Well I am at the stage where exhaustion is catching up with me! I only got about 5 hours sleep last night because we didn’t get back to the room until 11:00pm and then we chatted and I finished yesterday’s post around midnight. Hahaha. I just can’t win but I am ready to go today and am very much looking forward to our lineup of games which kicked off with Here I Stand from GMT Games.

But first, another fantastic breakfast to start the day with Ed Beach at our table. Got a quick update on the upcoming Primus Interpares (game about the Crusades using the HIS CDG system) and news that Here I Stand will come to The Thirty Years War period.

After breakfast, we setup Here I Stand and we played with our good friends Cullen and Russ, their friend Andy and Mike. When Cullen showed up, he had a custom t-shirt on that I thought was pretty funny. I told him it would have been funnier if they had misspelled stupid!

We then started our game of Here I Stand from GMT Games and I look forward to this each year. To me, Here I Stand is such an experiential wargame that creates the best narrative and individual memories. We have played with the same guys year after year, including Mike, Russ, Cullen and Andy, and we have all got the system down and our games are pretty efficient. I played as the Ottomans and Alexander was the French. This was my first time ever as the Ottomans and I was both excited to try them out but also nervous as I just don’t have a real grasp on the strategy other than attack Hungary and go for the gates of Vienna while trying to pirate the coasts of the Mediterranean.

England (Mike) won at the conclusion of Turn 5 with 25VP’s after rolling high on an exploration roll that gave him that 25th VP. The game took 6 1/2 hours and was a total blast as always. My Ottoman’s finished 2nd with 23VP and Alexander’s French got 3rd with 21VP.

Here is a look at the final scores. I would say that today’s game was the most competitive and hard fought game we have ever played. Everyone, with the exception of Cullen’s Hapsburg’s, were in it at the end and on several occasions a few of us were close. Just such a great game that I will never get tired of playing.

We then played a game of Operation Valkyrie: A Black Orchestra Game from Starling Games. Valkyrie uses the same mechanics as in Black Orchestra but with quicker and simpler gameplay, and a few new strategic elements. The game sees players having to collect information, various pieces of equipment and weapons to try to assassinate Hitler. Custom dice are used and it is just a very solid game. We didn’t enjoy Valkyrie as much as we did Black Orchestra but appreciated the shorter play time of this one (30 minutes) and its new focus. We ended up losing as we tried to blow up Hitler with dynamite and a detonator and failed as we came one target symbol short.

I will say that the art and the graphic design fur these games is just stunning and the production value is just amazing! Well worth the $45 I paid for the game.

Our final game of the day was not a wargame as we played Battlestar Galactica from Fantasy Flight Games with Mark Herman and a few others including Mike and John Sy.

The game puts players in the role of one of ten of the characters from the tv show from the early 2000’s and the original from the 1980’s. Each character has their own unique abilities and weaknesses, and the game is cooperative and players must all work together to survive and make it to their end destination of Kobol. However, one or more of the players in every game secretly side with the Cylons as the game is a hidden traitor focus. Players must expose the traitor while worrying about crises that lead to fuel shortages, food contaminations, and political unrest.

I love this game and very much had a great time playing as the humans won in the end even though it looked really bleak for most of the game.

Tomorrow is our last day and we have a few things planned with an early game of Border Reivers from GMT Games and the night cap will be a game of Battles of the American Revolution Germantown from GMT Games with designer Mark Miklos. Catch you tomorrow and thanks for following along!

-Grant