World Boardgame Championships Flyby

I had a great time at this one. I only had about a day and a half. I showed up at noon on Saturday (We wanted to show up Friday but I had lingering knee problems). As seems to happen at every WBC, I almost immediately located Allan Rothberg. We shot the breeze for a bit, I hovered around a few games, went to the dealer's area, and schmoozed many people here and there.

the new ARKHAM HORROR was getting a lot of play

There was the standard mishmash of stuff being played at WBC; some old and ome new. Personally, I'm always pleased to see some of the classics..

One of those classics, one of my favorite G'burg games...

Another favorite, TITAN. Is this the anal-retentive approach, or what?

silly Squad Leader players... lighten up and have some fun!

WAR OF THE RING was also very evident, all over the place

I met Gary "Man Mountain" Christiansen, Adam and Mrs. Starkwether, and lots of other folks. I didn't get in any games during the day shift, just hung out and kibbitzed and yacked away. I went to dinner with Allan, Eva, Justin Thompson, Bill and Margaret Alderman. The southerners tackled the chow at "Good and Plenty" with gusto, since "family style" dining is nothing new to us. Allan and Eva looked a tad shellshocked at the dining house reach concept. Probably a 'different worlds colliding' kind of thing.

Got back, jumped into a WELLINGTON game run by Mark McGlaughlin, one of my favorite GMs. I stepped into the titular shoes, and had a great game start, swooping East quickly, taking a gamble at Salamanca (rolling 8 6s on 12 dice in the process, decimating the Northern army for a while). The smart move would be to reinforce and move on to Madrid with a big army, but no balls, no blue chips.. I found a card that got me over the mountains and right into Madrid. That was a bloody fight, but I captured it and the Spaniard player reinforced me. We built up in Madrid and went forth to attack Zaragosa while Daddy Hill and Beresford cleaned up Andulasia. We stalled at Zaragossa, not being able to get beyond a parity situation with the teerrain and their good leader (Soult). The game ended with us losing by ONE key. Great game, had a lot of fun.


My favorite moment in WELLINGTON: wiping out (pardon the pun) an entire army group with the dysentary card. They just crapped out on their die rolls, you might say). If I get inspired, I'll post a replay of WELLINGTON here; I did take some piccies of this game.

The Prototype for Mark's next game in the series, KUTZOV. This is a must buy!

My second favorite moment from WELLINGTON: Mark McGlauglin bought all us players Curvosier and we had a general toast...

Hung out with Ron Wuerth and his dangerous pals later, and they graciously allowed me to crash at their suite (Drey was staying with Ren Faire buddies in Lancaster Saturday night). Many thanks for that, Ron!!!

Ron, you sexy beast.. hold still!! The camera loves you!

Ron Wuerth adds:

Don't feel too bad for our fearless WaltO. That couch he slept on was a queen size pull out. So except for that damned bar in the middle, it wasn't too bad. I used it the previous few nights. Sorry about the lice Walt! (snicker) But it sure was a good con! I have to say, I like the Host better than the Hunt Valley Marriot for the gaming purposes. The hotel was booked up so my dangerous pal roomates and I stayed at the Country Inn and Suites, and I have to say that was a great place to stay. A short walk to the host, just through the Lapp's Family Restaurant and you're there. I left my car in the Host's lot, so that I had easy access to my games as needed. Thankfully the weather cooperated. If it were pouring rain every day, that would have been a bit more difficult. But so many games, so little time. I learned a few new ones, and picked up some games I'd been debating on for some time. One of the new ones I learned, I will go pick up shortly, "Louis XIV". It's an influence peddling game, and I have to say, I like those kind of games. Picked up the english reprint of Usurppe, "Primordial Soup". Played it on the last day of the con, and while it runs a bit long, this is a great game. Hey, any game where I can say, "I drift west, eat a green, yellow and red cube, and CRAP two blue cubes" well, what can I say, that makes me laugh! And on the Ron'0 Meter, games that make me laugh = Excellent!

I had no complaints about the accomodations.. in fact, I really, really liked the Country Inn and Suites.. their rooms are far superior (and constructed in the last 4 or so years, to boot).

I woke up NOT feeling like I was coming off a four day drink in Cleveland, took a shower (sorry about using one of your towels, Ron), went downstairs to discover they were serving a continental breakfast (I helped myself) and even took the time to compliment the front desk about the great job they were doing on the way out. So I left them beaming about what a great job they were doing and ambled up to present the Iggies for 2004. I wish I had slept more, but oh well..

Ron also Sez:

Got to meet Gary Christiansen on the last day. Wow he IS tall! And I say that standing nearly 6'3". And a nice guy too! (Sorry Gary, I forget if I was allowed to let that fact out of the bag or not!)

And I was there! I have to admit Gary's gigantic stature threw me for a loop, too! People are never like you imagine 'em to be when you only have the Internet to go on. I have put one or two piccies of myself up on the 'net so I guess I might be easier to spot in the crowd of nameless faces... there was much schmoozing and hand-shaking, as usually happens when you only know someone from their web presence and suddenly see a badge with a recognizable name attached to a living breathing human being (though on Sunday morning that might have been debatable).

I took a lot of pictures on my Palm pilot (that Zire is a handy beast, eh?).. most of the more blurry ones never made it to FLICKR.

I had half an eye out for some CONSIMWORLD luminaries, like Rob Winslow and Mark Pitcavage but only ran into Rob Sunday morning when I was playing ACQUIRE, such a pity. He's a nice guy in person-- not that he isn't online, either. Rob was busy doing that "serious gaming" thang.. I noted he was mentioned in the program booklet as a runner up for the "CONSUL" award.

I quickly get eliminated from the Acquire tournament

Some of those other, better players than myself. So it goes. I still love this game.


I noticed that the WBC crowd is remarkably sober. Saturday night at the host bar, in MY HMGS experience, witnesses a crowd of guys seven men deep, waiting to get beers and other boozy items. And smoking cigars. You could have bowled in the bar on Saturday night at WBC. They are also remarkably well-mannered; nary a raised voice or argument. The 'business meeting' on Sunday consisted of Don Greenwood getting up after the door prize lottery and asking if anyone had any questions. The hardest one was "Will WBC be at the Host next year?", which Don fended off vaguely supporting the notion that it would be at the Host, but not committing to it. That was it; no motions of censure, no explosions, no fist-shaking and nasty smears. Maybe I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd in HMGS East! WBC is like a lawn party in comparison to our, er... slightly more political conventions... (sigh mode on).

Just as well, I suppose, I wasn't up to having a vodka glass shot off my head... my bum knee was acting up.

Sunday, presented the Iggy to Wray Farrell for Sword of Rome, right after Allan's Charlies. Played in Acquire open tourney, got smoked..

See previous entry (finalist list for for IGA candidates) published earlier on this blog.

Allan was very encouraging about my Iggy presentations but next year (if I am so honored as to be asked to present again), I will try to get more sleep and thus have more conversational bon mots prepared. Allan was far more collected than I when he did the Charlies a few seconds earlier.

Still, I didn't trip over myself, and Wray got applauded, so it was cool.

AQUISITIONS:

WELLINGTON by GMT
COMBAT SOLDIERS IN THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE: by LBG
SERGEANTS IN THE SAND: LBG
EMPIRE OF THE SUN: GMT
SIX BRIDGES TO ARNHEM by MMP (freebie)
BASTOGNE OR BUST (DTP) (freebie)
CRUSADER REX by Columbia