GenCon, mostly a sci-fi and fantasy con, is much bigger than any historical convention, including Historicon. The dealer area is bigger, more events are run, and there is a considerable amount of gaming going on at any given time. This was the 30th anniversary of GenCon one.

Milwaukee is in a building boom--not soon enough for me. Hotels are assigned by lottery, and although I was in city center last year, this year I was at the airport. So I had to rent a car, and while you're only 15 minutes from center city, it's just something to keep track of and an added expense of renting, gassing, and parking.

Smaller or Larger

This year's GenCon seemed smaller than last year's. Of the big-name TV/movie stars, there were but a couple of the Babylon 5 cast members to sign autographs, down from year's past of 5 or 6 as I recall, including actors like the Highlander lead actor and Walter Koenig of Star Trek/B5. This probably has to do with TSR's miserable financial condition and borderline bankruptcy. There were rumors about the convention not even launching this year as TSR tried to shed enough expenses to make it look attractive for a takeover. Evidently, it was successful, although a last-minute snag about TSR selling off writers' rights it did not own needed some legal jockeying, as Wizards of the Coast (Magic) bought TSR.

On the soapbox for a bit: For those with long memories, TSR was the bad guy who made a loan to boardgame company SPI back in 1982 or so, then called it in a week later. Caught in the middle were folks like me, who got burned on subscriptions, and were basically told, "too bad." I never bought another SPI (TSR) product, and if that in any way contributed to the demise of TSR, I'm not sorry. TSR could have been a white knight, but opted to be a barbarian looter. I hope WotC cleans out the management team that caused this ancient history (if any are left), if for no other reason that they led a strong company like TSR into ruin, and embraces rather than alienates historical gamers.

Off the soapbox, WotC also bought the card game Legends of the 5 Rings. I am not a Magic player, but I am a L5R player. I believe the only Magic cards I even had were from a Paramount Studio press party back at the initial E3 show a couple years back. I went because Paramount promised food (typical--and it was very good finger food) and a tour of Paramount's Star Trek lot (atypical--and worth the ride).

Well, the tour turned out to be a somewhat chilly, elongated golf cart ride around the OUTSIDE of the buildings. The PR department didn't lie--it was the ST lot. And those non-descript rectangular buildings sure looked like they could hold a ST set. But the dress-up Klingons at the party were all we saw of ST. The reason Magic cards, booster sets I believe they're called, were scattered all around the place was that there was a series of interlocking companies that ended up with a Paramount subsidiary working on a Magic CD-ROM computer game.

L5R Away

Back at GenCon, WotC made a big splash for L5R, which is the only card game I do play. It's about feudal Japan, contains samurai and other troops (real and myth), and is closer to reality than Magic ever will be--not much closer, but closer nonetheless. It has a particularly good system, designed by an engineer no less, and I rather enjoy the idea of a two-track system for winning: beat your opponent senseless, or simply survive but win by honor. They had one-on-one tournaments complete with factional chanting, multiplayer tournaments with more screaming, and other tournaments which I am sure featured more chanting. What makes this a miniatures favorite is that several of my L5R-playing friends bought Samurai miniatures and are attempting to tie the cards to the figures. Inspiration comes in all areas...

Of course, card games have been making a big splash this last year or two, and there were a slew to choose from, old and new. personally, I believe there are enough card games, especially those with half an idea (or less) and lots of licensed pictures/photos from a TV show or movie, and the world doesn't need another one. But I'm just a card curmudgeon at heart.

At least one company was handing out a full deck of their new card game if you played a demo game--the old give away the razor and sell the blades idea. I guess they were doing OK, as everytime I went by the booth, there were people playing.

Miniatures

HMGS National had a booth. I stopped by to say hello, not that I knew anyone. They were sponsoring various miniatures games, as well as passing out literature. It's good to see a presence there. Sponsored quite a few games, plus continuous gaming at the booth.

Let me give The Last Square store a plug for their "Invitational." It is a neat concept--the complete wargame weekend at the Madison (WI) Radisson Hotel, Feb. 6-8, 1998. Pay one price, get food, beverages, dinners, hotel room, and historical miniatures games (Hastings 1066 and Prokhorovka 1943 are on tap). Price is $210 per person, double occupancy. I recall this being done in the UK to some acclaim.

I played in a Charlie Company game by RAFM. This Vietnam-era miniatures rules set was fast and furious. See the review elsewhere in MagWeb.

Easy Eight and its WWI miniatures rules set Battleground were at the show. Guy drove 15 hours from Kansas just to do Saturday. Dedication or madness? You decide. Buzz on the rules set is excellent.

John Hill ran some Johnny Reb games. Nice travelling system he has--fits in a single suitcase, uses 10mm figures, and has really good terrain.

Brian Reddington-Wilde ran quite a few Hostile Aircraft games--he says there is a strong HA group in the area that enjoys meeting at GenCon.

All told, about 100 events listed as historical miniatures, although you may not count something like Advanced Squad Leader, which is a board game played in this case with 15mm miniatures.

There were plenty of non-historical wargames, primarily Games Workshop--out in full force per usual. The huge Warhammer 40K "arena" with 25mm vehicles and titans is always a treat.

The Babylon 5 miniatures game was out in full force--it looks good, with top quality roduction work, although the rap on it is that it is a complex system that takes some time to learn. Much as I am a B5 fan, I let it pass until I could learn more about it.

Boardgames

Meanwhile, on the boardgame front, stopped by the Avalanche Press booth for a look at the WWI Great War at Sea--as graphically elegant a counter set for their game as ever you'd want to see.

Peeked in on a playtest of Component Game Systems for a look at the new Babylon 5 game. It's a hex-based game, where the hexes are separate and huge--and start the game upside down. B5 is in the middle, the periphery is the various factions, and in between are a variety of planets and celestial hazards--which you don't know about until you get there. Cards help advance the game andbring new surprises. Carl Schulte is the VP of Operations and designer of the game--if he sounds familiar, he's the designer of Galactic Empires card game, which did well until some sort of financial snafu deep-sixed the game.

In production was a game called Twilight Imperium, which had much the same setup and play, although the something not supported by a TV show. Excellent production values, looks like a sweet game, although the rap is that you really need multiplayer to work: one-on-one is not the same game. Four seems to bethe preferred number, maybe 5.

Edge City is a futuristic "Internet" boardgame, and I use Internet in the sense that it has elements of computer hacking, as well as gunplay. Hex layout like the other two, "data" cards, personality cards, and more. Die roll for results. What can you say about a game that has a result that "causes permanent UnCOOL."

Master Europa, a rules set that offers an alternative to standard Europa, was in full force. Spread out across a 6-foot-wide or so map of WWII Europe were thousands of counters to recreate the 1944 campaign. The game started in June, just at the time of D-Day, and it was something to watch the three fronts: Eastern, French, and Italian, draw ever closer as the Allies ground up the Axis. It took until Sept. to break out from Normandy--and then you can see the race to the Rhine really develop.

As an Europa grognard from way back in DNO/UNT ziplock days, I played a quick turn as a Soviet front commander for a trip around the rules. It was very well done--so much so I bought two modules ($18 each). See the review of Master Europa elsewhere in MagWeb.

Of more import was a comment designer Tom Johnson made about interest. At Origins, they had a grand total of 4 (four) people who never played Europa sign up to play in the game. It should be noted that you could play as much or as little as you wanted, as long as you stuck around for a full turn. At Gencon, by Friday, there were 20 "newbie" gamers who played a turn or so.

Stopped by the Parker Bros. booth for a quick check of Lionheart by designer Larry Harris, who designed Axis and Allies, Conquest of the Empire, and Broadsides and Boarding Parties. Lionheart uses a square-gridded board with plastic miniatures: knights upon horses, knights on foot, peasants with pitchforks, archers, men-at-arms, and mercenaries. Each player gets two functions, i.e. move, turn 90 degrees, or attack. Archers get ranged fire (can shoot through other units), foot knights may attack all 9 squares surrounding the one they are in, and the rest attack the square directly in front. Mounted knights move as many squares as they want in a straight line until they bump into someone.

Combat is four dice per unit (at least at full strength), with the die roll faces having axes, arrows, and "Panic" results. Bow attacks require arrows for hits, other attacks require axes, and the mercenaries and peasants have special effects when rolling "Panic." Each hit kills a figure (except knights, which require 2 hits, and ignore any single hit). The bases are slotted so that individual figures pop out. When all your figures are gone, you've been defeated.

As you can tell, this takes even my single brain cell no more than three nanoseconds to figure out the rules, which means the 8 year olds will be about three nanoseconds faster than me in learning them. But the darn thing has some strategy to it, as I watched the troops advance and fall, even if a string of lucky rolls can turn a bad situation into a good one--or visa versa.

No pricing yet, but due out by the fall of '97. You might even be able to figure out some BattleMasters rules for it as well.

Charlie Spiegel and Ed Wimble of Clash of Arms was there in full force, pitching the line of historical board games. I tried to catch Larry Bond, who was at that particular moment (gasp) getting Magic cards signed, but failed to grab him...

KR and Geohex had a booth as well, ditto Leo Walsh of TCS, and Brian Reddington-Wilde of Hostile Aircraft (actually Goblintooth Enterprises). Lou Zocchi was there selling yet more variations of dice. I bought some 16-siders last year, but passed on his 5-siders this year.

Was amazed at the Kingmaker set--saw it last year, but still impressive. Huge map, miniature figures based on wooden stands, quite nice.

There were a series of historical seminars with various experts, many in the military, but alas, I missed them all. The War College seminars included Artilery in the (American) Civil War, Bridging the Firepower Gap (Napoleonic fire tests--sorry I missed that one, but it was held Sunday about the time I was about ready to land back home!), Landsknecht to Conquistador (renaissance era infantry development), Russo-Japanese War, Red Storm: The Kremlin's Plan (former Warsaw Pact officers' plans for the invasion of the west), and a couple gaming seminars by John "Johnny Reb" Hill, Duke Siefried, and others.

Computer Games

Battletech brought their networked arena cockpits--yes, the same ones you pay money to play in a mall (or at least I did at the Battletech center in Chicago). there was a waiting line, let me tell you--but that's an excellent simulator in a free-for-all fashion. This is getting closer to virtual reality, as you sit in the sci-fi robot cockpit that's linked to the other cockpits, and you see only what you see. The audience gets to watch the whole action where one player will sneak up on another and let 'im 'have it!

SSI was showing a couple of games, the most interesting was Panzer General II, the sequel to the smash WWII hit, Panzer General. There were a slew of sequels: Allied General, Star General, Fantasy General, etc., but it's nice to see an updating of the system.

I played a PC game from Microprose called Worm 2, also to be called Worms with explosives. This is a multiplayer game where each player takes a turn at the screen. It is sequential obliteration--if you can kill off the opponents worms, they don't shoot. You have an incredible array of weaponry, but take it from me, the book bomb is the best. Not only does it go boom, but it scatters smaller books that go boom. Place it in a concentration of enemy worms and watch the death scenes (dead worms also go boom). Stupid? Yep. Fun? Mildly.

Blue Byte Software had an attack helicopter game, although the name escapes me. I am either had too much caffeine or am wholly inept at piloting a helicopter and blowing up ground targets. Oh sure, blame the coffee... It was quite fractal as I pummeled the trees, bushes, and everything else except the bad guys' tanks and missile arrays. And yes, it was in super easy mode.

Red Sailboat Software was showing its NASA meets SimCity game. It has no name and is doing a contest to name it (see www.redsailboat.com for more info--tell 'em MagWeb sent you). It had several levels of interface and overwhelmed by senses in the few short minutes of staring atthe monitor. This looks to be very cool if, and I say IF (without playing it a bit), you get away from all the noise of a show floor and actually try and play the game. If you ask me, it looks a little more like NASA meets Civilization (a game I believe is a top 10 game even though I stopped playing it strictly because it could engulf your life). Anyway, Russ Brown and Mark Waltz are the designers and they look like they have a winner.

I stopped to play an Alpha version of Heavy Gear, a Mechwarrior kind of game with a few more tricks to it, like indirect fire and being able to drop and pick up weaponry. It was OK. I did like the huge 15-foot-tall metal "mech" parked just around the corner. Must have been a theater set design company do it because it looked rather cool.

Fax Attax was there again, and again noted that their Zombie Zone play by fax game was just about ready. There are other historical games on tap, but you need to ship the first one before programming the next. I'm guessing that once ZZ ships, the others are not far behind because they can use the same core engine. Designer Mike Breault is a pretty cool guy.

Roleplaying

There are too may roleplaying systems to cover in depth inthis short report--and no doubt many more than I saw, but her'e a smattering of what I saw.

TSR was debuting a new sci-fi game called Alternity. To boost the game, they printed a booklet with a fast play version of the gaming system, plus an adventure, Cauldron Station. Written for the newcomer to role-playing, it seems to work its way through with some enthusiasm.

The L5R roleplaying game, based on the card game, was also out. No info on it other than the designer is a clever fellow I've known for years and no doubt brings the same genius to the RPG as to the card game.

The Babylon Project, based on the TV show, Babylon 5, was released (along with the miniatures game). Looks good, production wise. No buzz on it yet. They did bring in the actors who play "Garibaldi" and "Delenn" to sign autographs and support the various B5 products.

Heavy Gear, the miniatures game turned computer game is no turning role-playing game. No other buzz on this. Could be cool

Cards

I admit I'm not too big on collectible card games--L5R is the only one where I actually own cards and actively play. I've already described the popular tournament, but rest assured there were more card games than you could collect and play in a lifetime. Magic rules, of course.

Other Goodies

As you probably know, there is no flea market at GenCon. Instead, there is an auction. You buy a ticket for $2, then bid to your heart's content. They schedule special time periods, such as all cards, or all miniatures, and sometimes it's anything goes. It is amazing what some of the items go for--if you have a hankering to pick up games, there are some good bargains to be had. On the other hand, paying $108 for two unopened booster packs of Magic cards (1st release) seems a bit mad to me--must be looking for those Black Lotus cards...

The art show is absolutely fabulous. There is incredible talent there, and also some not so incredible talent, but art is in the eye of the beholder, eh? Suffice it to say you can see hordes of scantily clad warriors, witches, monsters, and other beings, not to mention sci-fi hardware and software, and some miniatures. Some artists had booths inside, selling prints, T-shirts, etc.

I didn't attend the costume parade and judging, but judging by the number of dressed up folks, it was probably pretty well attended.

The anime festival shows Japanese "cartoons" constantly. I ended up watching a bit as I would pass by, some the typical mutant teenagers, but one about near future earth where cybernetics are almost typical and characters weigh whether cyberpeople have souls. It was dark, eerie, and surprisingly riveting.

Of the biggest surprises at the show was the old-tyme radio presentation of "Dracula" by TSR employees. Actually, I was dead tired (argh) by the evening and wandered up to the theater to see if anyone interesting was pitching some product. No, but Dracula was ready to rumble, so I plopped down and waited as the stage manager tried to coax sound effects from the audience (OK werewolf howls, miserable horse clopping).

WTSR radio did an excellent job of bringing the vampire story to life (double argh) using a cast of characters. In between, they would do wacky commercials satirizing TSR products. Best line:

"Dracula...brought to you by...Wizards of the Coast......If we don't own it...wait!"

An excellent job all around for a radio show well done.

All Gone

And that was GenCon 97. I returned the car in the wee hours of Sunday morn, staggered into the plane, and took off...until next year.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com