We left a bit later than expected this morning around 7:15am and drove for 6 1/2 hours. It was a long drive but we always fill the time with conversation about a lot of things including wargames, films, pop culture, music, books and history. Unfortunately we didn’t get to do a car video this time as we kind of forgot but will try to do one on the way home on Sunday.

We finally arrived at the Slopeside Hotel at around 1:45pm and immediately grabbed our cargo which includes all of the camera and audio equipment as well as about 20 games that we lugged along, and headed into the hotel to check in. This year we were surprised to find out that our room was on the 4th floor which is in essence the ground floor and we only had a short walk to the attached convention center. In the past, we have been in a taller floor and were always at the end of the hall and the trip downstairs somewhat felt like a long march.

After checking in and getting settled in our room, we headed to WBC HQ to obtain our badges so we were legal! We then entered the open gaming area to meet up with our friend Gregory M. Smith to get a look at several of his upcoming games including B-36 Peacemaker, Insurgent Tide, Carrier Ace, B-52D Linebacker II, Iberian Tide and a few others as he always has something cooking in his design kitchen.

The first game we really got a good look at and actually played a few turns was B-52D Linebacker II. Linebacker II was the 1972 Christmas bombing campaign diring the end of the Vietnam War designed to bring North Vietnam back to the Paris Peace Talks negotiating table featuring huge B-52 bombing raids against Hanoi. As a player you will pilot one of these B-52 bombers and inflict as much damage as possible on strategic infrastructure against the North.

The game plays out over 10 turns and uses an overall aggregate “bombing accuracy” score to determine victory as measured by the percentage of bombs that hit near the target, somewhat similar to the old B-17: Queen of the Skies game that we all know and love. Similar to some of his other designs the game has a relatively simple sequence of play and is pretty simple. It only has a few major choices you have to make at the outset such as whether you will lead the bombing squadron and which of 4 attack routes you will take.

The jeopardy for the player is when the North Vietnamese find your approaching squadron and begin to shoot SA-2 rockets and send in MiG fighters to intercept. The player can use chaff and escort aircraft to avoid the attacks but sometimes you will be hit and take damage to key parts of the plane such as engines, the airframe, guidance systems, landing gear, etc. There is a chance of a direct hit and the missions don’t leave much room fur error as they can destroy your plane if the rolls are against you. All in all this is a fun little lite solitaire game and it is appearing in

B-52D Linebacker II is slated to appear in issue #120 of Papers Wars Magazine, which is the Compass Games house magazine. That’s roughly a couple years down the pike as they release quarterly.

Next up we gut a look at a very new game called Western Desert Ace: Air Operations in North Africa and it looks really good.

The game uses the Western Front Ace System but tells the story of the aerial battles over the North African desert from 1940-1943. The art on this one is well advanced and looks really great!

We then got a quick look at the newest Tide Series game from Greg called Iberian Tide that takes a look at the Spanish Civil War.

Greg is very excited about this one and feels like it might be one of his best games. He is designing this with Michael Vitale and is hoping that this one might be ready next year along with Insurgent Tide that we covered last year.

After about an hour of chatting and playing we were able to shoot a 20-minute video interview and see Greg talking about all of his projects. I always look forward to our chats each year and really do enjoy our friendship with Greg. He asked us if we would consider attending Compass Games Expo Fall on November 6-10th and we told him we definitely would give it a strong look.

We then got in our first play of a very interesting game called Medieval Conspiracy from UGG. We played just a 4-player game (as the game plays up to 6 players) with Larry and Brice.

The game is a hybrid euro style area control game with bidding and combat along with event and action cards that are used to build up your economy and influence and control fiefdoms to gain prestige and power. The game is set during the Holy Roman Empire of Germany. The HRE is divided into many small earldoms, principalities, and bishoprics. The Ruler of the Empire is the Holy Roman Emperor who is elected by the 7 electoral princes and the players vie for control of these areas to build up trade, wealth and armies to fight wars of conquest. 

The game action is started by the play of action cards and event cards. After collecting their income players will bid for event cards from a tableau of 4 cards that give abilities, raise troops, build monasteries and castles and also develop their families to place them into positions of power.

During a player turn players roll the fate dice that result in numerous effects, both good and bad. Players gain new countries or conquer them by force from other players.

The rule book in this one was not great and the odd medieval script used was very hard to decipher. But all in all we very much enjoyed this game and want to play it again sometime soon.

We then returned to our room at around 10:30pm and got ready for bed as we have a big day tomorrow with a game of Congress of Vienna from GMT Games at 9:00am and then a game of The Napoleonic Wars from GMT Games at 6:00pm.

Thanks for following along!

-Grant