We arrived safely on Tuesday afternoon at around 4:00pm and got checked in, unpacked, organized and off to the War Room to get setup and see what was happening. The War Room is back in its original location in the Taft C room which is great because it’s a bit larger than last years room. When we entered there were about 20 people already there and playing and I was immediately excited. I love conventions and BGF is just about my favorite!

Upon entering and getting setup we were approached by a fan of the channel named Leslie Jerome who drove all the way from Lawrence, Kansas. Such a nice guy and his wife was with him and they were a fantastic couple. Leslie has a special talent that he shared with us as he showed off his handiwork which involves creating 3-D boards for his favorite games such as To Take Washington: Jubal Early’s Summer 1864 Campaign from Multi-Man Publishing from the Line of Battle Series…..and…..

…..Stonewall’s Sword: The Battle of Cedar Mountain from Revolution Games….and…

….and A Most Fearful Sacrifice: The Three Days of Gettysburg from Flying Pig Games.

These maps are just amazing and each one of them has such great detail showing the different elevations on the game board. Leslie said each one takes him multiple weeks to create and involves a lot of detail and precision cutting and gluing as well as shading the edges of the elevating terrain with colored pencils. We were really impressed and are hoping to play a few turns of To Take Washington with him tomorrow morning.

After that, our 1st game of the day was Danger Forward: The Battle of Gela, July 1943 from Multi-Man Publishing which is found in the Battalion S3 Operations and Training Magazine Issue #1. This magazine is new and arrived just last week so Alexander was able to read the rules, clip the counters and also read the 40-page magazine which is filled with of strategy and tips n how to play the Battalion Combat Series.

The game is a fantastic entry point to the BCS and was specifically designed as an accessible, entry-level game as a gateway to the series with 1 map, 5 scenarios, and approximately 176 counters.

We played for about 2 1/2 hours and finished the 3-turn scenario and really had a great time with the game. While it is introductory, we still had plenty of opportunity for maneuver, combat and some really great narrative emerged.

As the Americans landing on the beaches, I had about eight 82nd Airborne Units that went through a drop procedure at the start of the game with many of them scattering all over the board and even a few drifted and landed on several German and Italian units which meant they were instantly killed. But the best bit was when one the units, against all odds and totally outnumbered and outclassed, was able to hold a mountain pass road the entire 3 turns during multiple German attacks. They were able to hold them back allowing the 45th Infantry to move up and secure the objective there.

The next game up was Blind Swords Volume 12: Gettysburg: The First Day from Revolution Games. We played the Barlow’s Folly scenario which is a smaller 7-turn affair.

I was the Union, who were in a defensive posture and had few opportunities to activate and make attacks, and frankly didn’t enjoy the scenario we chose. There were a few reasons for that other than the fact that I was getting steamrolled. My commanders had terrible Command Ratings while Alexander’s Confederate leaders were much better. In Blind Swords, players draw chits, which represent specific brigades, divisions, or command events. If a Division or Brigade chit is drawn, the player usually rolls a die and compares it to the Command Rating on the chit to determine if it is a Full or Limited Activation. If the roll fails (or a “Limited Activation” is triggered), the brigade can only perform limited actions, such as firing, instead of full movement and combat. This happened to my brigades over and over. In fact, in turn 2 I failed all 5 activation rolls and most of my units were unable to do anything as they were not in range to do a fire attack.

I also struggled with the difference in strengths of the units as most of the Union units had 4-5 strength as compared to 6-9 for the CSA units. This meant my chances of scoring hits on the multi-step combat process was very poor.

For me, I just think we chose a poor scenario and we are going to continue tomorrow morning a bit and see if we can choose a more balanced scenario. We shall see!

With that, we returned to the hotel room at around 11:30pm to get some sleep as we are going to breakfast at 8:00am and then getting back to the War Room to play several games tomorrow like a few turns of To Take Washington, Chicago ‘68 from The Dietz Foundation, Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945 – 1948 from Legion Wargames and some other stuff.

A big day and I am looking forward to it!

-Grant