Another giant roadtrip just to play games and meet new people...
According to owner Gene Billingsly's talk on the Saturday morning of the convention, this was the largest attendence yet for a GMT West event. But I must be getting used to it as it didn't feel that way to me this time. By that, I mean I just felt comfortable. It was my third one, so I'm probably just getting used to it. So here's a rundown of what I played with a few extra pics of what I saw on other tables.
I'm getting used to the drive down from Calgary to Hanford and have started trying alternate routes to see more of the country as I travel. This time, I had extra reason to as I was dropping in on Richard Handewith from Revolution Games to pick up the most recent two Blind Swords releases and save on some shipping charges.
Naty and Grant play District Commander
I Still got into Hanford in early afternoon Wednesday, so I was fresh for my 8AM game of District Commander Bihn Dihn: Vietnam 1969 with Naty. This is from Brian Train and it's part of a series of four game he has using the same system, all published by Hollandspiele. Naty was a great opponent. This was the first time we'd met or played; we set up the game using David Siskin's excellent GMT West game-finder geeklist. Neither of us had played before, so we didn't finish the match, but played enough to see how the system works. It's got a lot going on. Rather than a simple move and fire type game, you have a menu of actions to choose from, almost like a COIN game. I was impressed enough to think I'd play it again. The entry on BGG says it plays in 120 minutes. I don't think that's true if you play the historical scenario, but you can set a limit of how many VPs you are playing to, so you can shorten the game that way.
Rebel Fury Chicamauga, near the end
Up next, I had a great chat with Jason Carr, director of development for GMT (it will appear on a future podcast), and then we played Mark Herman's Rebel Fury. Great game. We played the Chicamauga scenario. I had the Rebs and unfortunately missed my die roll twice to move Bragg, and I never made it over to the far right flank to cut off his LOC. This game was on a few tables over the weekend. And if you're interested in game development, make sure to keep an eye out for my interview with Jason, we really get into how the sausage gets made.
Jason had several demos out, including Twilight Struggle: South Asia Monsoon, which he is co-designing with Jason Matthews.
Lots of interest in this new Twilight Struggle game, including from other designers. Above we see Jason Carr (right) explaining the game to GMT's Kai Jensen and designer John Butterfield.
And finally on Thursday night, I met up with my podcasting buddy who's become a gaming buddy, Mark Johnson of Wargames to Go. Check out his podcast if you haven't, it's fantastic, and in a completely different format from mine in that he does deep dives into campaigns or countries or subjects, and looks at a whole lot of games at once. Here we're playing 1942 from the recent Compass repackaging of the old GDW Series 120 games. It was originally published in 1983, I think, and this is strictly a republishing, the rules haven't been "improved". At one point in our game, graphics guru Mark Simonitch stopped by and said, "Wow, They've used the original graphics files." He totally recognized what we were playing from the map. The hexes and counters have been much enlarged, however. A real game for old school hex and counter players. No step losses, real meat and potatoes stuff. Compass has done a nice job with this package. I managed to eek out a victory here, but it was a close run thing and had Mark devising ways he'd play it differently next time.
Friday morning I met up with Joshua. We've just finished play The British Way via VASSAL PBEM. Here I taught him the dogfight system in Revolution's Eagles in the Sky. We zipped through a couple 3 vs 3 dogfights, and then started a campaign game. Wow, this is where this game really starts to shine. Each player is given a roster of 12 pilots (of varying quality) and 12 planes. Missions are generated daily. For our CG, it was two in the morning and two in the afternoon. So you know the missions on a day by day basis. Before each mission, each player secretly decides how many fighters to send up (bombers or recon planes are added at no cost). And which pilots. Both players reveal, and then there's a chit draw to see if the mission is played out or simulated. If simulated, you get random results, but you won't lose anyone. If it's to be played, you get out the board and have your dogfight. After it's done, you record damage, losses, and count up victory points. Each pilot will get a little more fatigued each time he goes up. Some damage gets repaired between missions, but most needs to wait until overnight, and even then you cann't repair everything.
We enjoyed this so much we decided to keep our results and try play it live over VASSAL, an hour or two at a time. Should be fun.
After lunch, David Siskin and I played 1812: War on the Great Lakes Frontier from Compass. This was another one where neither of us had played before, but we were both interested in learning it together. It's a CDG but when you play a card you use the event AND the ops points. It has a land combat system where each player secretly selects battle posture (Frontal Attack, Refuse Flank, Feint Frontal, etc.) which you compare to see how many battle dice each side gets. And then there is a totally separate system for naval combat. I think David found it a bit too fiddly for his tastes, but I'm intrigued. I'm hoping it might be a PBEM candidate.
Friday night, I got back together with David and Joshua and we were joined by Paul for a game of Kingmaker. We were playing the newly re-issued version from Gibson Games. It had two great improvements. The movement system has been changed so that you're mostly just moving from large area to large area unless you're trying to zip across the board on roads. But even better, there's a new set of victory conditions. A card gets placed into the event deck about a third of the way down. Before the game gets to that card, normal VC are in play. That is, you have to be the player or alliance with the sole surviving crowned royal heir. If that unlikely event hasn't happened before we get to the special card, then the special victory conditions are triggered. I don't know if there are more than this, but we had both a time limit, and then the use of prestige points. There's a chart that tells you how to earn them and they are pretty much alligned with what you have to do in the regular game. It also tells you how many you ahve to earn to get a victory as a lone player and how many you need in a 2 or 3 player alliance. It was fantastic. It totally got rid of the long end game of turtling that can happen in Kingmaker. David and I won an alliance victory just before our timelimit was going to expire. I'm happy I got this new version of the game, though I have to say, there were a few components that are very very tiny. Seemed a stupid choice given the deluxe treatment the game otherwise receives in this remake.
Saturday morning is the traditional chat from Gene Billingsly about the state of GMT and then a brief word from any designers in attendance. The short version from Gene is they made it through the pandemic just fine and the state of the company is good. He also mentioned that they are going to change P500 slightly, and not list games there until they are farther along in the process. That way, there will be less time between when you make your P500 pledge and when the game goes to print. Here's a few notes from some of the designers along with some pics:
Mike Bertucelli and Jerry White play an unnamed prototype. I think it's a football game!
A protoype brought by Jason Carr. I think the designers are Chris Bennett, Daniel Bullock, Joe Schmidt
Mark Johnson gets set to play a prototype of Fred Serval's A Gest of Robin Hood
Mike Bertucelli - Wolfpack, his new tactical game about subs sinking convoys in the North Atlantic in World War II is almost ready to go to the printer. He's also got another Tank Pack coming for Tank Duel, and then is working on Tank Duel West to bring the series to western Europe.
Jarrod Carmichael - I'm not sure about this designer's name as I thought I heard a different name in the room compared to who's listed as designer here, but I'll go with my eyes rather than my ears. The game in question is Red Dust Rebellion, wherein the COIN series goes to Mars in a sci-fi setting. It's almost ready for the printer as well.
Ananda Gupta - Just as the other half of the original design team, Jason Matthews, is working on a new TS design, so is Ananda. His new game is Twilight Struggle Liberation 1961-1990 and is set in Latin America. Also on his plate is a game titled Underworld Begins, set in the French Revolution.
Chris Janicek - Chris is the lead designer on the Down in Flames/Wild Blue Yonder series. His news was that he was having to completely overhaul the mechanics for the carrier system that he's working on for Imperial Eagle, which will be the Pacific module. So it's coming, just not soon.
Kai Jensen - In addition to dealing with her late husband's unfinished games, Kai pretty much has the next version of Fighting Formations done. It's on the US 29th Infantry division. And is almost done work on the new Combat Commander big box which will bring a ton of Combat Commander stuff together in one big package. And she is working for GMT as number two in the production department. Busy lady.
Sam London (standing) demoing his Firefight Tactical game
Sam London - Sam had a bunch of demos at the convention. Firefight Tactical of course, which is already on P500. He also had a quick-playing space game called Microverse. He said takes about 15 minutes per person, but many people can play, as many as nine. Maybe more. I saw John Butterfield sitting in on a game of this.
Jerry White - Jerry was another designer I saw playing games all weekend rather than just dem,oing his own designs. His next game up is Infernal Machine, about submarines in the American Civil War. And many of you are itching for Pacific Chase. Jerry says it will hit P500 next year. Finally, he's working on another in his Skies Above series. Skies Above Guadalcanal is in early stages.
Mark Simonitch - Mark is a quiet guy in public settings, so we got the bare minimum. He's working on North Africa 40, which I think is already on P500. And then next up is Italy 43 which he thinks will hit P500 in June.
Saturday afternoon, I was to play Brothers at War 1862 with Karl Kreder, but he was double-booked. Happily, Tim was also interested in the game and jumped in. We played one of the Valverde scenarios, and it was a really interesting system. Chit pull, easy movement and combat mechanics. A keeper. And the whole experience was made better by Tim, who's a real fan of tramping battlefields and had been to Valverde several times and could really talk about what was going on in the part of the battle we were playing. So a huge thank you to Tim for stepping in and making the experience even better.
Grant with John Butterfield
After my game with Tim, I had a chance to interview John Butterfield. You'll hear that in an upcoming episode. Great guy, and an irrepressible player. We finished the interview about 7:45 PM. He said, "Oh good, I still have time for a quick game." I played a game and half myself after that, then called it quits at 11 PM. On my way out, there was John, still playing. "What time is it? 11? Oh, can we finish this in the morning?" he asked his youn opponent. And they did.
Saturday night it was a time for another oldie with Mark Johnson. This one was even older than our previous game. World War One by Jim Dunnigan from S&T magazine, circa 1975. We both really liked this. Fairly quick playing, though we didn't finish as Mark had to hit the road for home and was staying late just to try play some of this. A real design-for-effect game. Each country has a track for it's resource points, a bit like Third Reich if you've ever played that one from Avalon Hill. Each turn there is movement, and then three combat rounds where you can attack with each of your units each round if you like. When you take losses, you generally just reduce your resource track. If you don't want to spend resources, you can retreat. Or you can lose the unit (units are armies). Resources are used to build new armies (but rebuilding is fairly expensive). So there's some real tension in how to take losses, and I'm sure that as the game gets into the later turns, countries are not going to get enough resources each turn to meet their needs. We really enjoyed it and are goint to try give it a go via PBEM and see if that works. Recommended.
There is a years long Down in Flames campaign that plays out at GMT West. Each time you're there, you can grab your pilot and play.
I thought I was done for the night, but Terry Yoder caught up with me. We'd been talking all weekend about getting in a game of Rommel's War if we found the time. This was it. This is a new, sleep, block game from Worthington. Not as deep as Rommel in the Desert, but still there's enough there that it will always be in my bag as a game to play in an hour. We really enjoyed it, and Terry decided he liked it enough to buy it. Sorry, no pic for this one as I was too fuzzy-brained to remember. I did win the game, but it was a very back and forth affair and we were both whitre-knuckling it from time to time.
Sundays are much more quiet at GMT West with a few games in the morning, and then most people clearing out by early afternoon. I got in two games of The Hunt, by Matthias Cramer. First vs Eugene, and then a second game vs Joshua. Very fun. They both beat me, but both games were super tense and fun and went quite near the end.
