This time we had no travel issues, partly because it is just a 2 1/2-hour drive from Indianapolis, Indiana to Columbus, Ohio, and we have arrived here at Buckeye Game Fest. We got in around 7:00pm on Wednesday evening and walked to the War Room to see what was going on. As we entered, we were greeted by our good friend Bill Simoni who was in the middle of setting up Downfall from GMT Games. We chatted a bit and went to dinner and afterwards met up with Russ Wetli from Cardboard Conflicts and sat down to play a 4-player game of the historically themed cooperative Euro game Dutch Resistance: Orange Shall Overcome! from Liberation Game Design and really had a great time.

We played a new scenario that saw us having to find and escort to safe locations a few key items to be used by the Resistance including a baby buggy and a briefcase full of money. Once this was completed, we then had to print and deliver some newspapers with key pieces of coded information to various locations. It came down to the wire and we were victorious with 2 other players who still had turns to take.

Early this morning, we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and really had a great chat about our future plans for the blog and YouTube Channel. We normally don’t spend a lot of time in these kinds of strategic discussions but I think we are both energized and ready to move our efforts forward. Most of this will be subtle changes but we hope it will pay off in the end by allowing us to provide better content as well as experience some new things. After the discussion, and probably the worst eggs Benedict we’d ever had we arrived at the War Room sharply at 8:20am.

We were greeted by Steve Jones with Blue Panther and got a chance to sit down and shoot a video with him covering all their new original games as well as the new games from their partners like Hollandspiele, Catastrophe Games and White Dog Games.

Some of the highlights were a look at a few upcoming designs by Hermann Luttmann that will be Blue Panther games in Tattered Flags Volume 1: The Wheatfield and Revenge of the Zeds. Tattered Flags is a new system that covers the American Civil War era and this game is set at Gettysburg around the area of the “Wheatfield”. Revenge of the Zeds is a reimagining of Herman’s Dawn of the Zeds from Victory Point Games and is set after the events in Farmington but is a bit more apocalyptic. Steve said they have changed the combat system a bit but there are some other changes that we will have to better understand only after playing. To say the least though we are excited about this one as we love Dawn of the Zeds but hope they don’t change all that much. Greek Tragedy is another interesting looking historical game focused on the Greek War of Independence from 1944-1949 designed by Patrick Stevens. The game is a 4-player game with two teams of 2 players on the same side. The game is a team card driven format. We hope to get to play this one this week.

After our video with Steve, we immediately noticed a new prototype Card Driven Game called A More Perfect Union from Catastrophe Games. The designer is John Lapham and he was kind enough to give us a demo and then we got to play a full game. This one is probably a year away yet but seemed to be very polished and well put together.

A More Perfect Union is a 2-player card driven game that simulates the public debate over the ratification of the Constitution that took place across the United States from 1787-1789. The game uses the same system as Twilight Struggle and 1960: The Making of the President but felt very fresh and unique to the situation. The players will take the side of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, with the players pursuing strategies to ratify or defeat the Constitution. The Federalists win if nine states ratify the Constitution while the Anti-Federalists win if five states refuse to ratify.

Alexander played as the Federalists and me as the Anti-Federalists and he beat me pretty handily on points as he was only able to get 8 States to ratify while I could only get 2. Very good game that we played in about 90 minutes to completion.

After lunch Alexander and I bought lots of great games from Blue Panther Pyrates! and Solitaire General: Waterloo from White Dog Games, Overflight! and Tally-Ho! from Air Wing Games and Table Battles: Doomed Expansion from Hollandspiele as well as several canvas upgrade maps for games we already own (like The Mog, Don’t Tread on Me, Global War 1936-1939 and Jeff Davis from White Dog Games, Siege of Mantua, NATO Air Commander and That Others May Live from Hollandspiele). We had a good time shopping for sure and got some really great titles

Then around 2:00pm, Hermann Luttmann arrived and we had a great opportunity to play a 4-player game of The Plum Island Horror from GMT Games. ID Jester (Kirk) from the War Room YouTube also joined us and he was very knowledgeable about the game as he had previously played 6 times. If you aren’t aware, The Plum Island Horror is a 1-4 player cooperative game that focuses on both tactical-level unit management and combat as well as tower-defense style survival. The players will each play one of 6 unique factions which represent the various groups that populate Plum Island. Each faction has their own strengths and weaknesses, and the cooperative system forces players to work together and use their abilities wisely to stay alive and perform lots of different tasks like repair damaged bridges to ease movement, evacuate civilians for points and protect key areas against the continually spawning hordes of Horrors that will keep coming and move down various tracks.

We played a new scenario that is being playtested for the upcoming expansion called The Governor’s Decree Scenario. We had to protect specific locations on the board and also Eva use civilians to attempt to do well enough to get the Governor reelected. We started off really roughly with several very bad events that spawned lots of Horrors as well as murder hornets and poison rats but we worked together well and held the horse back to bring our score to zero VP which was enough to win the scenario. Man this game was a lot of fun and was really interesting. It had everything you want in a cooperative survival based game. Tough choices, bad events and really challenging game play. This was our first play and I can’t wait to get it back to the table.

After The Plum Island Horror, we went to dinner with Hermann, Kirk, Russ Wetli and Bill Simoni and had a glorious time together. Upon returning to the convention center we orchestrated a full 6-player game of John Company 2nd Edition from Wehrlegig Games.

For those that haven’t played it the game is a look at the fate of the East India Company and a struggle between the players to gain prestige and wealth and retire their family members to gain victory points all while trying to obtain the riches of the Indian subcontinent through trade and military conquest. I have now played the game 5 times and had a blast each time and frankly am starting to get a bit better what it is that I am supposed to be doing and how best to do it. Now I say that but I tied for third with 2 victory points. We had absolutely atrocious luck and rolled 4 Events in India each of the first 3 rounds.

We just couldn’t get any foothold in India and ultimately lost all of our markets. Thusly the company failed in round 4 as the company died an ignominious death. Great game. I’m bad at it but it is always an interesting and engaging time.

Tomorrow, we have events planned to do COIN Series Teach & Plays with me doing Fire in the Lake and Alexander doing Andean Abyss. We also will be running 2 tables of 4 players each for Nations & Cannons RPG from Flag Bearer Games. We have a very cool campaign planned with some very non-historical twists. We also are going to try and get a look at Tattered Flags with Hermann Luttmann or possibly play Burning Banners from Compass Games. Should be a blast!

Thanks for reading along and we will be back with you tomorrow night with a rundown of Day 2 here at Buckeye Game Fest.

-Grant