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GMT Weekend at the Warehouse

I usually go to a couple of wargame conventions every year. One of them is the GMT weekend at the warehouse, which is held every spring and fall. I missed the last one because of my trip to Nepal so I was anxious to go back again this April.

I usually drive down to Hanford California (near Fresno) where GMT is located. It takes a full day but I'm an old retired guy and I have the time. It usually isn't very interesting but I did see a weird thing going down there this time. Driving through Nevada I saw a plane at high altitude, leaving a long contrail, going in circles. It was a big circle, many miles across. The plane had to be high, thirty thousand feet or more. Jet airliners don't typically fly around in circles at high altitude in the middle of nowhere. Neither do military aircraft for that matter. I have no idea what was going on. I watched for at least ten minutes till I drove past and couldn't see it any more.

I had a busy schedule planned at the con. First thing on Thursday morning I played a game of Colonial Twilight against Chris Brooks. We didn't know each other beforehand. We had arranged the game through the Consimworld forum. Colonial Twilight is one of my favorite games and I was able to win as the FLN on the third Prop card.

For the rest of the time I played several games with Larry Davidson, someone I knew from Consimworld Expo last year where we had played several east front games. This time we started with Bastogne: Screaming Eagles Under Siege. It's from MMP, one of their Standard Combat Series. I had tried it solitaire a couple of times and it seemed like the Germans didn't really have much of a chance. When I had mentioned it to Larry he said that he thought the game was competitive. We agreed to a match so that he could show me how the Germans could be played. Sure enough, Larry did have a much more aggressive style of play than I do. That was the right approach for SCS, with it's very fluid zones of control, and especially this game with its lack of supply rules. Although the Americans started in a strong position it deteriorated through the game and it ended in a decisive German victory.

I noticed that my nose was in the rulebook a lot but that my opponent rarely had to consult the rules. I asked him if he played a lot of SCS and he just said "pretty much". As I was going through the rules again later I noticed that the credits said "v1.8 Rewriting: Larry Davidson".

"Hey, is that you?" I asked.

"Yeah" he admitted. Ok. When your opponent wrote the rulebook that counts as being fairly experienced.

We had a good session though. I was ready to give up on the game and he showed me how it should be played. It's always good to play against a more experienced opponent and learn how to play better. I'm hoping that I get a chance to play the game again soon solitaire so I can try some of the new strategies and tactics that I learned.

Next was Storm Over Normandy. I played this game twice when it first came out two years ago. Both times the German player won big. It seemed like the victory point count needed for the Allies to win was off. Reading the forums on boardgamegeek, a lot of people who played the game felt the same way. Larry said that in his experience the game seemed to be balanced. There was only one way to settle it. We had to play the game.

He played very aggressively again. The Germans have some powerful panzer units which I held back in reserve. On Turn 3 I launched a counterattack, regaining important terrain and in the process eliminating multiple Allied units that had advanced too far. With the loss of valuable ground and many VP's for the eliminated units, Larry resigned so we could try again. So far it looked like I didn't have to change my opinion that the game was unwinnable for the Allies.

Our second game went differently. Larry pushed hard but was more careful than before not to overextend. The Allies were slow to gain VP's. The total stayed negative for the first six of the eight turns of the game. But finally on the very last turn the German lines were blown wide open in both the American and Commonwealth sectors, just as they were in real life in Operation Cobra. The Allies exited lots of units and were over the thirty VP's they needed to win clearly demonstrating that it was possible for them to win.

I'd like to play the game a few more times now before I come to a final conclusion on play balance. Unfortunately it's not a good game to solo because of the tactical card play. Maybe I'll find some live opponents, either here at home or at Consimworld Expo.

Besides the gaming, an important part of GMT weekend is the Saturday morning sale. You can buy regular in stock games at a significant discount as well as low stock games that aren't available online. When I first arrived I decided on a number of games that I would purchase and spent three days agonizing over which games I would get. Then on Saturday morning Gene gave his usual talk before the sale. Although GMT had not held their annual sale for over two years because of various internal systems problems, they were finally ready again. To start, we would be able to get in stock GMT games for half price. That blew my careful plan out the window and I went wild. I ended up getting ten GMT games. That's why I drive rather than fly to GMT. Sandy got so many games for her gift stash that she didn't know where to put them all. (I told her that I didn't consider that a bad thing.)

So in summary I had good gaming sessions, with two wins and two losses. I learned a lot about a couple of the games that I played. I even picked up a bunch of new games at a real bargain. Bottom line - it was a good weekend.