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GMT Weekend Fall 2018

When I got back from our trip to the Midwest, I only had two days at home. Then it was time for me to leave for GMT Games in Hanford, California. It was kind of rushed but I always enjoy the Weekend at the Warehouse. Not only is it three plus days devoted to wargaming, but the sale on Saturday morning is a great chance to pick up the latest releases. Even though it's a long way I always drive rather than fly. That way I can bring along whatever games I want to play over the weekend. Even more important, I can take home as many new wargames as I want.

The two days berfore I left were busy. Besides the normal things I had to do to recover from one trip and get ready for the next, I had gaming preparation as well. I had already scheduled games and one of them I had never played before. That meant that I had to punch and trim the counters, print and read the rules and play aids, and then set up the game and practice for a few turns (what wargamers call "pushing some pieces").

It takes pretty much a full day to drive down so I always do it on Wednesday, the day before the con starts start. I try to leave early so I can make it through Sacramento as early as possible. Later in the day the traffic heading south out of the city on Highway 99 is awful. This time I woke up really early and was pulling out of my driveway at 4:30 am. The weather was fine and the drive down was easy. The worst part is always from Sacramento to Fresno but over the past few years they have been improving Highway 99. Now it's three lanes the whole way and a lot better than it used to be.

After I checked in at the hotel I went out for dinner. Usually I just walk across the street to Round Table Pizza but this time I decided to go downtown to Superior Dairy. It's an institution in Hanford, a diner and ice cream shop (mainly the latter) that is known for it's excellent ice cream served in truly massive portions. I had been there once before so I knew enough to skip dinner completely and just ordered a "regular sunday". I was barely able to finish it. It was delicious but after that it will probably be a year or two before I go back. That sunday satisfied my urge for ice cream for a while! Eating a sunday at Superior Dairy is better as a group activity.

Next morning I was up early again and was at GMT by 7:30. Hardly anyone was there yet but the tables were set up and everything was ready for gaming. The warehouse is a special place to play, surrounded on all sides by shelves of wargames stacked to the ceiling. I spent some time just walking around checking out which games they had in stock. It's never too early for me to start trying to decide what I will buy at the sale on Saturday morning. At least that's what I tell myself when I get there. When the time for the sale actually comes I usually just end up getting them all. It's a good thing that I have a big game room!

My first game was Stalingrad: Verdun on the Volga with John Zrmic. He had contacted me because he knew that I had played it at Consimworld Expo. There is a wargamer with a YouTube channel who goes by the nomme de guerre of Stuka Joe. He made an excellent tutorial video on how to play SVotV. He also did a video of his time at Consimworld Expo in June where that was one of the games he played against...me. Our game is featured in the video and I even appear in it when he asks my opinion of the game. He caught me off guard at the time so I just mumble and say something dumb. I'm not too worried about posting the link though because no one is going to watch an hour and a half video just to see the thirty seconds when I am on. Since I was now a famous Stalingrad: Verdun on the Volga player, John pinged me by email and asked if I wanted to play at GMT. I agreed immediatly. I am always up for a Stalingrad game.

John wanted to play the Russians since it was his first time playing the game. If you want to really learn about a game it's a good idea to let the more experienced player take the side that has the initiative. That way you find out what is supposed to happen. If you are the one who has to do the attacking but don't know what to do, you might end just up sitting there. If your opponent is defending, they'll be content to do the same. That can make for a boring game.

I had a good first turn and was able to take Mamayev Kurgan, an important hill near the center of the city. That made it tough for the Russians to get reinforcements across the Volga River. John put up a good fight but I managed to take enough of the river landings that eventually he conceded.

Thursday evening I started a game of Turning Point: Stalingrad witht Larry Davidson. This time I switched sides and took the Russians so that I could play defense. It's fun to play the two games back to back. I had done the same thing with Stuka Joe at Consimworld Expo in June and it was interesting to compare them. They are on the same battle and use similar area-impulse systems. I read a statement on the Consimworld forum from Mike Rinella, the designer of SVotV, that he was inspired to design the game because he liked Turning Point Stalingrad but thought that it could be improved. In the end it turned out that the new game was different but didn't really replace the original. Both are fun games. In fact I think that Turning Point Stalingrad is still my favorite of the two in spite of its age - it came out way back in 1989.

It was a tense game but this time I got the win with the Russians. It helped when Larry made a couple of bad sunset die rolls that resulted in short days for the German offensive but I'm sure the win was really all due to skill on my part and no luck was involved (-:

After finishing TPS Friday afternoon, Larry and I started a new game. It was Konigsberg: The Soviet Attack on East Prussia, 1945 from Revolution Games. Not another Stalingrad game but at least it was WWII East Front. It covers the Russian offensive into East Prussia in early 1945 (I'll bet you might have guessed that from the name). Larry had played before but this was my first time. I played the Russians, who at this late stage of the war had the burden of attack, so it was up to me to drive the action. Normally I would have preferred to play defense in my first game but the Germans are really challenging in this game. It uses chit pull activation of headquarters and formations so there is a lot of uncertainty. It's especially tense for the Germans because if the Russians get multiple activations in a row, they can rip open a hole and then pour through it before the Germans have a chance to react.

Konigsberg is an interesting game because it is frustrating for both players. For the German player it's obvious - desperately trying to hold out against overwhelming forces. But the Russian player struggles too, never able to move fast enough or far enough, never able to activate the right formation to break through.

I didn't do well in my first game. I made progress but not enough. Near the end it turned out that I had screwed up two rules that made it much more difficult on me. We called the game and I was lucky it was only a minor German victory.

We did a rematch and Larry was gracious enough to take the Germans again to give me another chance. Playing that side is really grueling. This time I got the rules right and had learned better tactics within the game system. I made a lot better progress. We only got half way through the game before we had to call it on Sunday but it looked like I would probably get the win.

Besides the games that I played there was other interesting stuff. Gene gave his usual "state of GMT Games" talk. The sale was fun of course. I made a good haul. I got to meet and talk to the guy from Playdek who is doing the digital version of Labyrinth. I signed up for the beta test since I have played a lot of the boardgame version. I also got to see a new COIN game that is being designed by Trevor Bender. It's on the Syrian Civil War and is different because it features six factions. My biggest problem would be finding six people to play it. I have enough trouble finding people for four player games.

That was it. I got in several good games. It's also fun to watch the games that others play. Two guys were ambitious and played A World At War, a monster game that I usually only see at Consimworld Expo. Even though they only played the European Theater (that's just half the game) in three and a half days they only made it to the end of 1941. Another group played Napoleonic Wars, one of my favorite games, but on a giant map with large painted miniatures. Best of all though was that I got a chance to see wargaming buddies from other parts of the country again and talk wargaming all weekend.