BottosCon 2019
Sunset view over the Frasier River from my hotel room
I usually attend several wargame conventions every year. I like to drive because then I can take along as many of my games as I like. It's an added bonus that I can buy new ones, since most wargame cons have flea markets of some kind. I don't like long distance driving in the bad weather though so I take about a three month break during winter. That means BottosCon, held the first weekend in November in Vancouver, British Columbia, is usually the last convention of the season for me.
Most of the people who attend BottosCon are local and can get there on Friday when it starts. They are from Vancouver, or travel from Seattle or Victoria that morning. There are always a few gamers like me though who arrive the evening before because they travel a long way. Rob Bottos, the eponymous organizer of the convention, hosts a dinner for us travelers the evening before. I always check if I am the person who came the farthest. I've never won that distinction but I have been second a couple of times. I wasn't even close this year. Besides a few people from Portland, California, and Boise (that would be me), there was someone from Boston and a guy from Jacksonville. They came a long way!
Brian Train demos his new COIN game - China's War
On Friday I had arranged a game of Breakout Normandy. It's one of my favorites and I've played it quite a bit this year. Besides being a classic game, it features the system that was the basis for my Fallujah Fury design. Since I had been working on that a lot, I had immersed myself in the system all year.
My opponent was KC Deitrick. I had never played him before but met him in an unusual way. Two years before was the only time that I had to cancel out of BottosCon at the last minute. An early winter storm closed down all the passes throught the Cascades and I couldn't make the drive. I had made my hotel arrangements in advance and couldn't cancel them. One of those bargain, prepaid internet rates. KC bailed me out by taking over my room reservation so I didn't lose my money. This year we were finally getting to play a wargame.
Lots of activity in the main gaming room
I played the Allies. After a long day of gaming, it was coming down to a close finish. As with many games of Breakout Normandy, it was ending with a fierce battle for Carentan. If the Allies could take it by the end of the week they would win. If the Germans held out, they would win. On the last day I threw attack after attack at the town. I inflicted casualties on the Germans but could never quite manage to take the town. The Germans would respond after each battle by committing more of their dwindling reserves. Finally we were down to the last impulse. The Allies assaulted with the only units they had left which could attack. The Germans had no more units to add to the defense. This was it. We rolled our dice. It was enough. The Germans were forced to retreat. It was quite a battle - as tense a wargames as I have ever played.
The next day I did a playtest of Fallujah Fury with Dan Carey. I got some good feedback from our game, but the information I get from playtest sessions like this is limited. Since I am intimately familiar with the game and my opponent was playing for the first time, it's not a good test of things like play balance. More important to me than the immediate feedback though is the exposure. As we played all day lots of gamers would come up and watch for a while and ask about the game. My biggest score was when Mark, who I had met at dinner before the con, asked about playtesting. We traded email addresses and after the con I sent him a set of counters. He printed a map and played a couple of games with his friends in Jacksonville. That provided really good feedback on rules (because I wasn't there to instantly answer questions) and play balance (because both players were learning the game).
Fallujah Fury playtest - Dan sticks with the dreaded purple dice
At BottosCon I won as the insurgents. It might have been my superior play. It might have been that I was more experienced at the game. Or it might have been that Dan hadn't learned his lesson at Consimworld Expo and insisted on using the dreaded purple dice.
Besides playing wargames, there were the usual convention activites. I checked out other games in progress. I chatted with guys I know from previous conventions. In addition to Fallujah Fury, there were demos of other games under development. There was a flea market. Consimworld Expo is the standard by which all flea markets are measured and nothing else comes close. But although it used to be quite small, the number of games for sale at BottosCon has been growing. I did pick up a couple, but unusually for me, I sold more games than I bought. That doesn't happen very often. Gee, maybe if I keep going to wargame conventions, some day I won't have any wargames left! Ya think?
