Last day here at WBC! We have thus far had an incredible time with lots of gaming (B-52D Linebacker II, Medieval Conspiracy, Congress of Vienna, The Napoleonic Wars, Here I Stand, Time of Wars, Triumvir, Valkyrie: A Black Orchestra Game, Battlestar Galactica) and several videos with Gregory M. Smith and Mark Herman. But most importantly good times with both new and good friends!

Saturday started off with a 6-player game of Border Reivers: Anglo-Scottish Border Raids, 1513-1603 from GMT Games, which came out in 2023 and was the game that I began to get ill at during WBC 2023 and was unable to finish.

In Border Reivers, each player rules over one of the Marches on the border of England and Scotland and has the goal to increase the wealth and fame of their clan by gaining VP’s from successful combats, amassing large herds of livestock consisting of sheep and cattle, and by elevating their notoriety above the other players on the regions of the map.

The game is very unique and in essence is a limited action selection game where players use cards to target the various marches and perform various atrocities such as raiding and stealing livestock, feuding with rivals and participating in ongoing battles. But the most unique part is the it is made for 2-6 players and is best with 4 or 6 players, though 2 and 3-player versions are also supported where each player leads both an English and a Scottish family.

This game is a euro as you are trying to amass VP’s to win the game and have multiple ways to these VP’s. But the game has battles and also uses various cards that are played to their family board representing special hirelings and wardens who bring abilities to bear on the clan activities and also that do things like build protective enclosures for livestock, improved castles and homes that make enemy raiders have a harder time.

I know that the game has sheeples (sheep meeples) and horses and looks pretty cute but there is a good game there and I have enjoyed it quite a bit. My only problem is that this is a long game. It took us about 4 hours and we did have a lot of new players but it is quite involved and takes some time to get familiar with. The rules are also not great and they take a bit of effort. But in my opinion the time to learn it is definitely worth it. I would play it again at the drop of a hat.

Next, we got a quick look at the new upcoming expansion for Burning Banners from Compass Games called The Southern Expansion. It includes 3 new races (Elves, Mara Mitai and Savage Orcs) and a large map expansion that connects to the main board on the bottom or south. These pictures are only prototype components. Thanks to Curtis who is a playtester for the quick overview.

I was asked on social media if these were the final look of the components and whether they would be the same production quality as the base game. The answer is of course and these are just illustrative at this point. The designer Christopher Moeller is also the artist and will bring the same style to the expansion.

We were both very tired and still had one final big game later so we decided to play a liter favorite game called Eschaton from Archon Games.

Eschaton is a strategy game driven by a very simple and classic deck-building mechanic. All players begin with the same basic deck of cards that represent cultists and have various abilities such as drawing additional cards, gaining special relic cards and fiends who are very powerful, being able to buy new cultists from the conclave to improve and strengthen your deck and also placing our cubes on the board as it also has an area control and combat element.

As the game progresses, various events and omens will be drawn that cause troubles, such as plagues, activating attacking purists who are trying to destroy the cults and also provide opportunities to earn additional VP’s through the completion of objectives.

But in the end the game is about area control and scoring points for having the majority of cultists in each of the areas.

I think that the thing I do like the most is it doesn’t overstay its welcome and is a minimum of 10 turns and a maximum of 12 turns. It just feels right!

I also got to meet a few great guys in Bill and Bob. Bill was very kind and told us how much he appreciated our honest opinions about games and how we tell who it is for. He said that he has bought many a game we have recommended and we have never lead him astray.

Bob was a guy I had first met last year when I was here alone and we chatted about one of his favorite games High Frontier. He offered to play with us next year. We have played but it would be good to revisit it and get some more guidance on what to do.

We said our goodbyes to our friends and grabbed a few slices of pizza before our final game of the convention with Mark Miklos. We played Great Battles of the American Revolution Germantown from the new American Revolution Tri-Pack.

Mark wanted to play one of the games in the new Tri-Pack and he thought Germantown would be a good situation. He played as the British lead by General Howe and Alexander and I teamed up to play the Patriots commanded by George Washington.

The scenario was 10 turns and had a very interesting situation as one of the Patriot leaders named Major General Adam Stephen was drunk and in the game this is reflected with a random die roll to start each turn to determine which direction he would move his troops as there was a dense fog. Just such a. Interesting way to deal with this and frankly it killed us as he moved his troops into contact with other troops and they hit confused and opened fire and caused several panics. The troops retreated toward the north east corner of the map and opened up a large hole in our line that would ultimately be our undoing.

Ultimately the British held and my gambit with the militia to curl up the flank where the Hessians were failed as I couldn’t get enough Continental regulars to assist.

I very much love the way that BoAR models the troops of the time and really reinforces the differences between the professional British and Hessian troops versus the militia and raw Continentals particularly in the early battles in 1777 before they gained experience and the leaders caught up. We ended the night at around 10:30pm and thanked Mark fur his time. He is planning a special gaming event in 2026 in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and is thinking it will be held at Camden in South Carolina. We are considering attending and will share more info as it gets closer.

Well our time here is done and we are packing to leave bright and early tomorrow morning. We had a great time and ended up playing 12 total games in 4 1/2 days. Amazing! And I am exhausted. We will work to create several more videos and begin sharing those on the channel in the next few weeks. Until WBC 2026, have a great rest of your year.

-Grant