For the 2nd year in a row, we attended SDHistCon in beautiful San Diego, California with about 150 of our closest wargaming friends. We had a great time and are really glad we attended. This year, I won’t go through and review all of the great games I played, the people that I spoke with or the great time that I had but want to simply say thank you to some of the best people in the wargaming hobby!
If you are interested in what we did play at the convention, I did write a Daily Debrief post at the end of each day on the blog and you can read those at the following links:
SDHistCon 2024 – Day 1 Debrief Post
SDHistCon 2024 – Day 2 Debrief Post
SDHistCon 2024 – Day 3 Debrief Post
Harold Buchanan – the first person that I wish to thank in this post is Harold Buchanan. If you don’t know Harold, he is just a first class individual. He is not perfect though, as he roots for the Ohio State Buckeyes but he is a pretty great guy. He has designed one of my favorite games of all time in Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection, Campaigns of 1777 from Decision Games as well as Flashpoint: South China Sea. He is the defacto head man for SDHistCon and gives of his time unselfishly and is a great ambassador for our hobby and for the mission of SDHistCon. I want to thank him for inviting us to attend for the first time last year and then for encouraging us to come again this year. I also want to thank him for his general demeanor and inviting nature as he just makes people feel welcome.
Grant Linneberg (Pushing Cardboard) – a heartfelt thank you to Grant Linneberg with Pushing Cardboard as he traversed the Rocky Mountains and came all the way from Canada to join in the festivities. Before the convention, we had scheduled a 3-player game of Shiloh: The First Day from Revolution Games and he was going to teach us the Blind Swords System as we had never officially played it before. We have however played similar systems in the Black Swan Series found in A Most Fearful Sacrifice from Flying Pig Games and also a similar system in At Any Cost from GMT Games. But he taught us the system very well, even well enough for us to pull off an amazingly brash and lucky maneuver to capture the road leading to Pittsburg Landing for the automatic victory for the CSA. We also were able to get in a full 6-player game of Virgin Queen from GMT Games and Grant played the role of the Holy Roman Empire and came in 2nd place to my Spanish!
Steve Carey – I also want to thank Steve Carey who is the designer of Shiloh: The First Day, which is Volume 11 in the Blind Swords Series, for hovering around us as we played his game giving us tactical advice, keeping us straight on the rules as well as discussing the historical elements he worked hard to include in the game. Just a very nice person who we have done several designer interviews with in the past for which I am also grateful.
We shot the following video interview with Steve and Grant Linneberg after finishing up our 3 1/2 hour play of Shiloh:
Andrew Bucholtz – Andrew is also involved on the board for SDHistCon and is always a ball of energy. He also has encouraged us to attend in the past and I wanted to thank him for his continual prodding. I also really enjoy following him on social media and reading his various gaming and sports posts. Just a first class individual.
The Players’ Aid Wives (Paisley and Kelly) – in case you didn’t know, this time on our trip out to San Diego, we were able to convince our lovely wives to attend with us and even participate in the convention by holding a 1-hour panel with The Players’ Aid Wives. We didn’t have a lot of attendees (with just 6 I believe) but we had a great time asking them questions about The Players’ Aid journey over the past nearly 9 years as well as their observations about wargaming, the hobby, how to keep harmony at home with our busy schedules and even gender representation in gaming. We are eternally grateful to the 2 of them as their support and encouragement has been invaluable to both of us. We couldn’t do what we do without them and truly love and appreciate them immensely. We also had a fantastic time with them after the convention as we spent a day on the beach, traveled to Disney Land and ate some really great food!
My Son Elijah and my Mother-in-law Deatra – the whole trip would not have been possible without the support and help of our Mother-in-law Deatra Ogden (Kelly and Paisley’s wonderful 72-year old mother) and my 21-year old son Elijah as they took care of our children at home. Deatra stayed at Kelly and Alexander’s house to watch over Oliver (8) and Atticus (10), getting them ready for school, driving them around to activities and making sure they were fed and clothed. Elijah also cared for my 2 daughters Jane (14) and Marin (12) taking them to school each day, picking them up, running them to and from color guard practices, feeding them (by mostly buying McDonald’s) and staying with them. I am not sure how we would have been able to do this trip without them so we thank them!
Maurice Suckling – Maurice Suckling is an aspiring young designer and has designed some really great games that we have enjoyed over the years including Freeman’s Farm 1777 from Worthington Publishing, Chancellorsville 1863 from Worthington Publishing and 1565: Siege of Malta from Worthington Publishing to name just a few. His most recent design is called Crisis: 1914 from Worthington Publishing and we were able to arrange a full 5-player game prior to the convention. Maurice not only taught us the rules but joined in our game while simultaneously helping 2 other tables playing the game nearby. We had a blast with this one and I cannot wait to play this again sometime. It is best with 5-players so make sure you get the right group and give yourselves a chance to really learn the game as each faction’s deck is completely asymmetrical and repeated plays will help you understand each’s strengths and strategies. Maurice Suckling won the game but the scores were all fairly close. I just wanted to thank him for teaching us the game and joining is as it was really great to have an ongoing discussion about things with him as we played.
Andrew Heim – Andrew Heim is a very cool guy that has followed our blog and channel for quite a few years now and actually sports a The Players’ Aid shirt often on social media. Prior to the convention, we had arranged a full 6-player game of Virgin Queen from GMT Games with Andrew leading the game and bringing along his copy. Several players were new to the game but Andrew did a fantastic job of printing out special player aides along with some strategy tips that made everyone’s adjustment to the game and system that much easier. He also modified his copy of the game to include magnetic tape on the back of certain of the score keeping and tracking counters as well as the artists and scientists so they could be elevated and displayed for all to more easily see. This made the game a very special experience and I really appreciated the preparation he had put into the game. He also had lunch with us over at Jack-in-the-Box and it was great to chat with him! A fantastic person and a great teacher.
Mark Miklos – a big thanks to Mark Miklos, who is the Battles of the American Revolution Series designer, for playing a full 3-player game of Savannah from GMT Games with us. We had planned this game to occur at WBC in 2023 but unfortunately I fell ill and spent my convention in the hospital dealing with Keto Acidosis (thanks diabetes!) and we had to cancel then. He then was persistent and tried to get us to do any number of conventions to do the game but we couldn’t. Finally though at SDHistCon, the planets aligned and we were able to get in a game and what a great experience it was! Mark brought along his big board copy of the game which is massive and has huge counters to give us the red carpet experience.
Also, we knew that Mark would go all out and go all out he did as he brought along his full Hessian get up with amazing tricorne and pants, so we planned our own bit of cosplay and purchased some cheap tricornes of our own off of Amazon to wear for the entirety of the game. A fun time was had by all and lots of Huzzahs, groans and individual morale checks were experienced as Mark took the 2 of us to the woodshed and pounded us into dust. But we wanted to thank him for the game, the experience and for the gits of chocolate bars from Colonial Williamsburg that he presented us with!
Cole Wehrle – I wanted to thank Cole Wehrle and his brother Drew as they brought along a huge pimped out version of John Company for a huge “celebrity” game. I was pretty tired and decided to bow out gracefully and return to my room to get some rest but Alexander represented TPA well and ended up winning the game with Grecia by a razor thin margin of victory by the pink Benyon family. But a huge thanks to all involved, especially Cole Wehrle for taking the time to create this massive version of the game!
Sam London – a big thanks to Sam London for teaching us how to play his upcoming game called Common Sense (it was originally called Absolved from All Allegiance), which will be announced on GMT Games P500 in the next few months. The game is an American Revolutionary War Strategic Level game that uses trick taking and is a struggle over the Will to Fight Track that measures the level of commitment by both sides to the fight. Sam was extremely patience with us and particularly me as I asked a lot of very annoying questions about the game, its balance, the concepts behind the trick taking, the asymmetry and strategy of the decks, etc. We very much enjoyed the game and appreciate his time in teaching it to us.
Kai Jensen – for anyone that knows Kai Jensen, you know that she is just the best and most kind person you will ever meet. We were able to chat a bit while attending the mixer on Thursday night and I am very much glad we got the chance. I want to apologize to her one more time for my snafu from last year where I spilled the beans on some upcoming Combat Commander releases that she was working on. She joked that she didn’t tell me “off the record” and I just blurted the information out to the whole world (or at least those few hundred people that read the blog!). I want to thank her for her friendship and for her hard work on one of my favorite games! Keeping it going is very important to me and I know important to her as a remembrance of her late husband Chad.
David Siskin – I wanted to thank David Siskin for teaching us Greek Tragedy from Blue Panther. Frankly, the rules were a bit of a mess and needed some work and we struggled with getting this one played correctly. But that was no fault of David’s as he came prepared by creating a simple player aid and was very helpful as we talked through certain confusing or unclear points in the rules. I think that there is something here but we didn’t find it in our 90 minute play. David also joined in our game of Virgin Queen, which was his first play and he was a true champ about it playing extremely aggressively as the Ottomans and causing my Spanish lots of consternation and trouble in the Mediterranean Sea.
Florent Coupeau & James Buckley – I wanted to give a quick thanks to Florent Coupeau and James Buckley with Nuts! Publishing for teaching us the very interesting and fun game Guerre Eclair coming soon as part of the Combat Rations Series designed by Yasushi Nakaguro. The game is a very smart and quick playing wargame covering the German invasion of France in 1940 during World War II. Nuts has some really interesting games on the horizon and you can learn more when our interview with Florent drops on the YouTube Channel sometime in the next week.
Trevor Bender – finally, thank you to Trevor Bender for showing us the upcoming Korea: Fight Across the 38th appearing in C3i Magazine #38 from RBM Studio. The game is the third volume of the C3i Combined Arms Series, after Battle for Kursk: The Tigers are Burning, 1943 and Desert Victory: North Africa, 1940-1942. The series rules have been adapted to capture the ebb-and-flow of operations as well as the rugged terrain and the logistical challenges faced by each side and will be featured in C3i magazine #38, which will be out in December 2024. Trevor is such a nice guy and we tried to get together to discuss the game over the 3-days and finally got the chance as our last thing on Sunday afternoon. Trevor has the same faith as me and I appreciate his shining example to me!
Well, that is a wrap! I could probably thank more people but then this post would end up being too long. There are just so many great people that attend this small convention and I am very glad to have met them all over the past few years. We look forward to attending in the future and hope that you have enjoyed our coverage of the event in my blog writings and our upcoming videos. I hope to see many of you again in San Diego in the future!
-Grant
The mission of SDHistCon is to create a diverse and supportive gaming community dedicated to playing, discussing, designing, and promoting historically-based board games. Through this commitment, SDHistCon seeks to serve both the existing historical board gaming community as well as grow it through the addition of new voices and perspectives. Recent events run by SDHistCon include this convention last year, the 2022 Summit Award (given to Red Flag Over Paris), an online convention in March 2024, and SDHistCon East at the U.S. Naval War College this past August.
The Players' Aid 