Last November, we embarked on our initial trip to SDHistCon and we really had a great time! The games were great, the interactions with designers, developers, publishers, content creators and gamers was fantastic and the environment was very chill and interesting. The San Diego Historical Games Convention was held from Friday, November 3rd through Sunday, November 5th at the S.E.S. Portuguese Hall of San Diego. We played 11 total games including lots of prototypes but also a few finished games including Firefight Tactical from GMT Games (with designer Sam London), Peace 1905 coming to Kickstarter this year from Fort Circle Games (with designer Maurice Suckling), Lenin’s Death (with designer Matthias Cramer), John Company 2nd Edition from Wehrlegig Games, The Promised Land: War and Peace in the Middle East 1940-1989 (with designer Matthias Cramer), Night Witches coming this year on Kickstarter from Fort Circle Games (with one of the 2 designers David Thompson), Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection from GMT Games, John Brown (with designer Alex Knight), Microverse (with designer Sam London), Tyranny of Blood: India’s Caste System Under British Colonialism, 1750-1947 (with designer Akar Bharadvaj) and In the Shadows from GMT Games (with one of the 3 designers Dan Bullock).
We also shot several interview videos with designers and I am going to share those all in this post rather than spreading those out over the next few weekends.
First up, was our interview with Sam London designer for Firefight Tactical from GMT Games:
Next was our interview with Maurice Suckling designer of Peace 1905 from Fort Circle Games:
Then our interview with Matthias Cramer designer of Lenin’s Legacy (called Lenin’s Death at the time we played the game) from GMT Games:
And finally our interview with designer Akar Bharadvaj designer of Tyranny of Blood: India’s Caste System Under British Colonialism, 1750-1947:
-Grant
The Players' Aid 
Grant,
Don’t know if you have had a chance to look at my book yet, but yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, they had an article entitled “The Original War Game” which I commented on with the following:
For US Army Intel Analysts, “The Barn” was held up more or less as the graduation exercise. Maps of East and West Germany walled a large room. Everyone was assigned to a 3- or 4-person team. The scenario was that the Soviet forces had begun to invade West Germany from East Germany and we were the G-2 (intelligence) section of a US division opposite the Fulda Gap. We were to compile Essential Elements of Information (EEIs) and Other Intelligence Requirements (OIRs) for the commander. In what became individual team requests for certain information, we would take a pre-measured strip of paper to one of the referees and would be quizzed as to why we needed this particular item of information. The requests had to be timely, make sense, and had to be something appropriate to the current OB and tactical situation. This game had been played often enough that if you asked the right questions, there were pre-printed answers given in return. The questions and answers became the points scored for each team, which were also posted on a chalk board for all to see.
(from the book, Break in the Chain Intelligence Ignored) There was more to this in the book.
Regards,
Bob Baker
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