On the Convention Floor
Once more into the breach, dear friends, if by "breach" you mean the Columbus Convention Center, connected to the Hyatt, in Columbus, Ohio. I heard second-hand that Origins will continue in this location for the next five years, though you'll certainly want to confirm that as you make your plans for next year. But I'm getting ahead of myself. From The Gamers' little corner of the sea of collectible card games and vampire T-shirts that was the exhibit hall, we could see Ed, Charlie, and Kevin in the CoA/OSG booth and Uli and Masahiro in the MiH/Critical Hit booth. Decision Games was right behind us, with UGG, GMT and Australian Design Group right around the corner. Neither Dave Friedrichs nor Richard Berg made it to the con this year.
Dang, I was looking forward to watching Dave get all the attention Burma attracted.
At right, Volny busts a move in Burma.
Sales at our booth made the trip worthwhile and then some. Not surprisingly, the best-moving title was Burma, newly released for the con. This game has been calling "play me, play me" ever since I got my pre-pub copy -- in fact, ever since Dave Friedrichs sent me his designer's preview article. Sure, the Great Battles of History games give you plenty of elephants; but what other game gives you elephants and B-29s in the same box? Fifty-one copies of Burma were sold during the convention, by some coincidence the same as the number of This Hallowed Ground sold at the con last year. Did the same fifty-one guys buy a copy of each?
Remarks from customers helped prove what we always thought: Semper Fi! is an excellent entry point for folks new to the TCS. Semper Fi!, Malvern Hill, and Ardennes sold well during the con. Even better, the on-hand copies of Crusader, Gazala, GD'40, A Raging Storm, Hunters from the Sky, Leros, and Tunisia, as well as the countertrays, sold out. Don't worry: these items are still available directly from The Gamers. As of the end of Origins, The Gamers has only 15 copies of Hube's Pocket available directly from us; Hube's may be sold out by the time you read this.(6 copies remain as of 17 Aug 99.)
Demo Duty
I spent little time at the booth myself, as I was on demo duty for much of the con. For me that meant kicking off the full campaign game of This Hallowed Ground. With able assistance from Milt Janosky, I ran the Confederates against the Union troops of John Reed and Dave Powell. Our plan is to establish this campaign game as a moveable feast, setting it up at HomerCon, next year's Origins, and so on, picking up each time at the place where we left off. We extend an open invitation to anyone interested in taking command of a division or a corps and joining in. The idea is to get into the campaign game without creating a burden on anybody's time; at HomerCon or Origins, you can get a good dose of THG and still have plenty of time for other games. Come join us at HomerCon, where we'll be starting the 1 July, 1:00 pm game turn (see page 7). While playing at Origins, we had quite a few guys stop by to watch, ask questions, and get a taste of the system.
The THG crew could not, however, claim to have the biggest "thang" at the convention. That honor went to the campaign game of The Seven Days (at right). The full nine-map depiction of the Chickahominy and environs is something to see, and the low counter density and distance between various formations makes the operational dimension of this campaign game immediately visible. We're talking about elbow room, the opportunity for genuine large-scale maneuver. Dan Cicero (at right), Dave Powell, and a cast of many were running The Seven Days. The contest ended with what looked like a convincing Confederate victory, due largely to good marching rather than decisive firefights.
A game of Leros drew quite a bit of attention, as did several contests of Burma going on during the con. Burma playtester Andrew Fischer was involved in one or two demos of this game at all times in the gaming room. Chris and Will, the Fighting Volny Brothers, had Burma set up in The Gamers' booth as well, where Will gave one of the best-looking women at the convention a quick and dirty introduction to the OCS.
More Than Just Games
Of the many War College events at Origins, Dean was most impressed by the lecture on the Rangers' Mogadishu firefight. He came away from the talk remarking that the operation was a lot more complex than is generally known and that the news coverage at the time (no surprise here) was woefully uninformed and uninformative. At the other end of the seriousness spectrum was the Smithies, the "awards" for the worst achievements in bad movies. The event was something like an interactive Mystery Science Theater 3000, where the attendees voted for the worst of various film clips in categories including "lamest scientific explanation" and "least plausible excuse to start a brawl." You get the idea: a good event for a Saturday night.
In other award news, The Gamers very much appreciates your support, as expressed in the Charles S. Roberts award nominations for This Hallowed Ground (pre-WW2 game and graphics), David Powell (Dunnigan award for elegance and playability) and Operations magazine (pro mag). Dean and Dave are already in the CSR Hall of Fame, thanks to your appreciation. I was a bit surprised that THG didn't carry away the best graphics award on the strength of its richly detailed map, though the winner in that category is certainly a good-looking game. (See page 7 for the CSR winners roundup.)
Seminar City
By requesting a time that would not conflict with the CSR awards and other popular events, we ended up being assigned 9:00 am for our company seminar. Nevertheless, some 30 fans showed up the hear the latest Gamers news and ask questions. I renewed my call for letters to the editor (opsed@tgamers.com for e-mail, or The Gamers' Homer address for snail-mail), and I gathered enough feedback about the game ratings chart to decide to change its format, beginning with issue 35.
Dean reports that, three years into our no-distributors policy, the number of active customers on The Gamers mailing list continues to grow in a linear way. Most of the questions at the seminar involved games that either don't exist yet or are no longer in print. Regarding whether we would consider larger print runs, at least for games we expect to be quite popular, Dean replied that a run of 2,000 games makes money and sells at about the proper rate. Owen Fuller, warehouse guru, described some of the problems related to lingering inventory of titles printed in runs of 5,000 (anybody need another copy of No Better Place to Die?). There are no plans to increase print runs to greater than 2,000. Likewise, interest in out-of-print games like DAK would have to support a 2,000-copy run to make a reprint affordable to either The Gamers or you.
Concerning the don't-exist-yet titles, Dean brought people up to date on the current production schedule, that is, the games planned through 2000 (see "Up & Coming"). Dave Friedrichs should be delivering Army Group North soon, and Dave Powell's next big project after This Terrible Sound (Chickamauga) for the RSS is Army Group South. We reminded people that the maps for the various East Front OCS games are already planned so that they will mate to cover the theater. Guderian's Blitzkrieg II will reappear, not as a reprint but as a new edition including the northern pincer (that is, all of 4th Panzer Army's area of operations).
Dave Powell is solidly at work on the next Regimental Sub-Series title, Chickamauga; he had the playtest maps for this game laid out in the open gaming area. Dean and Dave reaffirmed that the planned topics for the RSS are Chickamauga, Antietam, and perhaps Shiloh. Because they don't generate the same level of interest (sales) as the big, high-profile battles, smaller engagements like Champion Hill are quite unlikely to appear as RSS titles. Meanwhile, in the CWB, Thomas Prowell's Bull Run project will fill the gap when August Fury went out of print. The new game will include First and Second Manassas, as well as a speculative third battle of Manassas.
Design work is progressing on the Operational Age of Rifles series; I hope the rest of you are as fired up about a new series from The Gamers as I am, especially one that can handle Frederick, Napoleon, and Bobby Lee at the campaign level. By a vote taken on The Gamers e-mail list, Dean is proceeding with Age of Rifles before the project to portray WW2 in Europe in a multi-game sub-series for the SCS. Those of you who are fans of our second most venerable series will want to know that TCS titles including Ariete, GD'42, and Arracourt will appear pending the completion of the new and streamlined armor rules, of which the rules available on The Gamers web site are only a foretaste. And yes, A Frozen Hell is moving toward publication.
This year's Origins made it clear, if there was ever any doubt, that The Gamers is solid in 1999. After a year occupied by two game releases and some convalescence time, this year is back on a full production schedule, with Malvern Hill, Gazala, and Burma available now and Aspern-Essling coming in November. Even more important in the long run, the production system (see Dean's Out Brief "Realigning the Gears" in Ops 29) is humming along, and game designs, several of which you have been anticipating for years, are moving through development and production.
Now pardon me while I wrap up this magazine and glider-drop into the jungles of Burma.
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