Congratulations, Charles, on Issue 100, a real monument to creativity, discipline, and perseverance. (CHV: Two out of three's not bad). Over the years you've now managed to outlast BROG twice. Before I begin, I'd like to dedicate this Report to the pretty young waitress at the diner across the street from the convention centre, who had pierced her ears, eyebrows, nose, navel, and tongue and yet still looked damn good. This was the most fun I've had at Origins since Philadelphia in '94. The reason for this is an apparent trend in Origins wargaming, where the publishers are moving away from tournaments and towards renting a dedicated wargame room where they have several of their games set up and running constantly with a few experts on hand to introduce the games' concepts to new recruits. GMT, The Gamers, and Clash of Arms all did this and seemed quite successful. I think this is the way to go for the future. GMT's big release was Ted Raicer's Paths Of Glory, strategic WWI using the For The People system. War Galley and June 6 were also on prominent display, the rule being that for every game someone else publishes, Richard Berg can produce two. As a side note, this was the first Origins in many years not attended by Richard , who gave some shabby excuse about his plane flight being cancelled but really stayed home to avoid arguing with Dean Essig for three days about Burma. The GMT seminar was very promising, with Gene Billingsley explaining the success of the P500 system and his publishing plans for the future, which include a Euro game by Reiner Knizia. The Gamers had Burma, their latest Operational Combat Series title and Malvern Hill, a Civil War Brigade game that completes Dave Powell's Seven Days trilogy. I had a chance to play Burma with playtester Andrew Fisher showing me the ropes (Andrew is the first South African that I've ever met; I meant to ask him about the unit ratings in Battle For North Africa but never had the chance). This is an extremely subtle game, with both sides having severe shortages of supplies and manpower but having to launch offensives in terrible terrain anyway. Andrew handled the Japanese like a ballet dancer-- if the Japanese make lots of attacks, they're doing something wrong. Instead they must win through infiltration, isolation, and starvation, and in our game he had them flitting through the Allied defences like ghosts. My only complaint is the awfully tedious supply system, which really must be explained by an expert as a rookie to the game series is bound to throw the rulebook away in frustration. Still, any game with mule and water buffalo counters is a must-buy. Clash of Arms had Chariotlords by our chum Lord Foppington. Sadly I didn't have a chance to play it, but did admire the marvellous work on the map and counters, not so much the boxcover though, which I thought looked too much like one of those overly busy Avalon Hill Geronimo/Blackbeard tableaus. Ed Wimble sold me Digby Smith's Borodino and an English copy of Hourtoulle's Jena/Auerstadt book with nifty maps and uniform illos. Decision gave us Totaler Krieg, sequel to Krieg, with Alan Emerich looking like Bill Clinton's lawyer as he scurried around the halls trying to keep four games going at once. I won't say much about their reprint of SPI's War In Europe - on sale for 250 dollars !!!- as the price disgusts me. Besides a four-day hangover, Critical Hit/Moments in History had In Flanders Fields, a neat little game on Second Ypres and Module 1 of Combat!, a simplified ASL-type tactical system about the American 82nd Airborne in Normandy. I think this is a great idea, as ASL has always suffered from horrible rules overkill and they now have a method for drawing in newcomers without requiring a 200 dollar/six-inch thick purchase of books and binders. Module 2, I'm told, will be Stalingrad. The top game at the con, of course, was Wizards of the Coast's Pokemon card game. The ability of these guys to market to the latest card game craze astounds me. Smugly proud at always being five years behind, I brought a couple of my own newly purchased Magic decks. And lost every game I played. I attended a great seminar given by John Hill and West Point instructor Peter Panzieri about the American commando raid on Mogadishu in October 1993. Accompanied by actual video of the raid and newly de-classified operations reports, here was a very interesting study of modern urban combat and the philosophical conflict between American politicians and the American military (no matter what she does, Madeline Albright always seems to make the worst possible decisions). The raid is also the subject of a great book called Blackhawk Down by Mark Bowden (CHV: Anything like Watership Down?) On a serious note, I was truly appalled by the number of gamers looking proud of themselves while wearing German combat unit t-shirts announcing the 1st Falschirmjager or Grossdeutscheland Division concert tour or whatever. Worst was the moron with a "2nd SS Panzer Division Deathshead Tour" t-shirt; I looked to see if it included a tally of Russian peasants slaughtered and Allied prisoners massacred. Seeing clueless idiots wandering around in public wearing shit like that almost makes me ashamed to be a wargamer. The big Charles Roberts Award winner was Mark Herman and For The People (but what do all the people know ?). Brog's won in the Amateur newsletter category yet again- I voted for Perfidious Albion, I swear- and Vance von Borries was ushered into the Hall of Fame. A special notice should go to the woman wearing the skintight Catwoman costume on Saturday wobbling around on spike heels about 24 inches tall. She managed to look alluring while never quite falling over. Honourable mention goes to the three guys in Starship Troopers outfits which were neato but not very alluring. They did look more comfortable than Catwoman though. Back to Perfidious Albion #100 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. 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