This is a quick review on GenCon 1999 - I'm focused primarily on boardgames, as that is my primary interest, but there may be some brief mentions of role-playing and other areas of gaming. I think the easiest way to do this is to just go over, by company, the board game presence at GenCon - I'll state up front that I'm sure I missed some things (one I know I wanted to try but never got around to was the Super Giant Monster Smash), so this is just an overview of what I saw.

Rio Grande Games

Jay Tummelson and Nick Sauer were there giving demos of the entire Rio Grande line, with the only really new thing on the table being Torres, which looks like an interesting acquire-esque game with vertical as well as area building. I didn't get a chance to try it out, though, so take that as a general impression, not a review!

I did get in a game of Medici, which I like to play with different folks as it's somewhat prone to group-think (like most auction games), and took a look at some of their other games (most of which I already have, being the rabid"German-style" gamer that I am). Let me get in a plug for Union Pacific - it's a great game, and it's also unusual in that it plays well with any number between 3 and 6. I've played Airlines, and I think UP is a significant improvement - others disagree, but either way, most people think it's a solid game! I'm glad Rio Grande is making an effort get get "German Style" games made over here - I think they may be having some effect on the Hasbro/Avalon Hill development (at least I'm hoping so, but see below for more on Hasbor/AH).

I wish they weren't as alone as they were, and the presence of Games People Play, who have been at one of the booths the past several years, was sorely missed (as there are several games I'd like to lay my hands on, but haven't been brought in by Rio Grande). I'd bet Boulder Games or Funagain could do well at GenCon, even with the transport and booth prices (but, then again, the folks from Games People Play obviously disagree, so maybe I'm wrong . . .).

Columbia Games

Several new map sets for Victory were available at GenCon - the Forest, Steppe and Alpine maps. Also available, and IMHO a must purchase for fans of Victory, was the Logistics set - this has a set of counters for airfields, mulberrys and different types of factories, and modified rules for production . Cities no longer produce points that may be used for anything - they contain factories that are used to produce one of the three main types of units (Air, Naval, or Army). These factories may be targeted by Bomber attacks if left unprotected, and I think this will add a nice element of production planning to the game.

Columbia was supposed to have demo/playtest versions of PacFront, a wargame of the Pacific Front of WWII - they didn't have the map for the demo I signed up for, as it had gotten lost after Origins, but they eventually faxed one down and hand colored it, so I managed to see a game in progress. The map is on a par with the WestFront map, covering Australia, Hawaii and the US West Coast, Japan, Korea and Indochina. The game system looks to be a hybrid between the *Front series and Victory - there were HQs, used similarly to the *Front system, but the battles seemed to be resolved using the Victory system (not that there is a huge difference, but I like the order of firing element of Victory). All in all, it looked good - I didn't find out what a projected release would be, but I would've have expected nothing more than vague ideas anyway (although they did get Victory out in roughly a year after the playtest version of Blocks of War was demoed at GenCon a couple of years ago).

Hasbro/Avalon Hill

Several people have been worried about the demise of Avalon Hill, and I think Hasbro made an effort to show that AH isn't going away. While the pace of releases may be scaled back a bit from what we were seeing in the last couple of years in AH's life as an independent entity, and most likely grognards will find less to interest them, I think that there will be some great stuff coming out of AH in the next year or so. They seemed to be making an effort to find out what games people wanted to see - they were surveying people, and even had a nice promo if you filled out the survey, so I'm hoping they'll actually use the data they get (I asked for more "German-style" multiplayer games, but that's just my taste).

AH had demo copies of 4 games at the con - new versions of Acquire and Diplomacy, variants for Axis and Allies (A&A: Europe) and Stratego (Stratego: Legends), and a new game called Battle Cry. I only really looked at Acquire and Battle Cry, but the others had amazing components - especially the new Diplomacy, with a gorgeous map and metal pieces.

Acquire is the same game we all know and love - I explicitly asked if the rules were changed, and was told that they were not (I believe the exact phase was "if it isn't broke, we don't see a need to fix it"). The only changes seemed to be thematic - the companies are now high-tech firms (one of which is called the Sackson Consortium, or some such, in a nod to Sid Sackson, the designer), and component wise. If the actual components are anything like what they were showing at the GenCon, I'll be buying a copy, as they were excellent - a solid board, big three-dimen-sional tiles, and large colored buildings to mark each "firm" on the board. Nicer even than the venerable 3M version (I've got a plastic tile version)! Due by the end of the year, but I don't recall the date (someone on the net mentioned early hearing early December).

Battle Cry is a civil war game, with a complexity level that I'd guess is somewhere in the area of the We The People system (probably a bit less complex than that), and a playing time per scenario of less than an hour. The system looked pretty interesting, and it lends itself well to designing your own scenarios as well. Components were again excellent - small stands of infantry, cavalry and artillery, and hex spaces for putting terrain elements on the board. This is due in February, 2000.

Stratego Legends is due in October, and while it looks nice, Stratego doesn't do much for me, and it has a collectible element (you can buy army packs to expand the available units) which also turns me off. Great looking components, again, however.

West End Games/Yeti

The first game in West End's collaboration with the French game company Editions Yeti was available. It's called Zoon, and seems to be something of a mix between chess, stratego and a card game. There are 4 different sets available, each with enough cards for two players to play - and they're cheap (I got all 4 for roughly $20). The current "tribes" are all vaguely reminiscent of European peoples (i.e. the Rhinogoths, the Monkus, etc), and they will be releasing new tribes in September with more American themes (called the UnUnited States, in the game).

I played a quick game with my sister (which may be a comment in and of itself - she's not one to tolerate overly complex games), and it plays in about 20-30 minutes, and while it's pretty light, it's fun. Your objective is to destroy a particular one of your opponents cards (their emblem), and you do so by moving your cards around on an imaginary 6X6 grid. Each tribe has units that move differently, and have different special abilities, as well as three trump cards that do something special - usually a missile attack, a defensive special card, and an offensive special card.

Combat uses a fairly clever system - each card has four numbers, one on each corner. When one card moves to an already occupied space, the two fight. This is handled by each player spinning their card around, and the opponent choosing a corner - highest number wins, ties are a draw and the moving player goes back to where they came from. The Yeti rep also showed me a promo card from a game called Tom-bours (French slang for something approximating Playboy), and while there isn't enough information to have any idea about the system, the theme, as phrased by the French rep, is to "get the most appointments", if you know what I mean.

Atlas Games did have the new edition of Feng Shui at the show, but the biggest hit seemed to be the Lunch Money ButtonMen - they had three sets, with an extra promo (Patience) if you bought all three. They have a new die type - Trip Dice - that allow you to force another player to re-roll a die by re-rolling your trip die, and you get the die if your die re-rolls higher.

Bruno Faidutti's Corruption did not make the show, apparently due to problems getting the art for the game together. This apparently made them miss their print date, and the next available printing window makes an October release the current bet.

Cheapass Games

Cheapass had the full assortment of their existing games, as well as a new set of Button Men (three sets - for 6 buttons) called Vampyres. Their new die type is Shadow Dice, and I don't currently remember what they do differently than normal dice, but I remember thinking it was a cool idea, so there you go.

Cheapass had demos of there next game, Brawl, and it looks pretty good. It's another "real time" game, on the order of Falling, I gather, but with different decks for each player. Essentially, you want to play more hits in a given fight than the other player - this is complicated by the fact that once you play a hit on a given character, you can only play hits of that same color on that fight, and by the fact that your opponent can play blocks, which force you to play clears to continue placing hit cards. Fast, frenetic, and fun. Not at all deep, but certainly enjoyable, and almost certainly worth a look when it comes out.

GMT Games

GMT had a spectacular demo presence, with boards for their latest games blown up to gigantic size. To give you and idea, the counters for Paths of Glory were easily an inch by an inch, and about a half-an-inch thick, with a board of an appropriate scale. They also had giant-sized versions of Tigers in the Mist, June 6th, Saratoga, and another game I didn't look at.

I participated in a demo of Paths of Glory, and the game plays just as well as you'd expect a game "descended" from We the People and Hannibal would - with many agonizing decisions about how to use a given card. It also has a neat mechanic wherein each side starts with the will only to do mobilization, which is a set of cards but limits your options, until your able to up your war status to Limited War, which adds a whole new set of cards to your stack of options, and eventually to Total War, which adds another set. Combat was easy to figure out, they map looked great, and the demo crew did a good job of explaining the system and answering questions. I'm glad I had ordered a copy through the Project 500!

I watched a bit of a Tigers in the Mist demo, but not enough to really say much more than it looks pretty elegant, and interesting enough that I'll be buying a copy even though wargames aren't usually my thing.

Out of the Box Games

Out of the Box had Bosworth, which I'd already gotten last year, and their new game, Apples to Apples. This is a light party game, where each player selects from a hand of nouns which word they think matches best with the adjective played by the judge (which rotates with each turn). Examples from actual play would be the adjective Hostile, with plays like Canada (someone who had recently seen the South Park movie). A fun little game. The rep I spoke to on Sunday mentioned that they are planning to have expansion word packs available by the end of the year (I believe I heard September, but I'm uncertain of that date).