This year I am attending WBC alone as Alexander is out of the country visiting family. I started my trip bright and early this morning at 5:30am, which was good as the trip is a solid 6 hours to the Seven Springs Resort in beautiful Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. I didn’t sleep that well as I was tossing and turning ready to get after it and frankly I started the trip tired and have been running on some good music from many of my favorite bands Darius Rucker (love me some good Country Music), Pearl Jam (grunge!), Hootie and the Blowfish and Rush (classic rock), adrenaline and caffeine from my drink of choice Diet Mountain Dew!

On the trip, I decided to do one car video where I discussed my favorite solitaire wargames. I thought this was appropriate as I am flying solo to the convention. The video was about 20 minutes long and should be interesting, but not as good as normal I fear as my co-pilot wasn’t there and there was no one to talk back at me or for me to argue with! I did have a bit of difficulty with setting up the suction cup rig in the car and the camera overheated near the very end so I’ll have to see how it turns out.

I finally arrived at the Slopeside Hotel at around 12:20 noon and immediately grabbed my cargo which includes all of the camera and audio equipment as well as about 20 games that I lugged along, and headed into the convention center to obtain my badge so I was legal! I then headed into the open gaming area to meet up with our friend Gregory M. Smith to get a look at several of his upcoming games including Sinking Yamato, Insurgent Tide, Carrier Ace and a few others as he always has something cooking in his design kitchen.

I was actually able to play Sinking Yamato. Which is a solitaire game covering the final voyage of IJN Yamato, Japan’s super-battleship, on April 7th, 1945. The game focuses on the fact that the last mission given the ship was a suicide mission and the player has to attempt to last as long as possible against an inordinate amount of US air power arrayed against it and continually attacking.

The game is a magazine wargame and as such is limited on its footprint, components and overall size but this one felt very meaty and after playing to a loss I really felt satisfied with the experience. It did involved a lot of dice chucking but there are modifiers and there are lots of interesting decision choices about such things as using your damage crews, flooding and counterflooding to manage the list on the ship and gun placement before the bogies come down upon you.

The map is a large multi-fold affair that shows the top of the ship, including its anti-aircraft guns and deck guns, as well as below decks which is where the damage control teams are located and they have to worry about putting out fires before they spread but also controlling leaks and flooding.

The player actually has several choices to make at the outset of the game as there are options for extra crew members, training in different aspects and veteran crew that can be chosen.

The crux of the game is surviving wave after wave of American strafing runs, bombs being dropped and torpedo attacks. Historically there were nearly 400 American planes that attacked and as you can imagine it didn’t end well for the super battleship. I had a blast and really enjoyed the experience.

Greg also showed me the newest iteration of his upcoming Carrier Ace from Compass Games and it looks amazing. The game sees the player taking on the role of a pilot of a carrier based plane in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The game uses his proven air system from games like Interceptor Ace, Nightfighter Ace and other games and is focused on the skills of the pilot and their progression through various battles as part of a career.

Greg has been working on this one for a while and he had a breakthrough last year on how to handle the missions. You either are a fighter pilot or a pilot of a bomber/torpedo plane. When you go into missions and roll for what your focus is there are options for both type of planes, either fighter planes or bombers, on the same result separated by a slash.

Looks awesome and he even has some new art assets for the plane mats and they look really good. This is one thing that I have never been disappointed by in these games is the fantastic art! It just looks so very good and also helps you to get into the moment.

I also got a quick look at his upcoming Panzer Ace and it is huge with 40 different tanks included. The game covers the whole of World War II, starting in Poland and the East Front and then coming back to the Western Front as things change and the Allies get their invasions together.

Funny story. Last year when he brought this game up at WBC, I asked why there were no Stug’s included. I guess he took that to heart and since has added 14 different Stug models since last year. I think that was a very good move as everyone loves a good self-propelled gun!

The final game I will share is his upcoming Insurgent Tide which deals with the Iraq War from 2003-2008. If you didn’t know, Greg was a tanker and in Iraq during that time and knows a few things about the landscape and politics. The game uses the popular Tide Series and is a 2-player card driven game.

The great thing about the system is the player can use their Buy points to purchase back cards that were just played in the previous round. This is a really fascinating design choice as you have to decide if you forego other cards to gain cards back that you know are good.

I ended our time together by shooting a 30-minute video with Greg where he discussed these games and others that he is working on. Always appreciate speaking with Greg as he is a great guy and is a good designer.

After talking with Greg and having a fantastic time, I made my way up to Winterberry Hall on the 2nd floor of the convention center to meet up with Dave Stiffler and Bruno Sinigaglio to get an early look at the upcoming debut release in the Small BoAR Series called Cowpens.

I didn’t get any pictures because they didn’t have them along to show but learned a lot about the design and how it changes the Battles of the American Revolution Series from GMT Games. First off, the scale is the major difference as it is 1/8th of the scale used in the normal series. This means 25 yard hexes and 2-3 men per counter. They also have included both rifle fire and musket fire which is a change as musket fire is simply an abstracted part of the close combat mechanic.

They also have added some new mechanics to account better for things like morale and being shaken or even shattered.

The battle of Cowpens was a key battle in the American Revolutionary War in the South and this one is going to really open up the series to smaller battles. we shot about a 15 minute video with Bruno as designer and Dave as developer. I really appreciated their passion for the game and their care with the design. Small BoAR Cowpens is expected to be announced on GMT Games P500 in September.

I then was able to get with a new designer named Damian Mastrangelo and play his game called 18 Card Napoleonics This one was a blast and it is a very simple little battle game with some neat card matching mechanics. Coming soonish from Worthington Publishing.

It is very simple but has plenty of strategic depth as you are trying your best to match symbols with your units to activate them and take actions. You also use the cards in a blind draw to score hits, rally units or do command actions to collect your action cubes. It was a rough prototype but I am very much interested to this one and had a blast playing it.

The night ended with a friendly 4-player game of Pericles from GMT Games with the designer Mark Herman.

Mark is extremely gracious and I love playing games with him. We had a blast as always and everyone learned a little from the master.

Tomorrow starts early with a game of A Gest of Robin Hood from GMT Games followed by a game of The Great Hunger from Compass games (not released yet) with designer Kevin McPartland that deals with the Irish potato famine as well as several interviews. See you tomorrow evening!

-Grant