These are just from RiskyBack so feel free to post your own opinions on these categories and create your own.

Player of the Year:  BlackDog

I didn't know BD on ToS but here I have grown to respect him a great deal.  Not only is his uncanny ability to devise a strategy for a map a designers best friend but I have been shocked time and time again in games with him when he seemingly came out of nowhere to beat the heck out of me when I thought I was doing well.  I don't ever want to see him in a Gauntlet game that I join!

Everyone's Best Friend:  Yertle

Yertle is someone that I consider an actual friend although we have never met.  He is the most thoughtful, dedicated and honest person I have ever known in RL or Online.  He tests almost all of my maps as soon as they are designed and always has the correct input.  He helps out everyone from N00bs to the site Admin and is just an all around good guy.  Oh, he's also a heck of a player and all of the things I said about BlackDog are also true of Yertle but I've known him for a few years and it's just expected now.

RiskyBack Award for Design Innovation:  Alpha & Mongrel

I don't know where these 2 divide in the designing of the maps but Five and Seven are great additions to the map selections here and give a totally different style of play.  Alpha also has A Day at the Races that I personally love because of it's simplicity in design but need for complicated startegy to play.  It forces me to think a few turns into the future and I don't even like thinking about what is going on in the moment.  There is a style to the maps that is more concerned with getting the job done rather than making it look over the top pretty and I respect that.  A designers style is important and often not taken into consideration.

Map of the Year:  Castles by Cramchakle

I think it was actually made late last year but so what, sue me!  Not only is this map very pretty but it's the gameplay that staggers me.  The Castles are set up in the perfect places to enhance the strategy of the game and the use of the View Only borders and artillery borders are great and game changing additions.  This map was made before the Layers were available but you wouldn't know it by looking at it.  Cram did an incredible job on the map in every way.

Of course there isn't an award that I can think of to give to tom because he has just done too much good stuff.  Not only did he start the site but he is so active updating and respoinding to issues and making the site so much better on a weekly basis.  Thanks tom, from all the people at my work who would have probably had me quit to find a real job if you didn't make this site and make me OK with having way too much free time.

Thanks to everyone who plays here, designs here and posts here.  It was a great year and a lot of fun!  Happiest New Year to all of you and let's hope for more cool stuff, great games and RiskyBack maps that aren't very good!!!

I concur with everything except that last bit.  Several of your maps are some of my favorites..

Happy New Year!

P.S. New Year's Eve is amateur night.  The professionals get a room or stay home..

Thanks for the accolades on the maps.  I am not happy with my unmentioned map (maybe it will be fixed someday), but the three mentioned are fun to play.   For the Mongrel/Alpha boards, Mongrel and I discuss ideas (mostly his to start) and then I design them (Five entirely his, Seven a true collaboration, Nine is in the works, many that have been abandoned).  Unfornuately, I would rather have a playable map than a pretty map so you get what you get (I spend most of my time on gameplay and strategies and know nothing about graphic design).

I agree with everything else said, especially that Tom is a great admin.  If he was not so involved, I would not have gotton involved and probably would have quit playing with the death of the TOS.  Thanks a lot to Tom and also to all of the other dedicated players.  Keep designing, keep playing, and keep having fun.

Even though he has reviewed only one of my boards (for a mediocre "Average" rating at that), with a total of 62 under his belt, Yertle appears to be in line for the most prolific board rater award.

Aww thanks man.

I also have great respect for Yertle, who not only churns out great boards at an awe inspiring rate, but just generally seems like a very nice guy which I think is even more worthwhile.

And my person of the year award has to go to Tom for creating wargear, and doing a damn good job of keeping up with the massive volume of requests for improvements and bug fixes.  Beyond all that Tom seems to have a very good eye for simplicity and clarity which is so important on a site with as many features as wargear.  He seems to know exactly which suggestions to implement, which to tweak, and which to disregard. 

And in general Yay! for the the entire wargear community.  I don't think I've met a single active member who is negative and contributes nothing (although as the site grows I'm sure they will show up.)

Thanks for the shoutout, I didn't play on ToS so its not surprising you don't remember me.  At risk of giving up my advantage, I have some small advice to share with aspiring risk players:

Always attack with purpose.

Take advantage of the fact that most players seem to judge the threat of others by the territory they hold rather than the number of units they possess.

Sometimes the best move is to hit "End Turn" without placing any units or attacking, as weird as this might feel.

BD

*Edit - apparently I did play on ToS.