For those that don’t know, the World Boardgaming Championships (WBC) takes place every year in late summer and is held at the beautiful Seven Springs Mountain Resort in southwestern Pennsylvania. WBC is a national, even international, event where players come together to play games both competitively and for fun with other gamers. The competitive side of the games include everything from tiddly winks, to Robo Rally, Diplomacy and to heavy wargames including many from one of our favorite publishers GMT Games including games such as Combat Commander, Empire of the Sun and Panzer. Also at this convention, the initiates of the Battles of the American Revolution Series gather to hold a competitive tournament competing for the Golden Tricorne (this award doesn’t exist as I just made it up but maybe Mark Miklos will figure out how to get this accomplished!).

Each year, series designer Mark Miklos writes a fairly in-depth and lengthy After Action Report that he posts in various locations on the interwebs including on Facebook, the Consimworld Forum folder for BoAR and on GMT’s website on their InsideGMT blog. This year, Mark has again agreed to share his AAR with us to post here on the blog for our readers to enjoy.

On a side note, I had a chance to meet up with Mark this year and shoot a video taking a look at his upcoming The Battle of Green Spring and also to discuss his upcoming book titled Liberty! A Military History Survey of the American Revolution from GMT Games. That video had some technical difficulties but I hope to have it up on the YouTube Channel in the next few weeks.

WBC 2026: BoAR AAR
Nearly a Record for the 250th

This was a special year for American Revolutionary War gaming at the World Boardgamiong Championships. Our Battles of the American Revolution event nearly drew record attendance. Thirty three players, one short of the all-time high, battled across eight classic Rev War battlefields. Our numbers included seven new players from among the fifteen who attended our demo on Sunday evening. In addition to the gaming itself, this year’s BoAR event included three special activities to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary: a seminar, a trivia game and a party. Each will be described below.

We were given a dedicated space for the entire week in the Foggy Brews unlike in year’s past when we had to compete for table space in Winterberry. This year we hung flags and banners, played period music, and in general had an 18th century refuge to further enhance the special mood and vibe.

Two heats were played on Monday. Heat 1 was the Chatterton Hill scenario from the Battle of White Plains. Twenty two players competed as we kicked off the week. Because White Plains is the most recent volume in the BoAR Series it has a short competitive record. Nevertheless, the outcomes this year were telling. Each side scored four decisive victories with the British adding another three substantial ones. This is a 57% winning percentage for the British which closely approximates the 60% edge that the British have had in this scenario based thus far on twenty four tournament games.

Heat 2 was the old classic, Saratoga. Sixteen players squared off in this one. We played the campaign game with this year’s British players dominating. They scored four substantial victories to two. Each side added one marginal win as well. Ten players returned on Tuesday morning to face off in the full Brandywine Creek campaign. The optional “Muddying the Waters” intel rules were not used. It was great to see this big battle on the table. I took the approach this year of selecting larger games that typically are used for a final and instead used them during the heats. Outcomes in this battle were comparable with the Americans earning one decisive and one substantial victory while the British earned two substantial and one marginal win.

Eleven players showed up for the Battle of Germantown on Wednesday morning necessitating the first and only bye in this year’s tournament. It was given to yours truly as last year’s champion according to standard WBC protocol. The remaining ten players earned one American substantial victory, one British substantial victory and one British marginal victory. The other two games witnessed the first draws in this year’s tournament as John Vasilakos and Bruno Sinigaglio completed a game of maneuver in which neither earned a VP. The match between Chris Mlynarczyk and Frank Sinigaglio was a little more robust with Chris’ British earning two VP’s and Frank’s Americans earning three.

Our final heat, played on Thursday, was the full Monmouth Courthouse campaign. This is another big game which was nice to see played by twelve players. The British swept the field with one decisive, one substantial, and one marginal victory. The other three games ended in a draw: Charles Orndorff and Bob Jamelli (3 VP’s each), Tim Miller and Randy Collard (3.5 VP’s to 1 with Tim missing a marginal win by one-half VP), and John Vasilakos and Father Eric Tolentino (1 VP to none respectively). After the heats we advanced the top eight players to single elimination beginning with a quarter final round. The top seeds were Miklos (17 tournament points), Father Todd
Carter (15 TP and 83 cumulative army morale points), John Vasilakos (15 TP and 10 cumulative AM), Young Rob Doane “The Good” (10 TP), Tim Miller (7 TP), Charles Orndorff (4 TP, 74 AM), Chris Mlynarczyk (4 TP, 49 AM), and Bruce Cota (4 TP, 20 AM). Bruce was unable to play and so the eighth seed was offered to the first alternate, Jim
Dauphinais (4 TP, 19 AM). Jim was also unavailable and our second alternate, Jeff Lange graciously stepped up (2 TP, 32 AM).

The game was the first day at the Battle of Newport. The full two-day battle of Newport had been played three previous times as a final with the Americans winning all three. Interestingly, in the Day 1 action, it was the British who won three, two decisively and one substantially, while the Americans managed one substantial victory when Father Todd’s Americans defeated Chris Mlynarczyk. It was now on to the semifinals. To fit the semi-final and the final into a single day I selected short games which were welcomed after the string of long contests at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth and Newport.

Thus, our semifinal was the Guilford Courthouse historical scenario. Here John Vasillakos’ British won a solid marginal victory over Father Todd’s Americans, 5.5 VP’s to 1. Meanwhile, Rob Doane’s Americans won marginally over my British. In our match the VP’s were tied at 3 each, but the British need a margin of +2 VP’s to win, otherwise the Americans do.

The stage was set for the final pitting John Vasilakos against Rob Doane at the Battle of Eutaw Springs. Over the course of 225 competitive games of Eutaw Springs, the Americans have won 89 times, the British 90 times, and 46 contests have ended in a draw. Since this was the final, however, victory in a draw would be awarded to the
player with superior army morale at game’s end. There was no bid as each player got their preferred side, John the British and Rob the Americans. John formed his line forward, anchoring it between swampy ground on his
left and the blackjack oak on his right. Rob’s approach took advantage of surprise, initiative, morale, and momentum and he was able to capture a British Regular plus Major Marjoribanks. This gave Rob 2 VP’s to John’s 3 for holding the British encampment. Rob’s gambit was then to slowly fall back, preserving the draw and his
now superior army morale, which would be all he would need for victory. John, of course, pursued. In the end each player scored 4 VP’s, but John’s army morale had fallen to 8 while Rob maintained a robust 14 army morale points. Victory for the Americans marked a fitting conclusion in a year of celebration for the 250th anniversary
of independence. Congratulations to both Rob and John for an exceptional week of competition and a hard fought final contest. I finished 3rd, Father Todd finished 4th, Tim Miller was 5th and Charles Orndorff rounded out the top six. This year’s final was videotaped by WBC. An overhead camera rig was set up above the Eutaw Springs big board game set prior to play. Audio was recorded. We are all anxious about the chance to watch it when it becomes available and I will share that information with those who may be interested.

We let out all the stops this year in honor of the 250th. First up, on Tuesday evening, we enjoyed a one hour talk by designer Bruno Sinigaglio who spoke to us about the Battle of Cowpens. Cowpens is the first game in our new series, Small Battles of the American Revolution or Small BoAR. Bruno described the battle in detail and how he adopted its elements into the new design wherein he lowered the scale to 1/8 that of a full BoAR game; making a hex 25 yards instead of 200 and a strength point 12 men instead of 100. At that scale, muskets as well as rifles have ranged fire and artillery can fire across the board. This level of granularity allowed Bruno to introduce other elements as well such as placing cavalry in a reserve status that enables them to charge after the normal movement phase has ended. Bruno had an audience of twenty two who paid rapt attention while he shared several PowerPoint slides to enhance his talk. The timing was perfect because we were able to announce that Bruno and I were receiving our proof copies that very week which would be waiting for us to review upon returning home from WBC. This means all those who preordered on GMT’s P-500 will very shortly be receiving order fulfillments. It was a fitting way to kick off our agenda of special events for the week. On Wednesday evening we played Rev War trivia pitting the Bloody Backs against the Yankee Doodles. We had 11 players on each team plus several interested observers who came just for the fun. A spokesperson for each team was asked to put on a uniform, British Regular or Continental courtesy of our friend and reenactor, Chris Mlynarczyk. In each round they would come forward with their team’s written answer on a whiteboard. Nine rounds were played, corresponding to the years 1775-1783, followed by a bonus round. Questions for each round progressed in point value and difficulty. In the bonus round the teams were allowed to bid from among their accumulated points. It was nip and tuck for a while until the British broke through earning a 5 point answer that put them in the lead. They would never look back. In the bonus round the Americans bid it all while the British bid conservatively to protect their lead. Every member of the winning British team received a first day of issue, commemorative envelope from the USPS that featured a postmark of April 19, 2026 stamped Concord, Massachusetts. Each envelope also had affixed to it a commemorative stamp from the five battle series designed for the 250th by the USPS: Lexington & Concord, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Valley Forge, or Yorktown. It was a lot of fun and a great way to rev things up for our final event, our 250th anniversary celebration and party on Thursday night.

Thanks to Ken Guttermuth, we had signage located around the Seven Springs campus advertising our special events. All were welcome. Participation in the BoAR tournament was not a prerequisite. There were attendees at Bruno’s talk and at our trivia game who were not BoAR players. Likewise, over 50 people came to our party, several of whom saw our signs and were inspired to participate. We served an enormous cake, once again courtesy of Ken Guttermuth. A cash bar was opened directly adjacent to our venue in Foggy Brews just for the occasion. We had period music, remarks, readings, and a reminiscence to our fallen comrades who were not there to celebrate with us. There was a rousing three cheers for General Washington, and even a bit of a sing
along where we repeated the refrain, “Hurrah, our country forever hurrah” to the song “An American Frigate” about John Paul Jones and his victory over Serapis in the English Channel. They could hear us in 1776! It was a terrific night, every morsel of cake was eaten, and one or two attendees even got emotional, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way. This was a terrific WBC. Forty two total games of BoAR were played, likely enough to
maintain our status as a Century event at the convention. Special thanks to all those who helped to make this year’s event memorable: Ken Guttermuth for the space, the signs, the cake, and all his full-throated support along the way, my AGMs Dave Stiffler and Rob Doane, Dave doing double duty by reciting and leading the cheer for Washington during our party, Jeff Lange for running a companion event in our Rev War space, Freeman’s Farm 1777 by Worthington Publishing, Tim Miller for designing our Gaming the American Revolution logo and banner, Chris for the use of the uniforms at trivia, Bruno for agreeing to break away from his GM duties to give his talk, and to my wife Darlene who was our hostess at the party.

One more thanks must be mentioned. Grant with The Players’ Aid dropped by one afternoon to interview me. He took videos of our decorated room and we discussed several things. I was able to elaborate on our special 250th events. We discussed Volume 11 in the BoAR Series, The Battle of Green Spring. I had my prototype with me,
did a short show and tell, and updated the status of the project. We discussed GMT’s upcoming Rev War 250th anniversary event in Camden, South Carolina in September. Grant was also kind enough to inquire about my book, Liberty! A Military History Survey of the American Revolution which incidentally has just gone to the printer as of this writing. Grant is such a gracious host and so easy to talk to. We laughed a lot and probably digressed too much but once we get going, the sky is the limit. It was very kind of him to fit us into his demanding schedule at WBC and to give BoAR so much publicity. At some point soon this video along with his entire WBC 2026 exposé will be up on YouTube for anyone interested. Two down, one to go. We pulled out all the stops at RevCon during Prezcon in Charlottesville last February. Now, at WBC we once again gave it our all to celebrate the 250th. We have one last event on the horizon in Camden in September and I hope to see many of you there. “Hurrah, our country forever hurrah!”

Thank you to Mark for this great insight into the tournament. We appreciate the work he puts into this tournament each year and for his grace in meeting with me while I was at WBC this year. I look forward to the upcoming Rev War 250th Anniversary Event in Camden, South Carolina in September.

To take a look at the various games included in the BoAR Series, please check out the following game site on the GMT Games website: https://www.gmtgames.com/m-2-gmt-games.aspx#[PageNumber(0)|PageSize(50)|PageSort(Name)|DisplayType(Grid)|Category(3)]

-Grant

My WBC 2026 is over and I’m sad about it! Well, it actually ended last Thursday evening after 5 1/2 days of gaming goodness, but I am now just putting together this wrap-up post. I had planned to stay until Saturday morning and then leave to come home to attend a concert with my wife for our 30th wedding anniversary (Darius Rucker) but I had some pretty severe back pain late Thursday evening that haunted me through the night only allowing to me to get a few hours of restful sleep and when I awoke on Friday for my last planned day my back was pretty stiff and I couldn’t see sitting around for 12 hours at a gaming table and then having to drive home on Saturday. So, I made the mature decision to pack up and leave Friday morning to avoid it getting worse and making the 6+ hour drive home more difficult. This caused me to miss a rousing multi-player game of Virgin Queen from GMT Games on Friday and I am very sad about that. But, I made the correct choice and am now home safe and sound and my back got a bit better overnight on Friday and has pretty much now totally recovered. On Saturday morning and into the early afternoon, I did spend some time organizing the games I played at the convention but didn’t put up neatly and also clipping the counters for a few new games to ready them for play.

This was an extremely productive trip this year and I had a blast. I wanted to simply give you a quick look at my time at WBC and share what I was able to accomplish by myself as once again Alexander was not with me and I was flying solo. If you are interested in more detail than is found here, you can visit my Daily Debrief posts at the following links:

Daily Debrief Series – Day 1

Daily Debrief Series – Day 2

Daily Debrief Series – Day 3

Daily Debrief Series – Day 4

Daily Debrief Series – Day 5

Daily Debrief Series – Day 6

Here is a look at my overall statistics for what I accomplished in 5 1/2 days.

The Numbers

If you don’t know, I am infamous for my activity and schedule while attending these conventions. I just really love conventions and playing lots of multi-player wargames and also meeting great people. It is the fuel to my fire and I truly try to schedule my time while at the convention. I always play a ton of games but also try to get in many interviews with designers and publishers to share with you our readers. And this year, was extremely productive and I was asked several times how I have the energy to keep up such a torrid pace and I really don’t have an answer. But, you are the beneficiary of my pace and I am going to give you an overview.

Games Played

I played a lot of games. That is what I do. I am a content creator who loves to game and I played 2-4 games per day over the 5 1/2 days there for a total of 15 games played. I always feel like I am running from one thing to the next but it works for me and allows me to be exposed to a lot of different games. These numbers are a bit skewed though as I played 2 games on Sunday all day pretty much in Grand Tactical Series (GTS) Where Eagles Dare and The Devil’s Cauldron and counted that as 2 separate games when in fact it was just one large combined game that I played bits and pieces of as I was assigned by the overall commanders when chits were drawn and those formations were activated. But as you can see from the list below, I got in some bangers. Classics. Games that I have always wanted to play but have never had a chance. New systems. New games and some games that are still in playtest and development.

Now you might be asking what games did I like out of that list and I would answer all of them, with the exception of The Adventures of Conan from Gale Force Nine. We bounced off this one hard. Poor rules, lack of structure and little clarity, which is a shame. The art is fantastic, great components with custom dice but I felt like we had no idea what we were doing or how we were supposed to reliably get things done. Standout games were Baltic Empires from GMT Games, Korean Tide from Compass Games, World Order from Hegemonic Project Games and Above the Trenches from Flying Pig Games. But the highlight for me was playing the Grand Tactical Series from MMP with a combined game of Where Eagles Dare and The Devil’s Cauldron. I liked that one so much that I purchased the GTS Briefings Magazine with the pack-in game Strike – Counter Strike and look forward to getting this one played.

Interview Videos

As you know. one of things we do at these conventions is video interviews with designers and early looks at their upcoming games. This year was no exception as I was able to do a total of 7 video interviews. I am a bit worried about them though as I was having major technical difficulties with the camera and batteries holding charges and had multiple videos where the battery just up and died and the camera stopped working. I had to then change out the battery and try to start where I think it went off but I expect that some of the videos will have missing sections and I apologize for that. Below is the list of video interviews that I was able to accomplish.

Once Alexander gets back this week, and he has had a chance to download the videos, review them and try to stitch them together as best he can we will start putting them up on the YouTube Channel for your viewing pleasure. I would expect that to happen in the next 2 weeks. I still have to put together a debrief video as well and that one will probably lead the videos on the channel.

Games Acquired

Now, WBC is not a buying convention but there is a small vendor area at the site with publishers the likes of Compass Games, GMT Games, Flying Pig Games. Blue Panther, MMP, Decision Games, Wharf Rat Games (new this year), Sound of Drums (new this year) and B2M Games (new this year). They are open for sales on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and typically all of the vendors offer 10-20% off retail prices for attendees.

This year, I purchased or acquired 9 total games. Now I needed these 9 games like I needed a hole in my head but they were all nice looking games and several of them are solitaire offerings that I will play on my own time at my gaming table. Here is the list of games that I was able to acquire.

Most of these games are brand new 2026 offerings, with the exception of GTS Briefings Strike – Counter Strike, which I believe came out a few years ago. The others are all new games and we will add them to our list for 2026 and try our best to get them played so we can share our thoughts with you.

I love WBC. It is the highlight of my gaming year and I very much look forward to attending each and every year. There is something to be said for being locked into a building with 3,000 gamers who all love gaming! They are there to play, discuss, buy, sell, compete at, enjoy and examine wargames. There are people who come to this event every single year and plan the entire week out with monster wargames. Where else in the world can you do that? Well, there are a few other places but WBC is a brotherhood. I feel a true kinship with the people that we have met there and played with. I feel true friendship for people that I have had amazing conversations with like Mark Herman, Greg Smith, Mark Holt Walker, David Heath and others. I feel the kinship and the closeness and it is wargames that have brought us together. That and a healthy respect and interest in military history and those who have served our country to make our freedoms possible.

Wargaming is a hobby like no other. We are crusty older people (at least I am) who sit in the dark for hours upon end pushing around cardboard counters to replicate or do better than the historical result from many a by gone battle. This hobby is about connections. I talked to people who have played with the same person in their basement for decades. I have heard from some who look forward to WBC each year for the B-17 Queen of the Skies events because they have flown with the same bomber group for nearly 20 years. What does that tell you about our hobby? Connections. We do this because of the connections that we make. The friendships. The relationships. And I love it.

If you have never been to WBC, please consider attending next year. I promise you will not regret it. And I might just be able to make a few new friends if you show up.

Here’s to next year when the convention will run from Saturday, July 24th through Sunday, August 1st.

-Grant

I am nearing the end of my time here at WBC and I’m starting to get a bit sad. I have tomorrow but I will be leaving 1 day early on Saturday and just am not ready for it to be over. I have had a great time, played a lot of games, 13 by my count, and also seen old friends and made new ones. I have also done 6 videos but have had some technical difficulties with the camera as the batteries keep prematurely dying even though they have been fully charged. Bit I have made great memories and I am happy with that.

Today, we got in a full 6-player game of the excellent Imperial Elegy from VUCA Simulations. Imperial Elegy: The Road to the Great War 1850-1920 is a card driven game that blends diplomacy, warfare, and statecraft and feels a bit akin to games like Here I Stand and Virgin Queen from GMT Games. Grand scale sweeping epics that play multiplayers and take a day to play. Players play as 1 of 6 unique major powers in the game including Germany/Prussia, the United Kingdom, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

The game is somewhat of a sandbox style game as you have so many options and choices about what to do during the course of the game. Obviously, your faction has some direction about what you should be doing but really it is up the player to spend their resources how they will to accomplish their ultimate goals and score Victory Points. I truly love that aspect about this game and as we played we saw that sandbox and the asymmetry between the various factions. Particularly at the start, each country has some specific goals that they have drawn from the National Goals Deck that are a source of Victory Points, in fact a major source of Victory Points, and players will need to prioritize these cards and decide which ones to attempt to go after from the start. With only 7 turns, they will have to make progress on these National Goals if they have any hope of actually achieving them.

I have now played 3 times and very much like the grand scale of the game. It is a tad long, todays game took us about 11 hours to play, and I am starting to have concerns with the ability of France and Germany to team up and dominate the game and the Great War. I played as France today and did fairly well scoring 9 VP’s from my National Goals and doing really well in Africa and Asia with colonies as well as breaking into Mexico. I was getting 8 cards near the end of the game because I had done well in my colonial keys and my stability. This gave me lots of options with my cards and I also built up a sizeable army with 5 full Armies on the board and 5 reserve armies with 5 squadrons on the high seas and several naval bases in the east, Africa and the Mediterranean.

I think the game is a tad bit long. This is because players have at least 5-7 cards each and the Battles are very long and are their own little sideshow with a war budget and multiple movements and attacks allowed. I like the game. Love it in fact but am beginning to think it is just going to be hard to get to the table often. Here I Stand is similar in scope and scale and uses the same system but can be played in 6-9 hours versus 10-14 hours for IE.

In the end, France, Germany and the Ottomans were teamed in the Triple Entente while UK and Russia formed the Triple Alliance even though Austria and Italy were left out in the cold. The TE won the game as they just had too much muscle. I look forward to the next time I can play but it might be a while.

I was then able to watch a few minutes of play of the new upcoming Here I Stand Series game called The Night Watch: European Global Conflicts 1618-1648 from GMT Games, which focuses on the Thirty Years War. Just a prototype of the game but it looks epic and those playing seemed to enjoy it!

I was able to then go down to the vendor hall and bought quite a few games including The Alamo from Art of Wargames (solitaire), Sails at War from B2M Games, Year of the Rat Vietnam 1972 Deluxe Edition from Decision Games, Fortress of Oblivion from White Dog Games (solitaire), Le Conqueste from White Dog Games (solitaire), Model’s Counterattack from Dissimula Edizioni, On To Berlin from Multi-Man Publishing and Strike Counter Strike from Multi-Man Publishing. I was gifted a new copy of Assault Red Horizon ‘41 Revised Edition from Assault Games. Lots of great stuff to explore over the next several months.

I then met up with Bob Tkach designer of the upcoming Above the Trenches: The Fokker Scourge 1915-1917 from Flying Pig Games coming to Kickstarter this fall. This is a 2-player aerial dogfighting wargame that combines tactical, operational, and strategic elements of World War I air combat on the Western Front into a fast playing and fun game. The game focuses on the early years of WWI aerial warfare and the German-versus-British air battles.

The players will have to deal with the strategic board that has sector based objectives that will provide Victory Points and then place out their air units on the operational board where they will focus on height and positioning of observation balloons and fighters to protect them and finally will duel using cards on the innovative and very interesting combat wheel system for tactical positioning.

The players will draw a hand of technology cards, maneuver cards, speed cards and ace cards that all have numbers and some written events and will then play them to move the plane counter around the wheel and its various areas to take shots with front or rear based guns, avoid contact by maneuvering out of harms way and then starting over until one side or the other wins.

This game is not just about the dogfighting but players will be faced with the management of their squadrons, taking out of service planes to upgrade and repair them, give training to pilots to learn new skills and also to build new and upgraded planes.

A very fun and exciting game. As I was playing, I could really fell the excitement and tension building and very much loved what this one was trying to do. After playing, I was able to shoot a 30 minute video with the designer Bob and his developer Rich and I could feel their passion for the subject and the game.

After finishing up, I then met up with Uwe Wallentin from Sound of Drums to get a look at their upcoming lineup of games which includes many great looking titles such as Neither King Nor God Expanded Edition, No Retreat! The Russian Front Designer’s Edition, Battles of Napoleon Volume II: QUATRE BRAS 1815 / WARTENBURG 1813, Iron Cross Army Group North and Iron Cross Kharkov.

Uwe is a great guy and Sound of Drums is doing a great job of designing playable games with fantastic graphic design and artwork. I very much enjoyed our chat and we did a 30 minute video that’ll be up later on the channel.

That was it and I landed in bed around 10:30pm and need to get some rest for our final day tomorrow where we are playing Here I Stand from GMT Games.

Hope to see you back tomorrow night!

-Grant

Rinse and repeat with the after gaming sleeping and eating of breakfast. I was very tired this morning when the alarm went off at 7:30am. I knew I had a big day and hoped that I’d have the energy to do all that I had planned.

First up was a learning game of the brand new The Weimar Republic from GMT Games. The Weimar Republic is a Card Driven Game of political struggle in interwar Germany where 4 unique factions compete for dominance including the democratic Coalition, the Soviet-backed Communist Party, Hitler’s National Socialists and the far-right Radical Conservatives. The game covers the Interwar Years between 1919-1933 and represents all of the different fighting factions trying to gain control in Germany’s regions and major cities, to maneuver the political landscape of the Republic, and to dominate through a combination of propaganda, parliamentary elections, street violence, economic influence and ideological zeal. This situation sets itself up perfectly for a game to explore the various parties involved. I was able to get into a game with the Hoosier Herd gaming group from Bloomington, Indiana.

The game appears to be a COIN Series like game as each faction has their own unique abilities and powers but also win in their own way. The game also visually looks like a COIN game as it uses multi-colored wooden cubes to represent influence in the various districts of pre-WWII Germany.

A major focus of the game is the concept of Elections. Each Era has a number of Election Cards (based on the historical number of Elections) that are shuffled into the Event Card decks. When an Election Card is played, both a Regional and a General Election is held at the end of that round. Election scoring is based on players’ Dominance over spaces and Regions, with modifiers such as Middle Class Sympathies, Cadres, military Supremacy, etc. Regional Elections gives Parliamentary Control over the game’s Regions while a General Election can potentially end the game – if anyone but the Coalition wins a General Election, that player also immediately wins the game.

Players draw a hand of cards for each Era and use their AP to conduct Actions. You don’t chose between AP and Event as when you play an Event Card the Event always takes place, unless there are some requirements that aren’t met. You don’t need to play a card every turn – in fact you can’t, as there are fewer cards in a hand than turns in an Era and you may only play one Event Card per turn. However, you always have a basic 1 AP that may be used by itself or in combination with any Event Card played, so during some turns you will be using only that basic point. You can also pass which allows you to discard a card and draw a new one.

I very much like what I was doing but need to grok the rules so I know what I should be doing. We had a good time and I look forward to another play in the near future.

Next up I sat down with Greg Smith to play the upcoming Korean Tide from Compass Games. I took Greg to the woodshed with the Chinese and had a great time with the game. This one is a very good addition to the Tide Series and adds in some new tricks.

One of the things that I liked was the addition of new Divisional Displays which hold the strength points and assets of each division. The player will track the strength points as they are lost and gained but also will keep track of their reserves which is a new concept. Reserves can be used to force a reroll of your opponents dice during combat or to reroll your dice. The reserves are created by reducing the division’s strength points by 1. There are also tank counters that are attached to units, particularly the North Korean units at the start of the game which add a single strength point but also cause the defender to retreat after being attacked regardless of outcome. Both of these additions are very nice changes.

Greg and I played for the first 2 years of the war including 1950 and 1951 and I was able to break his units and destroy several American divisions. But the real thorn in Greg’s side was my 6th KPA unit who was dug in and just wouldn’t die. I was able to continually feed them reinforcements and their combat rolls were amazing inflicting 2-3 losses on the UN forces while taking no more than 1 loss. Such an interesting system and I very glad that I was able to play it.

Next up was a game of Baltic Empires from GMT Games. Baltic Empires covers the tumultuous period in the Baltic region from the collapse of the Teutonic Order in 1558 to the end of the Great Northern War in 1721. The game really focuses on representing both the mercantilist economic thinking of the time, the very limited resources at hand on the state/ruler level and the destructive nature of warfare and its effects on the local economy. When war occurs in spaces infrastructure can be destroyed and it is very expensive to keep replacing units that just die on the battlefield.

The game has 5 factions including Denmark-Norway, Sweden, Poland-Lithuania, Prussia-Brandenburg and Russia. Each power has 2 common victory conditions and 1 or 2 that are specific to that power. The shared victory conditions are either control of 2 custom houses or being the hegemon on all 3 tracks at the same time.

One of my favorite parts was that each turn, 5 Dramatis Personae Cards are randomly drawn from the deck and become available for purchase by the players in the Production phase. These cards have a wide variety of effects, but can be broadly divided into 4 types: those that have permanent effects, those that have one-time effects, those that affect victory conditions and those that provide a special leader unit.

These cards are excellent fun and really create somewhat of a race to purchase the best cards before others can acquire them.

I loved the game and was doing quite well with Sweden as I had captured Riga and Kurland in the Baltics and had built up quite the nice economic engine.

The economic system is simple, but manages to capture a lot of key elements of this period. Each province has between 0 and 3 resource icons and between 0 and 2 city icons. If a workshop marker is present on a resource icon the province produces 1 of that type of resource and if a city marker is present on a city icon the province produces 1 thaler (the currency of the game). There is one twist though, as provinces under noble control will contribute a maximum of 1 of the resources and 1 of the thalers produced in it to the central administration while the rest is discarded as it goes into the coffers of the local nobility. Only provinces where royal control has been imposed will contribute their full income to the player. In addition to this there are 3 trade center provinces on the map, and these generate extra income for their controlling player as they are able to tax the trade there. Just a great little game that I hope to explore further later.

My final game of the evening was a look at The Emperor’s Voice and The Emperor’s Choice coming to Kickstarter soon from Worthington Publishing. I was able to sit down with Wes Crawford to play his game The Emperor’s Voice which covers midnight until noon on August 15, 1945 when an attempted Army coup occurred against the Emperor of Japan in order to stop the surrender. The Emperor’s Choice is about the week leading up to the attempted coup, where the Imperial Cabinet debated over the issues concerning the ultimate decision by the Emperor to surrender. The two games may be joined together to create one longer legacy game that may be played in about two hours, although each may be played separately as a complete game, too.

I played The Emperor’s Voice as the Honor player who is trying to convince the Emperor to call off the surrender. The game is played with each player having a set type of action cards with things like move, plot, force commit, attack and persuade. Each of these actions is used to move into position to influence key figures and generals to sway them to your side with the draw of random chits and event cards to overcome your opponents total influence of the figures.

It’s all very tense and planning is key as you only have a few turns of 4-5 card plays to sway the generals, find the recording to destroy it, pressure the emperor and take out resistance against you. It all works well to create a very interesting and thematic game. I was able to win the game by convincing several of the key generals to my side and then successfully moved the emperor. I ended with 11 total cubes or VP’s to 5 for Wes.

I also played 1 round of The Emperors Choice where players are moving 1 of 6 issues up a track to their side to score VP’s and to gain special abilities from the won issues to assist in their next turn.

Both are great fun and will be coming to Kickstarter in the 4th quarter.

I had a great time today and got in a total of 5 games. I’m a bit beat and my mind is mush but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow as we have a full 6-player game of Imperial Elegy from VUCA Simulations planned and a look at an upcoming WWI aerial dogfight game called Above the Trenches from Flying Pig Games.

See you tomorrow night!

-Grant

Another early morning and we met John Sy to have some breakfast before heading to our scheduled game of World Order from Hegemonic Project Games. We met friends Tom and Tim and they had played the game and prepared to teach Mike and I.

World Order is a strategic level 2-4 player Euro-style board game that focuses on geopolitical influence in 7 different regions. Players are the United States, China, Russia, or the European Union in the year 2010 and compete for global hegemony by earning victory points through economic power, diplomacy, and regional control.

This game is played over 6 turns and players have a hand of 6 cards with various actions such as trading goods, influencing countries to become your ally, building military bases and placing influence. Each of the regions will score at the end of turn 3 and 6 and players will have to scramble to gain influence to get the most Victory Points in each region with lesser VP awarded for 2nd through 5th place. But each turn you only play 4 cards fur the actions and then use your remaining 2 cards to earn money and gain research points to purchase new upgraded and more efficient actions.

The game features asymmetric factions representing each superpower’s unique strengths and starting resources. Players will have to choose 1 of 3 Focus each round included my domestic, diplomatic or military, which grants specialized bonuses for that turn.

I loved this one. What a game! My Chinese won with 114 points as I was able to control 3 regions but also weasel my way into 3 others to gain lesser points. This one has a lot of moving parts but plays fairly quickly once people know what they are doing. I very much want to play again.

I next got into a 4-player game of Coalitions: Realpolitik from PHALANX designed by Valdemar Gumienny and Andrew Rourke.

Realpolitik is an area-control board game that features action selection cards where players have to play a card for 1 action that turn including taxing controlled areas, mobilizing new forces and battle cards, moving into battles, scoring victory points or then picking up your already played cards. It’s a very smart and slick little game that sees players competing for control of mid-19th-century German and Italian unification wars.

Combat is lite and fun and uses battle cards that add values of 1-5 to your combat totals but each played unit also has unique abilities that can change the battlefield such as destroying a played unit, adding +1 if the Barrie occurs in an area you control. The goal is to get to 25 victory points first and the game is very quick playing 60+ minutes with lots of strategy, creating alliances and working toward your goal of dominating key areas. Just a very fun and interesting game. I was able to guide my Prussians to victory scoring 25 VP first and it came down to the very end as Italy was also close on my heals. I liked it so much that I’m going to get a copy and hope to play the game with our local gaming group. Thanks to Ric Mann fur teaching and for the members of the Hoosier Herd gaming group for playing.

I then met up with Mark Miklos to chat about his newest upcoming volume in the Battles of the American Revolution Series called The Battle of Green Spring. We did a fairly lengthy video interview covering the game and its history as well as discussing his upcoming book called Liberty.

The Battle of Green Spring was the largest field battle fought in Virginia during the American Revolution with over 10,000 combatants. In addition to being noteworthy for its scope, this battle was Lord Cornwallis’s final victory in North America and served as the immediate precursor to the Siege of Yorktown.

I ended Day 3 playing The Adventures of Conan from Gale Force Nine, which is an asymmetric, semi-coop dice game of exploration, sorcery and combat set in the Hyborian age of Conan. We bounced off this one hard. Poor rules, lack of structure and little clarity, which is a shame. The art is fantastic, great components with custom dice but I felt like we had no idea what we were doing or how we were supposed to reliably get things done. We will try to watch a video out there to get an idea about what we are supposed to do and then maybe give it another try.

That was a long day and I’m very tired. I don’t have a lot on the schedule tomorrow but will find something to get into. I do get a chance to meet with Wes Crawford tomorrow night to play his new design coming to Kickstarter soon called The Emperor’s Voice from Worthington Publishing and might get in another play of China’s War from GMT Games or maybe Bretwalda from PHALANX. We shall see.

Tomorrow night then.

-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

Good morning faithful readers and wargaming enthusiasts! At the time this post uploads to the blog at 8:00am on Saturday morning, July 25th, I will already be on the way to the World Boardgaming Championships held at the beautiful Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. This year, unfortunately, Alexander will not be with me as he is visiting family in the south of France for a reunion. This is now the 2nd time in the past 3 years that I have flown solo to WBC but this time I am more prepared and more ready to take on the convention and its coverage. I will miss my friend and partner Alexander but will have a blast anyway. I am leaving earlier than I have ever left before for the convention and plan to make a pit stop in Pittsburgh, PA to pick up a friend Mike from the airport on Saturday afternoon to travel down together. We should arrive at WBC around 3:00pm on Saturday, July 25th and I plan to be at the convention for a total of 6 1/2 days leaving on Saturday, August 1st to come back home.

I already have a lot of plans laid out and will have 6 1/2 days filled with gaming, designer interviews, looks at new prototypes, visiting with friends, publishers and designers.

Here are my scheduled games as of today:

Sunday-Monday – Grand Tactical Series The Devil’s Cauldron: The Battles for Arnhem and Nijmegen and Where Eagles Dare: The Battle for Hell’s Highway from Multi-Man Publishing. I will be playing this one with Mike Heckman and a few others. I am very much looking forward to my first exposure to the Grand Tactical Series.

Monday – sit down with designer Gregory M. Smith and maybe a play of his Viking Dawn and a look at a new surprise Burning Banners offering (I won’t talk….yet!). But what I can say is that you will be able to play tactical battles in Kalar. We will also discuss his other in-process designs.

Tuesday – World Order from Hegemonic Games Project taught by our friend Tom and Coalitions: Realpolitik from PHALANX taught by Ric Manns from Southern Indiana.

Wednesday – The Emperor’s Choice and The Emperor’s Voice coming from Worthington Publishing designed by Wes Crawford and Maurice Suckling. I am very much excited about seeing these games and getting to play them.

Thursday – Imperial Elegy from VUCA Simulations. This will be my 3rd play and is sure to be epic!

Friday – Here I Stand from GMT Games. Our standard play of one of the best games in the hobby. Always look forward to this.

Plus I am trying to schedule a game of Small BoaR: The Battle of Cowpens from GMT Games with designer Bruno Sinigaglio, A Forlorn Hope from Wharf Rat Games, Above the Trenches: The Fokker Scourge 1915-1917 from Flying Pig Games with designer Bob Tkach and a sit down with Uwe Wallentin to get a look at Sound of Drums upcoming games. Already a full schedule and that isn’t even accounting for the opportunities that will present themselves. Should be an exhausting blast!

This year will be my 8th trip to WBC (2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025) and this is by far the best of all the different conventions that we attend! WBC is an event put on by the Boardgame Player’s Association (BPA), which is a non-profit corporation established to support the shared interests of board game players everywhere. This is a membership organization and I have been a member since 2019.

At the end of each day, I will be putting together a short summary of what I was able to do 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 I played that day, designers I was able to speak with and other activities I found my way to participate in. I am still planning on doing some videos that will be released on the YouTube Channel over the next few months but this written coverage will supplement the videos and be a real-time look at my time at the convention. This summary will most likely not be posted until after 11:30pm EST each night, if not a bit later, so you might be checking it out the next morning which is fine.

If you might be interested in attending WBC in the future, here is a look at their schedule for the next few years.

Finally, if you are at WBC please feel free to find me and say hello. I love to meet people, discuss gaming and catch up so don’t hesitate. I will also have plenty of TPA buttons and stickers to give away so just ask. I also would like to take a picture with you so I can document it in our writings. As is usual at our convention attendance, I will be looking to get in some bigger multi-player games so hit me up if you are interested. Thank you and here is to a successful trip to WBC!

-Grant