From July 1 through July 4, 1993, the faithful gathered in Ft. Worth, Texas for the 5th Annual Europafest. This event was held in conjunction with ORIGINS. Our Fest was relatively well-attended when contrasted against the backdrop of the sparse crowd at ORIGINS. Some 75 gamers registered for and participated in some aspect of Europafest.

The general scarcity of warm bodies, disposable dollars clutched in sweaty palms, led most to view the convention as continuing evidence of the atrophy of wargaming in the MTV generation. This view has gained strong acceptance. The longtime wargamer grows ever grayer and more jaded. Meanwhile, most U.S. college students (the pool from which new wargamers have traditionally been recruited) have only a foggy notion of where Europe is located, and feel no connection with the events that occurred in this faraway place over 50 years ago.

How can complicated games like Europa, demanding a high intellect and a long interest span to play, survive? This ominous trend will result in the ultimate death of the hobby, due to indifference as much as anything else.

It is difficult to argue against this gloomy outlook. The Dallas ORIGINS in 1984 drew a much larger crowd than the one that straggled into Ft. Worth.

Furthermore, in 1984 the attendees were almost exclusively wargamers; many of those present in Ft. Worth were role players. Can we really expect wars that fade further into the mists of history with each passing year to continue to draw attention and attract a following?

WWII Spoken Here?

At GRD the answer is "Yes." Europa shines as a beacon to wargamers seeking stability in these days of trial. Few other games can boast a dedicated following comparable to that enjoyed by the Europa system-we have truly become a community. And WWII is spoken here!

If wargames are dinosaurs, Europa is the T-Rex. In the 20 years since it was created, Europa has lost none of its popularity, and is still being played with relish today by an expanding number of devotees. GRD continues to grow as a company and the average age of our Association members is actually falling. The gradual evolution of the system, as frustrating as it can sometimes be, serves to maintain a sense of momentum and anticipation as fans anxiously await new products such as Second Front and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Europa is frequently accused of being elitist. This is true--we honestly believe that Europa is the best-researched, most fun-to-play product simulating WWII at the operational level currently available.

But although elitist, we are not exclusionary. We welcome all gamers who are interested in learning more about WWII or in playing a competitive and challenging vame. An increasing number of players are discovering that today's Europa is no longer just a monstergame.

There are ample short scenarios, playable in the same len-th of time as standard wargames. Indeed, our three most recent releases (Balkan Front, First to Fight, and A Winter War) offer Europa's usual rich historical tapestry in games of reasonable playing length and moderate complexity.

All of the above does not preclude the fact that Europa can be improved further. And our Association members know that they can actually be a part of that improvement. One of the biggest draws of a Europafest is the roundtable atmosphere, giving those attending the chance to argue for their favorite revision one-on-one with the designers and developers of the Europa series. It is not at all unusual to see attendees displaying prototypes or passing out rules to go with a new combat results table. There is a constant cross-germination of ideas resulting from the banter at the seminars, kibitzing around the gameboards, and socializing in the bars.

This Fest was no different. Charles Sharp and John Astell talked themselves into a state of hoarseness, as both had an enthralled cluster of interested listeners at their elbows throughout the convention. Victor Hauser and Arthur Goodwin gave onlookers reason to believe that Second Front might actually be approaching completion.

They demonstrated an Allied invasion of France using a custom-made demo kit featuring oversized hexes and counters. Eric Pierce trotted out a demo game of Europa World War I complete with A.E. Goodwin draft maps. After closely following play for several turns, John Astell pronounced the prototype fascinating. He felt the rules mix did an outstanding job of accurately portraying combat in the era of the Great War. As Winston will explain in the next issue, GRD has a real interest in pursuing this concept further.

There was even a prototype map of the first proposed Glory title, Iwo Jima. (This map was lost, but miraculously reappeared at the head table during the Academy of Adventure Game Design awards presentation. Gary Stagliano and I retrieved it momentarily, only to lose it again forever when we absentmindedly departed the ceremony without it!)

Flavio Carrillo and I had an opportunity to play The Battle for Kiev, 1943 scenario. I played the German side very aggressively, attempting to mirror von Manstein's maneuvers. When we tallied up points, the net of 51 VPs was only one point different from the number of points Flavio had pegged as the "historical" outcome.

The seminars by John Astell, Winston Hamilton, David Hughes, Charles Sharp, and myself were well attended and lively. Charles Sharp's talk was especially memorable. He ran non-stop for two solid hours, and didn't get past the first two points of his ten-point agenda. We're all hopeful Charles can make it to the next Fest in San Jose to continue his fascinating examination of the Soviet Armed Forces in World War II.

Highlights

Following are some of the highlights of the Europa seminars.

John Astell

John Astell, as might be expected, spent most of his session discussing Second Front. Having real SF maps adorning the wall behind him added to each attendee's belief that this monster was, finally, "clumping down the hall."

Much of John's time was spent elaborating on the proposed system changes that may see their way into print with the publication of the game. Most of these are covered in Victor's "Second Front Report" elsewhere in this issue.

However, here are a few extra tidbits.

Second Front will contain 16+ counter sheets. Included in these will be counters for all the German forces operating in the off-map theaters (e.g., Norway). John also reported that the rules for the new air system design may be twice as long as the Scorched Earth air rules. However, he stressed that we should not panic. The new rules will simulate the air campaign more accurately, and actual playing time will be reduced. The air replacement system will be streamlined, using RPs. Air conversions will be mandatory.

John also discussed his thinking on several Grand Europa rules topics. For example, he unveiled the concept of "detached theaters." Each side must get supply to these area, as there will be no inherent supply sources. The most obvious of these is North Africa, but it is likely that Scandinavia will be handled similarly. John then turned to pest control and shared his plan for debugging "ants." Tracing supply will not change, but the effects of being out of supply will be lessened in the U-1 turn, unless the affected units are also isolated. Under the new scheme, the attack strengths of unisolated units will not be halved the first turn out of supply (c/m movement will still be halved, showing that ant disruption is not totally without its share of aggravation). With this fix in place, there will be no need to pull the wings off of the Brandenburgers and their ilk, and so Rule 25F goes by the boards. Like Jason of Friday the 13th, "Slime in the Ukraine" will just not stay dead!

John was queried about some of the "fringe projects" bandied about over the last few years. On the topic of East Africa, John took a wait-and-see stance; however, he intimated that he personally felt this action could be handled just fine with a series of holding boxes.

Talk of a "partisan kit" surfaced again, but lacked any firm parameters. John did mention that each group of partisans would be "sponsored" by a major power. As examples, Italy would sponsor the Chetnik partisans, and the USSR would sponsor Tito.

And here once again for those of you who may have missed it in previous reports are the various milestone dates for Grand Europa. The first will be Apr I 43. Expect a big scenario linking Second Front to Scorched Earth to make its appearance in the foreseeable future.

Moving backward in time, the next significant GE date is Jun II 41. A "Barbarossa" scenario will allow a game of GE to start at this date.

Finally, there is Sep I 39. This version will start at the beginning, with the invasion of Poland.

Winston Hamilton

Winston was up next and perplexed most of the convention-goers by spending his entire segment talking about things non-Europa, primarily Glory. This game series will be three-tiered: strategic (covering the whole war in the Pacific), operational (covering each of the major campaigns), and tactical (covering each island battle at a company/battalion level).

First up in the pipeline will be the Island Campaign Series, starting with the trilogy of Iwo Jima, Tarawa, and Saipan. As mentioned earlier, an A.E. Goodwin prototype map was on hand for the occasion. The most interesting feature of this map was the apparently road net, which was later exposed to be the Japanese tunnel complex. I smell hidden movement!

The Island Campaign Series will be playable in both face-to-face or solitaire formats. Winston stressed that Glory would have minimal impact on the design staff of GRD for now, but that he was not planning to wait until the year 2000 to start the project.

Sharles Sharp

As mentioned earlier, Charles Sharp stole the show, wowing those packed into our conference room for over two hours with a slew of East Front statistics. Here, in no particular order, is a sampling:

In 1943, the Germans were on the offensive for 6 weeks and the Soviets 27, for a German to Soviet ratio of 1:4.5.

The Volkhov River proved the hardest in the USSR for the Germans to cross. Due to the swamp-infested area this river flows through, the Germans had to bridge the Volkhov 37 times over a linear distance of 20 km to get to the other side.

The Soviets trained several anti-tank dog units. These unfortunate beasts were conditioned using the Pavlov technique to crawl under tanks. (This prompted John Astell to ask if you could stack dog units with reindeer units ... )

51% of all combat losses were inflicted by artillery. The remaining 49% was attributable to small arms fire, primarily from machine guns.

The average Soviet rifle division numbered 3500-7000 men. The average German infantry division numbered 13000.

On 31 December, 1944 on the European front, Soviet forces were disposed as follows: 7,410,000 men in 493 divisions and 37 tank/mechanized corps. Their armaments included 12,801 tanks; 114,183 artillery guns and mortars; and 15,164 combat aircraft.

David Hughes

David Hughes followed Charles with a short talk on the Commonwealth forces in Second Front, and pleased those in attendance by passing out a draft SF Allied order of battle.

Rick Gayler

As the last speaker, I sought to tie up any loose ends. No bit of unsubstantiated Europa gossip was too trivial, as the discussion moved briskly from GEnie to ETO to Fresno Gaming Association to Pacifica to Panthers and Pikes, and so on. Most of my time was devoted to future plans for this magazine, and I will share these with all of you next issue.

Also meriting more detailed treatment than I can provide here were the exciting Europa developments on the computer frontier. This, too, shall have to be deferred to a future article.

The final highlight was the Europa party, attended by the vast majority of the Europafest crowd. Frank Chadwick and Rich Banner shared some of their favorite stories from the early days at GDW. I would like to relate some of these to you, but there is just not enough room in two pages to convey even a small fraction of what goes on at a Europafest. Come and see for yourself!