Wargaming on the west coast
Normally at this time of year, I'd be down in San Diego for their Histcon. But I'm not really trusting the situation at the border these days, so this year I decided to stay in Canada and head west to Bottoscon in New Westminster, just outside of Vancouver, BC.
This is the convention's 18th iteration. It's the brainchild of Rob Bottos, whom I interviewed a while back. Check it out.
I arrived a day early so as to be able to attend a talk by historian Mark Zuehlke that Rob had organized. I'm a fan of his books. It was a costly lecture as I ended up buying four more of this works.
Thursday morning, I started the convention with a game of Amabel Holland's Oblique. My opponent was Sean Moran from Winnipeg, a newbie to the game. We played the Spring 1757 scenario, "The Culmination of my Sorrows". I was the Austrians, Sean the Prussians. The game started out with each of us searching for a way to cut off supply and out-maneuver the other, but eventually we couoldn't resist getting into a large battle. We took huge losses, but survived it, but then clashed again a turn later. Sean lost when he I managed to wipe out a complete Prussian force that included Frederick. I like this game more and more each time I play it. I hope Sean did as well.
Sean Moran contemplates his opening move in Oblique
Near the end. Note the Despair tracks on the right
Then I hosted another game, this time 1862: Brothers at War from Compass. My opponent was Dick Boyes, and we played scenario 9, the end half of the Mill Springs battle. Dick's Bluebellies were attacking my rebs, and just ran out of time. He had to get a unit onto the back half of the hill at my end of the map. He managed to get onto the front half, but needed another turn to complete the job. We kept questioning ourselves as to whether we were playing the losses chart correctly, but agreed in the end we thought we had it right. But I need another look at the rules to make sure. Fun system, pretty straightforward except as noted.
Dick Boyes prepares to attack
8 Union activations in a row!
After dinner, I played Richard Berg's Medieval with Rob Bottos, Brian Jarvis, Kendrick Bradley, and Shaun Ouellette. A bit of a Euro-ish history game, it was a ton of fun. I think Rob and Sean tied for first in the end, but I came a respectable 2nd. It has this wonderful mechanic where the Mongols start arriving from the east about halfway through the game, and they completely destroy areas as they go. So much of your hard work can suddenly be wiped out. Really fun, great swings of fortune.
Brian, Kendrick, Rob, Shaun, and myself
The co-winners!
Friday morning, I hosted a learning game of VUCA's New Cold War. It had myself as the Russians, Oleg Savelyev as the Europeans, Benjamin Suan as the Americans, and Geoff Conn as the Chinese. The game mechanics and cards and situations were engaging, but we found ourselves diving into the rulebook to settle small questions far too often. There's a really interesting game there, but it could use a heftier eratta/clarification package.
New Cold War. Great looking game from VUCA.
In the afternoon, I had the pleasure of finally meeting designer Brian Train in the flesh. He said down for a great interview, look for that on the podcast soon.
Friday evening, I played Crisis: 1914 by Maurice Suckling with Geoff Conn and Nick Drochak. They'd played once before, but it was still fairly new to them. What a fantasatic game! Tense all the way through. Highly recommended. We played 3 player, but it plays up to 5, and I think we were done in under 2 hours.
Crisis: 1914 main board
My tableau as the German player
Oh oh. The Russians start the war, they lose!
I didn't have anything else scheduled for that night, but Brian was playing his new COIN game, China's War, and one player couldn't make it, so I got to sit in as the Japanese. Brian played the communists, and Ben played the Nationalists, and Mike Manskopf was the Warlords. Really interesting and fun game. I won as the Japanese, but I can't claim any special skill. I knew fromspeaking with Brian earlier, that the Japanese had to take control of the Lines of Communication. The two other players didn't realize until too late that the Chinese factions really need to cooperate to keep the powerful Japanese in check.
Mike, Brian, myself, and Ben playing China's War
Saturday morning, Brian and I hooked up again to play his excellent Brief Border Wars II. He sayss he's not much of a player, but he smoked me in the Teschen scenario. We both had some time to kill, so he showed me a couple of his abstract designs. Guerilla Checkers was fantastic, super easy to learn and play, but with the brain burn you associate with good abstract games. I did manage to beat Brian in that one. Then showed me a similar game, Gravel, though we didn't get to finish that one as I was due at my next appointment. Another brain burner though.
Designer Brian Train en route to stomping me in his Brief Border Wars II
This time we're playing his abstract game, Gravel
My big game for Saturday was Columbia's Alliance. Grant Dalgliesh had brought the giant neoprene map, so it looked stunning on the table. I was the Spaniards, so I wasn't expecting too much. We were playing the 1819 scenario, I think. I made an immediate alliance with England and went to work defending my border. France was concentrating on the east, so I decided to attack (with the help of a couple of British units that did a lot of the heavy lifting). That went well, so Napoleon stormed back across France to deal with me. Giant battle where my dice were other-worldly (Spanish units are very weak). It got down to the point where he only had his Napoleon block left, an "A" block. All he had to survive was my A fire, which was two weak "A1" artillery units. Meaning I had to roll ones to hit with them. I rolled snake-eyes and Napoleon was dead! The game immediately ends, France loses, but we count up VPs to see who wins, and it turned out to be Spain! A fitting reward for dealing with Bonaparte. Playing with me were host and GM Bruce McFarlane, Sean Moran, Mark Hollett, Wade Schmidt, Mason, and Sean Neill.
Alliance on the giant map
Saturday night I had nothing scheduled, so Sean Moran and I played two scenarios of Brief Border Wars II, splitting them. I've now played all 4 scenarios and recommend the package. You'll play each one in under two hours once you've learned the straight-forward system.
Sunday was departure day, but before I left, I spent the morning watching Mark Woloshen playtest his game on the Battle for the Atlantic in WWII. Convoys vs subs and surface raiders, with an economic component to determine victory. I hope to get a chance to interview Mark down the line. He's also the designer of Prairie Aflame, probably the only wargame with my hometown, Calgary, on the map.
That's Mark Woloshen with the poppy, explaining his game
And that was it. Great weekend of gaming and meeting people. Time to hit the highway home. Only this year, it was just 10 hours instead of the 24 it takes me to drive to San Diego.
There were lots and lots of minis games over the weekend
Convention director extraordinaire Rob Bottos takes a selfie
More minis! I don't have a pic, but there was also Wings of Glory WWI and a Formula One racing game with hot wheels size cars.
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