 as well. 

I wish you all the best for 2026, and I'm looking forward to keep following your blogs!

Happy New Year!!