On Thursday June 1 the con opened at 10:00 am after the building was besieged by an impatient crowd.

Udo staffing the sales table.

A total of about 130 attendees were welcomed. The record for the Con so far.

The Con's climate was excellent. I haven't laughed so often this year. The Germans on the HEXACON (as the GHS calls it) were glad to welcome so many international guests.

The federal German conflict simulation club GHS is internationally oriented and also welcomes international members. This year we welcomed guests from the Netherlands, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, the USA and maybe others I do not remember.

Special guests were Dean Essig and from Columbia Games David Robert. David was wearing a button: "David Robert, I don't speak German".

Losing a game this year could have serious consequences, see below.

Games that Were Played

Ardennes, Axis and Allies, Atlantic Storm, Blitzkrieg General, Circus Minimus, Drive on Paris, Drive to the Baltic, Enemy at the Gates, Euro Front, Paths of Glory, Stalingrad Pocket II, The Longest Day, This Hallowed Ground, Totaler Krieg!, Tunisia, Turning The Tables, and others I do not remember.

Tunisia being played.

Prototypes of Vimieiro (1808, first battle of Wellington, then still named Wellesley, in Portugal) and Talavera (1809, British and Spaniards versus French in Spain), both NBS titles, and a Crimea OCS game by Ernesto Sassot have been presented. There is no official announcement for any of these games yet.

Niek van Diepen who tested the NBS games at the con was pleased by a five-meter-long fax from NBS Honcho Anders Fager to get the material needed for the con in time. Anders, we already have the series rules book and the charts, thank you!

The most played game was Paths of Glory; there were also two Teams playing This Hallowed Ground and two teams playing Drive on Paris. Both Blitzkrieg General and Circus Minimus were played steadily by 5 or more players.

While gaming battles, lectures were presented in the upper area so that they did not disturb the gaming. These included:

"Sicily" by Dean N. Essig
"Chickamauga" by General Thomas G. Moder
"Tactics of the Napoleonic Area" by Nikolai Harder
"The Strange Side of the American Civil War" by Michael Wachow
"The Battle of the Skagerrak" by Gerald Leppelt
"Subdivision and Equipment of the DAK" by Dirk Blennemann
"Logistic Aspects of the African campaign" by Uli Blennemann

About 10-20 attendees visited the lectures, while the others continued playing. "Sicily" had about 40 attendees.

Atlantic Storm Tournament, Game Master Uli Blennemann

Two parties of five players took part in the semi finals. The best two players advanced to the final. The winner of the Tournament was Bruno Piqueur a guest from Red Barons Club, Belgium. Two games of This Hallowed Ground were going on, so the losers were immediately relocated as replacements for the Confederate attack on Cemetery Hill.

Sicily by Dean Essig

Dean opened the Sicily event with a short introduction which quickly turned into a simple question and answer session. Most questions were asked about the news in OCS 3.0, how Sicily handled Allied lack of cooperation, and the victory conditions. Axis play is difficult to balance evacuating German combat troops with holding the island as long as possible. Eventually the attendees turned the questions to what they always desired to ask Dean and now they could because they "had" him personally. The attendees wanted Dean to turn to SCS War in Europe instead of Age of Rifles.

The Battle of Chickamauga

General Thomas G. Moder, like last year, strongly impressed the attendees with an excellent replay of the battle of Chickamauga. Unfortunately no This Terrible Sound maps where ready so Moder used his sword to demonstrate the moves of both armies on a classic Barren Victory map. Moder pointed out how well the This Terrible Sound command system simulates the FOG of war. Orders might result in anything but the expected outcome or even cause a decisive mistake.

Characteristic for the battlefield of Chickamauga creek are hills with heavy forest. You can imagine the problems on LOS, exploring the enemy, and communication. A Union commander detected a hole in the front line that was not there. In his reaction move to close that imaginary hole he caused a real hole that the Confederate attack forces commanded by Longstreet could exploit for the decisive breakthrough in the battle.

By the way, General Moder's e-mail address is old.pete@home.ins.de. Hey, who says reincarnation does not exist?

Blitzkrieg General

Some of the games at the con suffered a sudden end because the German commander did not carefully balance his forces. When you play BG your first time make sure to choose a German who knows what he is doing.

The most interesting game had the following participants:

Axis: Dirk Blech (Germany), Dean Essig (Japan), Elias Nordling from Sweden (Italy)

Allies: Andreas Bertram (British Empire), Falk Breuer (USA and China), Matthias Timmer USSR and France (see photo).

First the Axis performed very well, The game followed approximately the historical line. There were 2 important exceptions. Elias was the mightiest Italian we ever saw. He got the "Total War" Card very early, strongly increasing Italy's production. A successful coup in Spain is very unlikely. No problem for Elias. Now Italy was ready to take Gibraltar easily, throwing the British entirely out of Africa and turn the Med into Italy's private swimming pool. More coups?

No problem! Iraq and Afghanistan joined Italy. Italy thereafter took more than half of India, part of China and the Caucasus.

Japan was doing average at first in the Chinese plains. Then the USSR and China combined their forces and kicked Japan away from the continent. Dean's die rolls were not very good while Matthias really is an artist in that matter.

The USSR had to pay for this. The defense against a furious German attack was too weak and it took time to relocate the units from the PTO. At that time the Axis seemed to win. Germany attacked Moscow while Japan prepared for Pearl Harbor.

Matthias again proved his excellent die roll art and the Germans suffered too high casualties, from which they could not recover. The Japanese were repelled by the USA, and Germany was driven out of the USSR. Mighty Italy's conquest of the Caucasus came too late, so it could not stop the defeat of its "weaker" Axis partners.

Circus Minimus

A simulation of chariot races in an ancient roman arena was the surprise game of the con. The game was steadily played by different teams who loudly cheered, reminding the rest of the con what was going on here.

Dean desperately tried to explain the goal of the game would be winning the race. Well Dean, that is what the rules book says . . .

Circus Minimus appeals to a player's dark side. In the arena while maneuvering a lot of vile things can happen to a driver: skids, hard skids, flips, other drivers "accidentally" whipping other drivers, his horses, or ramming. When you flip, the driver is dragged along by his horses. You are killed when another driver "without purpose" overruns you in that situation. Ernesto, I will get you for this!

Of course you can buy additional equipment like extra weapons, a war chariot, or even the good will of a god to help your die rolls.

Before you do something the other players loudly shout out what they want you to do, what you could do to another driver, or just "hard whip!"

People who don't whip their horses hard are chickens! Dean perfectly imitates the noise these animals do and teaches others to do so.

The most successful driver was the "Spanish Devil" Ernesto Sassot, who won most of the races and killed most of his opponents. He survived one race though I offered 90% discount for the one who "does" him.

More casualties later in this arena!

This Hallowed Ground

Two different campaign games have been started.

Group 1 around Uli Blennemann and Chris Ludwig played till 2:30 pm, first day. The Confederates took Gettysburg, but suffered high casualties.

Group 2: Union: "General Meade" Michael Gandt, corps commanders Wouter de Groot, and Dirc France; Confederates: "General Lee" Thomas Reuter, and corps commander "Joschi" Picard. The first battle emerged at Mac Pherson's Ridge between Union cavalry accompanied part of 1st Corps against Heth's troops. Heth was repelled. Thereafter the Union retreated to the hills. The Confederates had problems accepting their orders but finally started a concentrated attack on Cemetery Hill. They took that hill after a fierce battle in the last turns of that day.

Casualties (dead or wounded):
Union: 6000
Confederate: 7500
Both games will be continued.

The Auction

Rian van Meteren gave an excellent show in English language as we know him, supported by members of the GHS committee who never got tired presenting the game Rian loudly announced. This time the auction had a maximum limit in games and no magazine games were allowed. Minimum offer for each game was 20 DM.

Drive on Paris

Detlef Borchert Germany, Norbert Mšhring Allies.

Detlef writes:

"A very good game, with lots of fun in it. The usual SCS "shoot from the hip" feature gets lost a little, for players have to plan ahead in Drive on Paris, especially HQs and supply. The system does not forgive mistakes. The latter is no criticism. Drive on Paris is definitively no "Beer and Prezel" game. Our initial doubts if SCS will fit for "WW 1 und SCS" have been fully dispelled.

Detlef and Norbert couldn't finish their game for both are members of the GHS committee. The time problem is especially true for Detlef and also for me. I couldn't start a longer game because I was busy at the booth.

Next year, however, I will take time to play: EoA challenge for a combined game of Morsecode, Cold Days in Hell, Triumph & Fall of the Desert Fox (ETO); and Crimson Steel (PTO). The self proclaimed best EoA players in the world Frank Koch, Ludwig Schmelz, and Udo Grebe are gonna kick your ...!

We will have our fun with you for some game years, thereafter we mercifully will accept your unconditional surrender.

Where? Homercon Europe 2001, May 23 5 pm to May 27 3: 30 pm, Braunfels Germany. See you there!