What a great time we have had at this convention! 2 fulls day of gaming in a fantastic historical setting here in Camden, South Carolina. But it hasn’t just been gaming though. Today started with a 3+ hour tour of the Camden battlefield and a demonstration at the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill as well.

Rick Wise who is the Executive Director of the South Carolina Battlefield Preservation Trust gave us a 90 minute tour and discussion on the battle fought at Camden on August 16, 1780. The Patriots led by Horatio Gates and Baron DeKalb fielded about 4,000 muskets versus around 2,200 British soldiers led by Lord Charles Cornwallis and Lord Rowdon. The battle resulted in a major British victory with Cornwallis’ force suffering just over 300 casualties while Gates’ suffered almost 2,000.

Rick had a British Brown Bess musket and a French Charleville musket used by the Patriots that we were able to see fitted with bayonets and wielded by 2 lucky volunteers. These would have been truly terrifying to stand against and when wielded by trained soldiers were deadly weapons.

He also shared with us that archaeologists discovered the skeletal remains of 14 soldiers at the battlefield alongside period artifacts like musket balls and buttons.

Forensic and artifact analysis identified 12 Continental soldiers from Maryland and Delaware, one North Carolina Loyalist militia member (who was also Native American), and one British soldier from the 71st Regiment of Foot (Fraser’s Highlanders). They also were able to reveal that some of the Continental soldiers were teenagers, including two young men aged 16 to 19. It was truly sobering to see their unmarked grave and to find out that several were so young. Honor and bravery as well as the desire for freedom knows no age and these soldiers truly gave their lives for a cause they believed in.

There also was a nice monument to the sacrifice of de Kalb who commanded the American right wing during the engagement leading the premier units of the Delawareans and Marylanders. When the left and center of the American line disintegrated, de Kalb’s force had to beat a retreat before becoming completely surrounded. During this juncture of the fighting, the Baron’s horse was shot out from under him and he was thrown to the ground. Before he could gain his feet, he was hit with three musket balls and bayoneted multiple times by approaching British soldiers. The wounds would prove to be mortal.

Captured shortly thereafter by the British, the wounded general was picked up by General Lord Charles Cornwallis on his way to the rear. The British general, upon seeing de Kalb said the following: “I am sorry, sir, to see you, not sorry that you are vanquished, but sorry to see you so badly wounded.” Showing respect to the Baron though, Cornwallis reportedly, oversaw the dressing of the German’s wounds by his own surgeons. de Kalb would die 3 days later of his wounds.

We then made our way to the site of the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill and were instructed by a US Army artillery officer on the use of Continental cannon. I was lucky to be chosen to act as the rammer or spongeman and very much enjoyed the activity where we trained to load and fire the cannon in under 15 seconds.

Here is a video of the firing of a musket but you will have to wait for the cannon video to come out on the YouTube Channel.

Such a great experience and I was very glad we took the time to participate in the tour. We then returned to the gaming area and setup BoAR Newtown from GMT Games.

I have wanted to play this for a while now as it is a unique and specialized entry to the BoAR Series. Newtown feels quite different from standard BoAR titles mainly because it replaces traditional line-infantry tactics with combat rules for the Indians that are very different.

The Movement and Activation System simulates the decentralized, individual nature of Indian warfare, where small war parties act on their own initiative rather than rigid command structures which is represented with a chit pull mechanic. In the chit pull cup are each of the Indian formations along with a single combat chit. When formations are pulled they can move and if the combat chit is pulled only those formations that have already moved and are adjacent to Patriot units may then attack. Formations pulled after this bit can move but cannot fight. This was very chaotic and created some task challenges for Alexander.

The game also includes Opportunity cards that adds a layer of hand management and tactical unpredictability as the cards act as one-off events or provide bonuses. The game also includes custom rules for Indian honor, ferocity, evasion and their specific resolve when facing artillery fire and have a chance to break. Just a very interesting game and I am glad that we played it.

To end the evening we got the chance to sit down with designer Bruno Sinigaglio and play his new game called Small BoAR The Battle of Cowpens.

The aim of the Small BoAR design concept is to include small and critical battles that otherwise do not fit the scale of the Battles of the American Revolution (BoAR) system designed by Mark Miklos. This new system was designed by Bruno Sinigaglio working closely with Mark Miklos to preserve the continuity and popularity of the original system. It feels very familiar to the original but takes the scale in a new direction. From 25 yard hexes vs 200 yards in BoAR, the scale change gives players the chance to try new tactics with rifle and musket fire as these are now up to 8 hexes range for rifles and 3 hexes for muskets while artillery is now up to 24 hexes.

The game also highlights the importance of cavalry and their tactics as their proper use on the battlefield can lead to devastating results.

We had a great time with this one and while we only played 5 full turns there is more to explore and we can’t wait to get our hands on a copy. We have been told it should be releasing in mid to late October.

That was it for today and we are now finished with the gaming portion of the trip. Tomorrow we are going to leave early and travel to 3 battlefields in the area on our way to Columbia and the airport in Buford’s Massacre in the Waxhaws, King’s Mountain and Cowpens.

-Grant

The morning dawned early and I was up and ready to go by 8:30am. I had a muffin in my room and a trusty diet Mountain Dew for breakfast and we were on our way to the Winterberry Room to get going on our continued game of GTS.

We jumped right back into GTS Where Eagles Dare and The Devil’s Cauldron from MMP. I was assigned to command the area around Eindhoven/Best/Son and to eliminate the few pockets of German resistance remaining there and then move our armor north to cut off possible German reinforcements from the east. We jumped back in at the 1100 turn and played into the 1700 turn although I had to leave shortly after lunch to meet up with Gregory M. Smith. This system is just so solid and is really great fun.

And I also very much enjoy the deep historical immersion into the event and its incorporation of things like heroes and artillery parks as well as the gorgeous production values with amazing counters, a very detailed and beautiful board and the way it portrays company-level combat. I will say that there is a fairly steep learning curve and rules overhead and while I feel the combat system works it is very involved and bits can be forgotten. But it really is a solid operational level portrayal of WWII combat. I very much can’t wait to play it again in the future and we actually have the reprint of The Devil’s Cauldron on pre-order and I have heard it might be out by the end of the year. I need to find me a copy of Where Eagles Dare as well although I most likely will never get the full combined games together on the table at the same time.

After 14 hours of pushing counters, I am now a follower of this system and want to thank Joe and Matt, as well as my friend Mike Heckman, for teaching me.

After lunch I found my friend John Sy from the Philippines and said hello but he had a gift he had brought for me. It was Japanese occupation currency in the form of Philippine pesos from WWII. What a very cool and thoughtful gift and upon my return home I will be placing it in a frame and hanging it in my game room. Thanks John!

I then was able to meet up with my friend and fantastic designer Gregory M. Smith as well as Kevin McPartland to get a look at a few games that they are designing together, including Viking Dawn from Compass Games and Star Spangled Tide: The War of 1812 from Compass Games.

We first got a play in of Viking Dawn and had a great time with the game. It is a light, beer and pretzels style game based on the SPI Conquistadors designed by Richard Berg where players control 1 of 4 Viking clans and are trying to build longboats, train war bands, develop explorers and lead them to explore, settle, raid and conquer Europe from Russia in the east, to Iceland and Newfoundland in the west, the Mediterranean and parts of North Africa. When leaders die you must bury them with silver gaining VP’s or if you can’t afford it bury them with nothing and lose VP’s. The main mechanic is a press your luck exploration mechanic where you must roll for the destruction of your fleets based upon how far they have traveled that year. You might lose all of your ships or may get lucky and lose none, you can mitigate this be investing in the journeys with additional supplies and tech to ensure better offs but the dice are cruel and you might just lose not only your fleets but also the booty they have collected from raiding.

It’s a very fun and lite take on this chaotic time in history and I very much enjoyed it. The game is nearly complete and should be printing and ready for shipping in early 2027. I think that this one is a perfect convention game and is sure to see more plays on my table.

We then shot a video with both designers together and then broke off with just Greg to talk about 6 of his other in-design projects. These included the following Korean Tide (next entry in the Tide Series covering the Korean War 1940-1953), Rifle Platoon (tactical level squad based solitaire game using the American Tank Ace Series), Project Z (what if bombing game where Japan won at Midway and began to run bombing operations against the United States mainland and Australia similar to Amerika Bomber), Western Desert Ace (solitaire Ace Series game focused in North Africa), B-52D Linebacker II (solitaire Vietnam War bombing game in 1972) and then finally a scoop on a joint design from Kevin McPartland and Greg Smith called Star Spangled Tide. It was a great discussion and I’m very much looking forward to all of these games.

To end the video, Greg spoiled his upcoming Lone Banner game which is a 1-4 player dungeon crawler set in the fantasy world of Kalar from Burning Banners from Compass Games. This one is going to be fun and I got a look at the characters, spells and weapons and also saw the dungeon tiles that will be laid out as players move through the dungeon encountering traps, monsters and bosses to fight. This looks great but it is a ways off as Greg said he has only been designing it for a month or so.

I then got to play the new The Great Hunger from Compass Games with designer Kevin McPartland. In The Great Hunger players represent families of tenant farmers and field hands. At first, when the potatoes are plentiful your clan will grow, using the events on the top half of cards to help your family expand across the map moving into counties, working on estates and in factories. When the potatoes blight arrives, you’ll use the events on the bottom half to save as many as you can, finding them aid or employment in Ireland, or scrambling to ports to secure passage to America. 

The game is a very light Euro style game of survival and is well done as it’s rooted in history and teaches about the struggles of the Irish. I am glad to have played the final production copy as I got to play a prototype copy a few years ago at WBC. This one will catch some heat from people for it’s dark topic and will just not be for everyone but it has something to teach about history and I have Irish ancestry and am interested as to what happened to cause my ancestors to leave their home to come to America.

One final thing I want to show you is the lineup of games that GMT has staged in the main gaming area. These are all of their newest arrivals and they are just gorgeous. I’m most interested in Coast Watchers designed by Volko Ruhnke and The Weimar Republic designed by Gunnar Holmbäck.

That was it for Day 3 and I’m off to bed with an early start tomorrow with a few games on the docket including World Order from Hegemonic Games Project and Coalitions: Realpolitik from PHALANX.

See you tomorrow night!

-Grant