Day 2 dawned early and we were out the door by 7:45am for breakfast and made it to the War Room around 8:30am where we finished up our game of Blind Swords Volume 12: Gettysburg: The First Day from Revolution Games. We should a video review and then I walked around the War Room to see all the games that people were playing. I saw Battle Britain from PSC Games, which is a fun beer and pretzels air war game with cool little plastic minis, Littoral Commander: The Baltic from The Dietz Foundation, Company of Heroes: The Board Game from Bad Crow Games, which is a fun and lite miniatures based wargame based on the successful video game franchise, and a new and interesting looking prototype game called Arsenal of Democracy.

With the prototype, no one was at the table though and I found out that the designer had been here but had to leave for the day but would be back later. The game looks to be a card based game that deals with the production of armaments for the war effort during World War II. I am keenly interested and will definitely want to get a closer look at this one soon.

We then sat down with Leslie Jerome to have him introduce us to the Line of Battle Series with Volume 3 To Take Washington: Jubal Early’s Summer 1864 Campaign from Multi-Man Publishing.

Line of Battle is a regimental-level American Civil War wargame system designed for fast-paced, non-stop action by eliminating excessive paperwork and combining fire phases with movement. I feel like this system is a highly playable classic ACW system with lots of very interesting mechanics including activation, order reception and relay, closing rolls, morale checks and close assault. In fact, I love how it creates a great narrative with some of the terminology and naming conventions such as the Blood Lust result fur close assaults and the Cowardly Legs from broken units.

Just a really solid system and we hope to explore more of it in the near future. We do have the next volume in the series on pre-order called No Turning Back: The Battle of the Wilderness.

We then sat down with Steve Jones (aka Steve Panther or Steve Blue as we affectionately refer to him) with Blue Panther Games and did a summary of all of their upcoming projects and fakes incurring getting an early look at Dawn of the Zeds Designer Edition designed by Hermann Luttmann.

This one looks awesome and is a revision of the original game with some added content and rules that realize Hermann’s true vision for the game.

We are playing this with Hermann and Steve tomorrow afternoon and I cannot wait. It’ll be damn good old fashioned gaming fun!

After lunch, we broke out Chicago ‘68 from The Dietz Foundation. Chicago ’68 pits revolutionary spectacle against civil order at the Democratic National Convention riots of 1968. Players take the role of either the Establishment, consisting of the Chicago PD and Mayor Daley, or the Demonstrators, including the Yippies and MOBE, and is a fast-paced game of street battles and political maneuvers.

Each side plays from two asymmetric decks of action cards. The Establishment positions tactical forces and police platoons to co-ordinate mass arrests while working the convention floor. The Demonstrators, on the other hand, can pivot from direct clashes to radical street theater; their tactics can be reactive and unpredictable, allowing for wild cat-and-mouse chases and mischief-making across the tear-gassed avenues of downtown Chicago.

This game is an area control/area influence game that uses cards to take a predetermined set of actions that can be upgraded and replayed with better actions as the game progresses. Each player will fight for control of the delegates to the convention as well as exposure to the nation through the media. Just a very well designed game that was a ton of fun to play.

In the end, Alexander’s Yippies/Mobe coalition won the exposure battle and took home the victory. Very tight game though that came down to the last few card plays. What a great area control/area influence political style tug of war. Loved it!

Our final game of the evening was the long anticipated China’s War: 1937-1941 from GMT Games, which is volume 13 in the COIN Series. China’s War examines the first five years of the conflict, when China stood alone against the Japanese Empire. Each player takes the role of a Faction seeking to attack or defend the Republic of China: the aggressive Japanese, the harried Government (represented by the Guomindang party), the rebellious Chinese Communist Party, or the unruly, fractious Warlords who are obedient when convenient but have their eye on gaining state power. Using military, political, and economic actions and exploiting various events, players build and maneuver forces to influence or control the population, extract resources, or otherwise achieve their Faction’s aims. A deck of cards regulates turn order, events, victory checks, and other processes. The rules can run non-player Factions, enabling solitaire, 2-player, or multi-player games.

This feels like a classic COIN Series game with 3 insurgent style factions against the powerful Japanese. But the focus really centers on the control of the Lines of Communication or LoC’s, which was a very refreshing approach that created some really interesting interplay.

In the end my Japanese were able to bully the other 3 factions and control the LoC’s to take home the victory in an early 3rd Propaganda card . The scores were Japan +3, Nationalists +1, CPC -3 and Warlords -4.

We very much enjoyed ourselves and can’t wait to play again soon.

A great day where we played 3 full games, shot 5 videos and had a lot of fun. Tomorrow is already booked and we are playing Cross Bronx Expressway from GMT Games, Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars from Ingenioso Hidalgo, Dawn of the Zeds Designer Edition from Blue Panther and then a 4-player game of War of the Ring: The Card Game from Ares Games.

See you tomorrow night!

-Grant

Good morning our faithful readers! As this post uploads this morning, we will be traveling to beautiful Columbus, Ohio to attend the best little game convention in the Midwest called Buckeye Game Fest. We have raved about this convention for years and always look forward to attending as it is such a great place to play games, meet great people and enjoy the glory that is our hobby of wargaming! This year will be our 6th time attending and we have been invited back as Guests of Honor, which means we have agreed to host events and help to promote and advertise the convention. BGF is a multi-day convention that has two different parts. We are going to be a part of the War Room at Buckeye Game Fest which is open from Monday, March 9th through Sunday, March 15th. This year, we will only be attending from the late afternoon of Tuesday, March 10th through Sunday. Our 5+ days at the convention will be filled with gaming events, designer interview videos, looks at new prototypes, and of course visiting with friends, the publishers who are there including Catastrophe Games and Blue Panther and various designers including guys like Hermann Luttmann, David Thompson and Tim Densham. But most importantly, we attend conventions to play games! We love to get together and do lots of multiplayer games and we are very much excited to get to playing.

At the end of each day, I will be putting together a short summary of what we did that day at the convention. I would like to keep this to just a few paragraphs with several pictures to give you an idea of the games we played that day, people we talked with and other activities we participated in. We will still work on doing multiple videos as well that will be released on the YouTube Channel over the next few months but this written coverage will supplement the videos. This summary will most likely not be posted until after midnight EST each night, if not a bit later, so you might be checking it out the next morning which is fine.

We have at least a few things planned that are official including an impromptu teaching session for the rules of the Battalion Combat Series (BCS) from Multi-Man Publishing, our annual play of a full table of Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation from GMT Games, War Stories RPG from Firelock Games being run by our friend Cullen Farrell and a few other things. Should be a lot of fun! We also will be bringing along lots of other multi-player games to hopefully play including China’s War from GMT Games, Imperial Elegy from VUCA Simulations, Hubris from GMT Games, Neither King Nor God from Sound of Drums, Proxy War from Amoral Games, Black Orchestra: Resistance from Starling Games, Bretwalda from PHALANX, Wunderwaffen from Ares Games and Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948 from Legion Wargames. Our general philosophy of gaming at conventions is big multi-player games and each of the games we are bringing plays anywhere from 3-6 players. No 2-player games at BGF for us although I have asked Russ Wetli from Cardboard Conflicts to play We Are Coming, Nineveh from Nuts! Publishing.

We also have plans to sit down with Hermann Luttmann to get a look at some of his upcoming projects and play some games including his new edition of his Dawn of the Zeds: Designer’s Edition from Blue Panther being published this summer and also get video interviews with some designers who are willing to dish on their in-process designs. Should be a busy few days and a lot of fun.

Finally, if you are attending Buckeye Game Fest please feel free to find us and say hello. I believe that we are very friendly and accessible and love to make connections with our fans and followers. In fact, we have TPA buttons and stickers to give away so just ask. We also would like to take a picture with you so we can document it in our writings.

Please check back each day for a summary of the days exploits. Thanks for following along.

-Grant