WBC 2013 Thursday: "Small" tournaments and second-hand buys

Last week I spent four days at the World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  WBC is one of my favorite conventions, and this one had a few highlights that I hope to share over the next few posts.

A promising new business contact

I've been struggling to assemble additional prototypes for "East India Company," and I had been stymied by an unfortunate failed transaction with a printing company that set me back about two and a half months with nothing to show for it except a refund.

Looking for a new source for print-on-demand services that could do what I needed, I browsed an old resource page that I'd bookmarked at Spotlight on Games.  There I found a reference to Print and Play Productions, which seemed to fit the bill perfectly.  On Wednesday, I placed an order and sent a note to the owner, Andrew Tullsen, just to let him know where I'd found out about his company and that I looked forward to doing business with him.  He responded the next day to say that he had checked my files, that everything looked good, and that he hoped to ship my order that week.

HistoriCon 2013 Saturday - USMC in the ACW

Last Saturday at HistoriCon, my friend Frank Hodge and I spent the morning in seminars and then joined our friend Grant Greffey for his latest WarZone scenario in his Dr. Orenstein series.  What follows are a few notes that I took from the first seminar, with others to follow in subsequent posts.  Any errors in this account with respect to the history of the Marine Corps and surrounding events are my own.  

HistoriCon 2013 Friday - DBA and GHQ

De Bellis Antiquitatis 3.0
Today at HistoriCon, I was reminded of what I like about the elegant miniatures game De Bellis

Pike refusing the flank against a knight charge

Antiquitatis (designers Philip and Sue Barker and Richard Bodley Scott, publisher Wargamers Research Group), colloquially known as DBA.   Years ago, my friends and I would play earlier versions of DBA avidly.  We closely followed rules changes and army list updates as they came out, the latest edition being DBA Version 2.2.  Over time we fell away from DBA in favor of boardgames and other distractions.  Occasionally we'd say, "We should play DBA again some time," and another of us would say, "Yes, that's a good idea.  I like DBA.  We should do that."  And then we wouldn't.

HistoriCon 2013 Thursday - New Orleans and Warrenton Junction

Although my primary interest is boardgames, I've been known to push lead around the table from time to time.  With last year's move to Fredericksburg, Virginia, of HistoriCon, the biggest Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS) event of the year, I've had a golden opportunity to revisit miniatures gaming and see the latest in the hobby.  Today was the first day of HistoriCon 2013, and for me it was "Leo Walsh" day, as I participated in back-to-back games run by the co-designer of High Noon and Age of Iron.

East India Company: Two-player playtest holds up well

 

"East India Company" two-player session.  The prototype
board might be too "busy" and need some toning down
for clarity.

My current game design work-in-progress, "East India Company," is intended for two to five players.  My very earliest solo playtests were set for two players, and many of the coarse physical mechanics that I developed came directly from those very early sessions.  Since then, however, nearly every playtest has been with three or more players, and over time I worried that I had neglected the two-player case and that perhaps EIC would come up short in that smaller format.

Midway: The brown shoe is on the other foot

My father was a naval aviator, and for whatever reason, whereas the rest of the Navy wore black shoes with their khaki uniforms, aviators always wore brown shoes.  This "brown shoe" image has a great deal of history and pride associated with it.  Well, today after work, Frank Hodge did well by that tradition in our game of Midway (designers Larry Pinsky and Lindsley Schutz, publisher Avalon Hill).  Unlike so many of our previous games, Frank assumed the role of commander of the U.S. Navy forces, while I took those of the Imperial Japanese Navy with the goal of invading Midway Island.

Reflecting on the symmetry of abstracts

(c) Queen Games
Used by permission

My good friend Grant Greffey recently gave me a copy of Sparta (designer Yannick Holtkamp, artist Claus Stephan, publisher Queen), a rather clever abstract in the category of perfect-information zero-luck two-player games.  My wife Kathy and I tried it out last night, and we confirmed something that we've observed with other games in this category:  There are many games in which Kathy and I go toe-to-toe, and a few in which she can wipe the floor with me, but I pretty much have the advantage in these pure two-player abstracts.  She's good at them, but I usually win, which makes them imperfect candidates for our cocktail hour gaming.