Last week, Alexander and I attended our 6th Buckeye Game Fest in Columbus, Ohio. Buckeye Game Fest is an annual gaming convention ran by Buckeye Game Festivals, which is a 501c4 non-profit committed to promoting the hobby of boardgaming by hosting an annual festival and pop-up gaming events within the local community. BGF also has a dedicated War Room where wargames are featured and the War Room runs from Monday (when the rest of the convention doesn’t start until Thursday) through Sunday every spring. The convention is typically held in mid to late April but this year due to conflicts the convention was very early and was held from Monday, March 9th through Sunday, March 15th. We attended from Tuesday afternoon March 10th through Sunday morning March 15th. As is usually the case, we had a fantastic time playing games, hanging with friends, discussing game releases with several publishers who attend, including Blue Panther, Catastrophe Games and this year Decision Games, and hanging out with designers such as Hermann Luttmann, Tim Densham, John Lapham, David Thompson and others. It is just a very small and intimate convention that never disappoints.
While attending the convention, I wrote a series of detailed Daily Debriefs on the blog but wanted to do this piece to highlight the overall experience and show you why this convention is so good. So here are my Top 10 Moments from this year’s convention.
10. Played 6 Wargames Published in 2025 to Finish up 2025
2025 was somewhat challenging for us from a time standpoint. Alexander has received a promotion at work and has been traveling more than usual and also dealt with some non-serious health matters earlier in the year that cut into our gaming time. I also had a busy year at work and our 2 teenage daughters who are still at home have gotten involved in more time required activities at school which requires me and my wife to drive them to-and-fro from practices, concerts, attending competitions and the like so we were only able to get to 25 new published wargames from 2025….until we went to Buckeye Game Fest.
We were able to play 6 wargames published in 2025 over the 5 days of the convention and they were all very good. We played Gettysburg: The First Day from Revolution Games, Chicago ‘68 from The Dietz Foundation, China’s War: 1937-1941 from GMT Games, Cross Bronx Expressway from GMT Games, Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948 from Legion Wargames and Imperial Elegy: The Road to the Great War 1850-1920 from VUCA Simulations.
This now has moved our total new 2025 published wargames played to 31, which is a very respectable number even if less than our usual number of new plays in any given year. This means we can now close the book on 2025 and put together our Top 10 lists for your consumption and then do a video.
All of these games mentioned here are multi-player wargames, with the exception of Gettysburg: The First Day, which is a traditional 2-player hex and counter wargame. But we believe that conventions are ideally suited for multi-player games and that is what we bring and plan to play when attending. This year we were very successful in this endeavor and actually played 11 multi-player games! No 2-player games for us at conventions (except for Tuesday evening as there are never really that many folks who have arrived yet!).
9. Breaking Bread with Hermann Luttmann
Each day, we need sustenance when attending these conventions. Playing games, learning rule sets, chatting and cavorting take a lot out of a body. We almost always take our breakfasts in the hotel restaurant as they offer a full buffet with eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, toast, fruit and cereals. But, we also like to visit the fantastic restaurants nearby and love to go along with friends. This year, we had 3 opportunities to break bread with our good friend Hermann Luttmann, who needs no introduction in wargaming circles, but has designed great games such as A Most Fearful Sacrifice from Flying Pig Games, The Plum Island Horror from GMT Games, At Any Cost from GMT Games and an upcoming zombie game that we all know and love Dawn of the Zeds Designer Edition from Blue Panther. While he has a bit of an aristocratic palate (he always orders eggs benedict!) and enjoys various Southern delicacies such as creamed spinach, he is a joy to eat with as we chat about all kinds of things including current events, game design, how contracts for designers work, the wargame market, his upcoming designs and lots of other interesting subjects. So eating with Hermann might cause a bit of indigestion due to all of the laughter and joking but is one of the highlights of any convention that he attends.
8. Annual Sit Down with Steve Jones AKA Steve Blue/ Panther Steve from Blue Panther
Annually at BGF, we try to sit down with Steve Jones (aka Steve Blue or Steve Panther) with Blue Panther, LLC and do a video summarizing all of their upcoming projects and games from the publishers that they have a partnership with and print their games. Their list of clients is quite extensive and includes the likes of Hollandspiele, White Dog Games, Bill Molyneaux Games, Historic Wings, Catastrophe Games, Art of Wargames, Pinkerton Games, War Diary Publications, Lock ‘n Load Publishing, The Historical Game Company and Red Sash Games amongst others.
Steve is a gentle giant of a man and is always fun to sit down and talk with as he has a rapier whit and deep knowledge of the gaming business. I sometimes feel bad as I always give him a hard time in the videos and this year I really felt saucy and was definitely giving him a what for! He was game though and took it in stride and punched back multiple times. I thought this video was especially good and was filled with lots of great upcoming games that you should keep an eye out for. We will post this video on our YouTube Channel in the next few weeks.
7. Playing Games with New Attendees
We are really into growing Buckeye Game Fest and over the past few years as we have been working with them and promoting the con with our videos, blog posts and social media, we have seen it grow and had the chance to meet tons of new friends along the way. Now, while this year’s attendance was a bit down, partly due to the earlier than usual date (remember I said typically in mid to late April) and conflicts with spring breaks, we only had about 35-40 attendees in the War Room. But that didn’t mean there weren’t new attendees. In fact, there were at least 5 new attendees that we were able to meet and game with as well as some new designers who attended.
I am not going to go into great depth or detail about each of these new folks but 3 that really stood out to us were Leslie Jerome from Kansas, Dave from Michigan and James also from Michigan.
First up is Leslie. He taught us the Line of Battle Series of American Civil War Games from Multi-Man Publishing with the 3rd game in the series called To Take Washington: Jubal Early’s Summery 1864 Campaign. He was a very passionate gamer and just loves this ACW series for many reasons that we learned as we played the game. I will talk about this more later in the post but he also makes his boards 3-D by cutting out and taping on pieces of card board/card stock to show the elevations on the board. This creates a whole new experience and is also frankly amazing the look at. We were honored to both meet and play with Leslie and want to thank him for the teaching and for also playing China’s War from GMT Games with us later that evening, which was his first foray into the COIN Series and I saw where on Saturday he purchased one of my favorite volumes in Liberty or Death from the Decision Games booth. Thank you Leslie and we hope you will return in the future!
Next was Dave from Michigan. Dave was a fantastic guy. A bit shy and reserved but a man that showed great resolve in how he ended up coming to be in attendance at the convention. See, each day I write those Daily Debrief Series posts recounting the events of the previous days plays and experiences and post them on the blog around or even after midnight each night. Well, he read my summary of Day 1 and just decided to drive down from Michigan, I think that he said it was a 4+ hour drive, and attend the convention. Just amazing and I was so glad that someone was reading the posts and that they encouraged them to attend. He agreed to play Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948 from Legion Wargames with us and Gary from Ardwulf’s Lair and I think that he had a good time playing as the United States. Thanks for coming Dave and for showing such courage and spontaneity in just deciding to come from reading a blog post. Amazing!
Finally, there was James. Now James is a Patron, which means he donates a few bucks per month to have access to our Slack Channel and discuss wargames, but he came this year and it was a great honor to meet him and to also play 3 games with him as he played Here I Stand with us on Friday and Imperial Elegy and Bretwalda with us on Saturday. He also went to dinner with us Saturday evening and even bought us a drink (I don’t drink alcohol so he bought me a diet Coke). He was a very smart and savvy game player and held his own with Here I Stand as he tied with me as the Protestants before I won on the tiebreaker. But it was a great experience meeting him and he left with at least 3 new games from Blue Panther’s booth that I convinced him to buy (it wasn’t like I had to twist his arm as he already had them in his arms and was going to buy them anyway!).
But meeting new people is what conventions are all about and we have very much cherished these experiences and the friendships that we have built over the years.
6. The Gorgeous 3-D Boards
The 3-D boards made by Leslie. Oh man seeing these was simply amazing. 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, A Most Fearful Sacrifice from Flying Pig Games and Stonewall’s Sword from Revolution Games.
These boards are just amazing and each one of them has such great detail showing the different elevations on the battlefield. 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 when we got to play a few turns of To Take Washington with him the details of the board really made the game play that much deeper and richer.
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.
At the end of the con, Leslie gifted us the To Take Washington board and we were honored to accept this gift as we plan to break them game out again in the near future and take it through its paces. Thanks to Leslie for the gift and for the chance to learn the series.
5. Experiencing the Newest COIN Series Game
We have been waiting for the final version of China’s War: 1937-1941 since it was announced in late 2019 and added to the P500. So, when we got a chance to play it at BGF, I knew it would be a memorable event. China’s War examines the first five years of the conflict in China from 1937-1941, when China stood alone against the Japanese Empire. Each player takes the role of a Faction seeking to attack or defend the Republic of China: the aggressive Japanese, the harried Government (represented by the Guomindang party), the rebellious Chinese Communist Party, or the unruly, fractious Warlords who are obedient when convenient but have their eye on gaining state power. Using military, political, and economic actions and exploiting various events, players build and maneuver forces to influence or control the population, extract resources, or otherwise achieve their Faction’s aims. A deck of cards regulates turn order, events, victory checks, and other processes. The rules can run non-player Factions, enabling solitaire, 2-player, or multi-player games.
We find that Brian Train’s designs are just fantastic. I think that sometimes they can be a bit opaque, meaning that their true genius cannot be seen with just a few plays but will be unlocked over 4 or 5 plays as we have found with A Distant Plain, which has continually moved up on my list of favorite COIN Series games with each play that numbers around 5. But China’s War was just special. It is totally unique as to its take on insurgency within the COIN Series, is really frenetic and active and gives the feeling of classic COIN while really turning things a bit upside down with the way the powerful faction works in the Japanese as they really only care about maintaining and cleaning off their Lines of Communication. In fact, they are so unique that they are the faction that will place Terror on the board, which is typically reserved for the insurgent factions to sway Support and Opposition.
Now we only played once, and there are things that we messed up, but it was a supremely interesting and engaging play experience and was actually so good that a new initiate to the system was able to grock the rules and be competitive in their very first play. Just an astounding example of a COIN Series game that has been well worth the wait to have it arrive on my table.
4. World War II Roleplaying War Stories
Our final event of the convention was our annual roleplaying game and this year Cullen prepared a session of a new RPG called War Stories from Firelock Games, which is set during World War II. With it, players take the roles of heroic airborne soldiers parachuting into Normandy during Operation Overlord in June of 1944.
As an RPG, players will have characters with various special focuses across 4 abilities including Strength, Agility, Intelligence and Empathy. Each time a skill is to be checked you find the matching ability and roll that number of six sided dice looking for 6’s which mean success. If multiple successes are rolled you can earn special tokens called Lucky Strikes that can be saved and used as successes on future rolls. The players will also have a choice when they fail about whether they decide to reroll but will remove any 1’s from the pool and roll the remaining dice again. If they fail this time though the GM will gain a FUBAR token that can be used to cause a failure on a rolled success in the future. This really created some cinematic moments and was a very interesting way to handle a check.
We played the game with a party of 5 characters with Tim Densham and Jim both with Catastrophe Games and Hermann Luttmann. I very much enjoy roleplaying but also enjoy the back and forth interactions between the players as we strategize, try desperately to execute and then watch as things simply don’t go as planned. It is always fun to see how to get ourselves out of a sticky situation and the hilarity that always ensues. This RFG was fun and engaging and really pretty simple but one comment I have is that it is a bit more difficult to play a game like this focused around soldiers and not take it seriously. I always feel like I am overstepping but I do know that the process of playing is in many ways paying homage to the men and their sacrifice.
In the end, there were lots of heroic actions, good sniper shots, daring orders, risk taking and of course explosions and we all had a great time with the game. But more importantly we had a great time together and created some lasting memories!
3. A Look at Dawn of the Zeds Designer Edition
I think that you all know well the original Dawn of the Zeds from Victory Point Games. A States of Siege Series game where the player or players take on the roles of survivors in Farmington as hordes of nasty Zeds stream down the paths toward the center of town hell bent on eating some brains. The game is light, fun and difficult and is both a great solitaire and cooperative game. As we have mentioned, Hermann Luttmann was able to secure the rights to the game back from Tabletop Tycoon who had purchased them from Victory Point Games and is working with Steve Jones from Blue Panther to bring the game back to life with new art, a new combat system with custom dice and some new characters. The game will be available for pre-order in May and then should be shipping in late July.
We had a chance to play the new version for about an hour with Steve Jones and Hermann and had a great time. There was lots of banter back and forth about our terrible rolls, the chances or lack thereof of a victory and lots of other things. One of the most memorable moments though was when Steve, who was playing a stealthy melee focused character, who liked to lay in ambush and await the Zeds to come into their space. Steve wasted about 3 turns just moving up and then moving back and doing…well nothing and we gave him hell for that. Ultimately in the end, he moved into a space and attacked the Zed and his rolls didn’t go well and his lightly armored character came within 1 hit of death before having to retreat and try to make it to the hospital to get healed. Just a total cluster that made the game very memorable.
One of the other memorable moments was when we were trying to evacuate a group of refugees but there was an event where the bridge collapsed and we had to move out to repair it and place a ferry that could usher refugees and characters from one side to the other. We then moved the refugees to the ferry and loaded them on but the next random event that occurred forced the refugees to move back across the river to get friends who had been left behind. Well, the Zed behind them had made it the river and when they went back they ran right into its jaws and were torn apart. That is one thing that I have learned about this game is that you can do the right thing, place your characters and assets effectively to open up paths to victory and cruel lady luck can ignore your plans and drop a bomb. But that is what makes this game memorable and we had plenty of those from this short 1 hour session.
2. A Glorious 9 Hour Marathon Game of Here I Stand
Annually, we plan to play one of 2 games at BGF; either Here I Stand or Virgin Queen and this year it was Here I Stand. We always set the game for first thing on Friday morning, when we are good and tired and worn down after several days of fun and the experience never dissapoints.
This year, we played with Russ (France), Cullen (Ottomans), Bill Simoni (Papacy), James (England) with me (Protestants) and Alexander (Hapsburgs). It had been a while since I had played as the Protestants but last year had played as the Papacy in a few games and had remembered several things that could aid me in fighting off the advances of the Pope.
But, the game would not go well for the Protestants out of the gate. As is the usual, our game started off with the nailing of the 95 Theses to the door of the church at Wittenberg and as the Protestants I have never seen a worse opening as I was only able to switch 3 spaces in Wittenberg, Brandenburg and Leipzig. Not a good start at all for the Protestants but I was undaunted, although I said many curses under my breath and to the gamers at the table, and quickly got my self under control and was determined to recover.
I worked hard over the next few turns to spread the faith and was quickly able to get most of Germany under control and take over 4 of the Electorates which gave me units that would help me continue to spread toward France and England. It was amazing to see Bill Simoni and the Papacy and I go at it as we held many theological debates, ultimately each of us disgracing a debater and gaining VP, and for me to have the full Bible translated into German during Turn 2 quickly followed by the translation into English by Turn 3. I had made a deal with England for him to play a card that favored me in exchange for a concerted effort to get the Protestant faith rooted in England so he could gain some VP from the effort.
Meanwhile the Ottomans got out the Barbary Pirates card early and had built a sizable fleet of corsairs causing France and England to loan the Hapsburgs several boats to combat this green menace in the Mediterranean. Also several colonies were formed in the New World and ultimately Alexander’s Hapsburgs were able to circumnavigate the globe and score several important VP.
During this time, the Protestants and Papacy continued their fight tooth and nail but my dice rolling, and innate ability to win ties, allowed me to build a sizable lead in the religious war. I was in very good shape when the Schmalkaldic League card was played turning the Protestants into a military power and then changing the other players focus to then declare war on and starting to attack my fortified Electorates to take away VP I had earned by having both religious and political control in 5 of the 6.
As we came into turn 5, I was at 24 VP and ultimately came up shy of a victory by 1 point at the time. I had been able to take over the entirety of England and change every space and also get about 5-6 spaces in France. but now the Papal Bull came to play and Bill fought me back and forth with him taking over 3-4 spaces followed by me reclaiming 3-4 spaces. It was a beautiful game of back and forth and I used every tool at my disposal to fight him including The Wartburg card to stop the untimely excommunication of Luther before he could attempt to embarrass one of my lesser debaters.
Then England gained ground as a healthy Edward was born and he gained 5 VP and then took over a key from France to get close to my score going into Tuen 6.
At that point it was dog pile the winner as everyone declared war on the Protestants and came after my Electorates but I was able to stave them off and ultimately never lost down to lower than 4 controlled which retained 8 VP for me and allowed me to finish the Bible translation in French and take a sizable lead in VP.
The best part of the game was that it all came down to the last few card plays as England and my Protestants tied at 25 VP and I won on tiebreakers as I had the most VP in the turn prior. What a fantastic game that took us over 9 hours to play!
I simply love this game because of the player interaction, which includes making treaties, declaring war and also negotiations about what we desire other factions to do and how to go about their efforts to win. Cards can be traded in this game as part of these negotiations and I have always really liked this aspect. I say trading but the various events on these cards can also be trade bait as players can ask for or commit to either playing or not playing a certain card that would have a dramatic effect on an upcoming round. This take players who are comfortable with the system, the different factions and the victory conditions of the game but is such a juicy and exciting part of the design.
I just love Here I Stand, for a multitude of reasons but as a CDG it is one of the best at creating an experience and this time a really great experience was had by all.
1. Our Friends…And New Friends!
The best part of any convention, not just Buckeye Game Fest, is the friends that we make and then see each year. I love the wargaming community and all of its members. Each time I meet and play with new people, I am amazed at how amazing each of them are. From their passion for history, to their generally easy going and fun personalities, I love to meet with other wargamers. Because we create content, making dozens of videos per month, you know our faces, and in some cases our voices as someone recently stated they had heard us and came to say hello. And we sincerely love it when you approach us at a convention to interact. We have always taken great pride in knowing our fans and will continue to try and meet as many of them as is possible.
We have built some really great friendships over the past 6 years of attending Buckeye Game Fest. Names like Bill Simoni, Cullen, Russ (Bad), Russ (Good), and others. We tend to see these friends each year and when they are not present, which seemed to be the case this year at BGF, we truly miss them. But, we were able to meet new friends and play games together and this will be the start of new relationships that we hope will continue into the future.
Well, I know I got a bit mushy there at the end, but we had a great time this year at Buckeye Game Fest and I hope you see what the experience is like at these conventions. We would encourage all of you to try to get to a convention and begin the process of making friends. I know it is not easy or convenient but I promise you it will be worth it.
If you are interested, I did write a series of Daily Debrief posts summarizing each of the 5 days and you can read those at the following links:
Daily Debrief Series Introduction
We also did 11 different videos and will be sharing those on the YouTube Channel over the next month. Until next year!
-Grant
The Players' Aid 