Looks like wargaming woke up from its 6-month slumber with a vengeance, greeting Origins with a flood of new or forthcoming releases. Leaving aside such monuments as The Gamers This Hallowed Ground (regimental Gettysburg, at five maps and 2,000 counters, a better name is This Heavy Box), I picked up Atlantic Storm (Battle for the North Atlantic card game) and played an advanced copy of For The People (We The People meets the American Civil War), both from Avalon Hill, who chose not to show up this year. Whether or not this demonstrates AH's displeasure with Origins and their desire to go with Avaloncon alone is hard to say. COMMAND was also an absolute no-show; they appear to have dropped completely off the radar screen.
Moments in History kept on with Dirk Blenneman's crusade to cover every battle of the East Front by bringing Triumphant Return (Soviet Liberation of Kiev, November 1943) and Clash Of Titans (Kursk, July 1943). As you'd expect, both sold out by Saturday.
From GMT I grabbed Sicily, with Vance von Borries' Typhoon system applied to the Invasion of Sicily, a much smaller and more manageable field, and Saratoga, a simple American Revolution tactical game-- both of these may appeal to PA readers. Speaking of Typhoon, a troop of die-hard East Fronters from Houston, Texas had a marathon game of Typhoon/Barbarossa going with about 9 tables shoved together and 10,000 counters. They played for four days and maybe reached Turn 3. I avoided them, as there is something about a wargamer from Texas wearing a Waffen SS T-shirt that frightens even me. There was also the promise of Caesar In Gaul being just around the corner, always famous last words for GMT...
SimTac's Rivoli was a pleasant surprise, showing up Friday morning and selling out in about 2 hours (I nicked the first copy, I am pleased to report). Clash of Arms had War Without Mercy, strategic East Front complete with ultra-controversial cover and two French imports, Jean D'Arc (Hundred Years War done in what appears to be Kingmaker vein) and Courtesans Of Versailles (light-hearted intrigue in the court of Louis XIV). Ed Wimble reports that Summer Storm (their Gettysburg game) and La Bataille De Lutzen are on the brink of publication.
Decision Games had Nuts, a Battle of Bastogne card game, festooned with a big fat swastika on the front of each card, thereby insuring that they will offend many and never sell a copy in Germany. Alan Emrich was running a never-ending game of Krieg, 2nd edition, promising that it will be available at the next Origins. Kevin Zucker's big release was La Guerre De L'Empereur , the Napoleonic Wars done in Krieg-style. Alan Emrich bought one, set it up, and pronounced it completely unplayable as published. However, Alan's last words were that he would re-write the rules and post them on-line for anybody looking to salvage the game. (CHV: This remark of David's caused one of the biggest kerfuffles on the Net for a while. "Completely unplayable" is, as you will see elsewhere in this issue, incorrect. Alan states he said it was completely unplayable "without the victory conditions" which bumbling old Kevin had missed out of the Origins copies. We await a more detailed critique from Alan. )
Avalanche brought Great War At Sea II and War Plan Orange, a naval game on an American invasion of Japan in the 30's. Masahiro Yamazaki had Bloody October about the Battle of Guadalcanal and Hokidate, on the Meiji Restoration Civil War in Japan. A new feller from Germany, Udo Grebe, presented Morsecode , strategic W.W.II Western Front done on corps level. Rob Markham was testing Salamis, done on 1 counter equals 1 ship scale (I am not kidding), and promised a War of the Roses Quad (Barnet, Towton, Tewkesbury, Mortimer's Cross) after he visits Britain and tours the battlefields in August. Rob tells me that he has sold 1,000 copes of Montcalm & Wolfe, a very impressive and encouraging figure for DTP efforts.
I've left a few out, I am sure, but the above were the games that I noticed when not distracted by a scantily-clad blonde leather goddess hired to promote somebody's latest vampire bloodsucking S&M card game. Lots of testosterone in that convention hall with nowhere to go, I'd say. (CHV: Let's hope so, we do not want any of that male bonding nonsense!)
Your intrepid reporter went to the auction for the first time in his life and filled a long ambition by purchasing a copy of GDW's Avalanche. Glancing through it I was struck by the ability of the best of the 70's games to cover a subject in great detail and superlative depth with only 20 pages of rules in a half-size rulebook, a lost art these days where ASL is up to 15 volumes and they're still not done (he says smugly as his own Austerlitz rules run to 110 pages). Speaking of Austerlitz, I ran a very successful demo of it on Saturday and it's still on track for December from Moments in History. (CHV: I hope that's not a plug Mr Fox)
Dave Powell and DAK won just about every Charles Roberts Award going (except for BROG, of course, am I the only person who ever votes for Perfidious Albion? And kudos to All Quiet On The Western Front, upset winner over Gaines Mill in the pre-20th Century category). (CHV: er.... which century is 1918 in then?) This was actually quite funny, since Dave was still on crutches from the plane crash and had to repeatedly hobble up and down the aisle to receive his Award, until by the fifth time even the Magic players were cheering him. (CHV: Cripple-baiting, a popular spectator sport). Richard Berg saw Successors win a couple of Origins Awards and the retirement of BROG into the Origins Hall of Fame along with The Courier and Strategy & Tactics.
The annual Origins rituals continued-- lots of new games to ooze over, staying up to 3 am playing Atlantic Storm and Krieg, hustling over to the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS) wing to push around a few Napoleonic minis, catching up with all the old gaming buddies that I only see once a year. In short, Origins was a groove, as always, and to any gamers who still do not go because they are afraid it's been overrun by Magic players and Vampires, I can only say you are missing out on a ton of fun and should go next year and see for yourself
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© Copyright 1998 by Charles and Teresa Vasey.
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