Consimworld Expo 2023

Rainshower approaching - Cedar Breaks National Monument

My annual pilgrimage to Consimworld Expo was during the last week of August this year. It always used to be at the end of June but last year it switched to early August. That worked out well as the Brewers were in town and my son Mickey flew out to join me so we could go to some ball games. This year it was the week before and running over into Labor Day weekend. It seems to have settled down now because the dates for next year are the last week of August again. It doesn't really matter. June, July or August - it's really, really hot in Tempe. It's chosen that way on purpose. Since wargaming is an indoor activity, we're one of the few groups crazy enough to come to the Phoenix area in summer when the rates are lower. It is surprisingly cheap at that time of year. The Tempe Mission Palms, where the con is held, was only $135/night. Not bad, but I did even better. I always stay at a Hampton Inn which is two or three miles away. It's quite nice and this year was only $92/night. It's a good deal when I am staying for a week or more.

Cliffs near Lake Powell after the rains

For the trip down I usually take two days. In past years, when CSWE was in June, I would stop overnight in southern Utah and then do a morning hike in Zion or at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. But it's too hot and too crowded to do that in August. So I just stop overnight in Page, Arizona and leave first thing in the morning. That gets me to Tempe mid afternoon, which has the advantage that I reach my hotel before rush hour traffic starts.

I was surprised when I drove through central Utah that I encountered some rain showers. That's not the weather that I would expect in late August. Fortunately none of them were that bad. I did run into one small problem though. Typically the route that I take goes through Zion National Park. It's a scenic drive and as short as any other route. Since I have done it so many times I don't even think about preparing for the drive anymore. I know the way by heart. But maybe I was a little too cavalier this time. As I was traveling down I15, I thought about my National Parks pass. I usually keep it in the glove box, but all of a sudden I wondered if I had taken it out when we went to Mt. Rainier National Park back in July. I pulled over to check and sure enough, I didn't have it. Unfortunately I had already passed Utah Hwy 20, the last efficient way over the mountains before Zion NP. My only remaining (free) alternative was to take the road that went up to Brian Head ski resort and then over to the next valley. It probably added about half an hour of driving time, but I had plenty of time to get as far as Page. In a way it actually worked out better. I hadn't been this way in years and I got to drive through Cedar Breaks National Monument. I got a pretty view of the colorful cliffs, with rain showers approaching up the valleys from the west.

Dinner at Gus's NY Pizza - eat your heart out Mickey

As an extra benefit, just before I got to Page I got a nice view of the sun shining on the cliffs behind Lake Powell, with a rainbow hanging above them. When I pulled off the road to take a picture, another car stopped and a couple stepped out and walked towards me through the tall grass. The guy said "I guess we have to be really careful to watch for rattlesnakes."

Usually in August, yes, but after the storm the temperature had dropped to about 50 degrees. I told him "I think it's a little cold for snakes to be active."

He looked a little embarassed and said "Oh. I don't actually know anything about it." Apparently not.

The drive the next day was easy but I was lucky. Traffic on I17 going north was stopped dead and backed up for at least five miles between Flagstaff and Phoenix. I did feel sorry for those people but I admit to thinking "better them than me" as I zoomed south with no problems.

Playing Second Fallujah with Ken Nied

I got to my hotel by 2 pm. I texted Ken Nied, a friend that I was meeting for a game that day. He was staying at the hotel where the con was located and he told me that the gaming room wasn't open yet. Apparently there was another meeting in there and the room wouldn't open for us until seven.

That was unusual. As the years have gone by, people keep coming to CSWE earlier and earlier, sometimes even the day before. Alledgedly "early access" is for setup of the big monster games, but most people just go ahead and start playing. That was what we had planned.

Oh well. I consoled myself by going for an early dinner at Gus's New York Style Pizza. It's my favorite pizza place in Tempe. Mickey and I had eaten there the year before and he liked it as well. When my pizza came, I texted him a photo with the message "Having dinner at Gus's in Tempe. Eat your heart out."

Main gaming room - the con is in full swing

We finally got into the main game room that evening. Ken and I started a game of Second Fallujah, the game that I designed which had just been published by Compass Games. I was hoping to play it several times at the con so it would get visibility with the attendees. Ken took the Coalition and I had the Insurgents. We played that evening and finished the next day. Since it was Ken's first play against a live opponent, the Insurgents were able to win a major victory. Although he took most of the city, very few Insurgent units were destroyed, which hurt him in the final score.

Next we played an old classic, Breakout Normandy, after finishing 2FJ. (That's an acronym that Ken came up with for Second Fallujah. Wargamers are like engineers. They're big on acronyms. Personally, I like the sound of it.) I played the Germans in BKN and the dice really were on my side. I ended up winning that game too.

A Most Fearful Sacrifice set up and ready to go

By now things were rolling and half the fun was just wandering through the gaming hall and admiring all the games being played, especially the monsters. Right next to us was a campaign game of Vietnam 1965-1973. It has a reputation for taking a VERY long time to finish. The guys playing had started it online via VASSAL, then set up their game in progress at the convention. They played every day that I was there (a whole week) and were nowhere close to finishing. Their plan was to move it back into VASSAL to complete it. I think they confirmed that the campaign takes a long time to finish.

There were not one but two games of A Most Fearful Sacrifice , a Gettysburg monster. It was just released last year and is already on its second printing. It's certainly a beautiful game when you see it set up. I have it and am hoping to play it sometime soon. The standard monster Gettysburg game, Three Days of Gettysburg, was also being played. It's even bigger and more complex than AMFS. The Battle of Waterloo was represented by La Bataille de Mont St Jean. It's one of the larger games in the La Bataille series, which is probably the most complex Napoleonic grand tactical system in print.

La Bataille de Mont St Jean - big and complex

Usually there are several Operational Combat Series games but this year there were only two, Guderian's Blitzkrieg II and Third Winter. Still, that's a lot of east front combat. The Last Blitzkrieg, the Battalion Combat Series game on the Battle of the Bulge, was being played again this year. I think I have seen it at CSWE every year since it came out in 2016. It wasn't the only Battle of the Bulge monster either. A Time For Trumpets, GMT's battalion level game on the Bulge was there. The designer, Bruno Sinigaglio, was one of the players. Another game designer, Ernie Copley, was leading a group playing his game, The War: Europe 1939-1945. I had done playtesting of some of the short scenarios in that game at the first Consimworld Expo that I attened back in 2010.

Finally, there was the game that everyone took notice of, the monster of all monsters, The Campaign for North Africa. This is the game that made it into an episode of the Big Bang Theory. There were six players and each one had a laptop at their seat with spreadsheets open to help them with all the bookkeeping required by the game. It was certainly impressive but I'm not sure it fits my idea of fun.

Enough counters? - Guderian's Blitzkrieg II

There were also lots of non-monsters to see, everything from old classics to unreleased games that were still under development. It's always fun to chat with people playing a game that you haven't tried yet to get their opinions on it.

I talked to some guys playing Clash of Sovereigns, a strategic level game on the War of the Austrian Succession. It's the same system as Clash of Monarchs but it's supposed to be simplified quite a bit. It would be good if that was true because I tried to play CoM once with two of my friends. They both gave up after reading the rules because they thought it was too complicated. I was hoping that CoS would prove to be more accessible. Unfortunately that isn't the report that I got from the two guys playing it. They said that if Clash of Sovereigns was a simplified version of the system, they wouldn't want anything to do with Clash of Monarchs!

I got conflicting reports on The Deadly Woods: The Battle of the Bulge. It's a single map, regimental level Bulge game designed by Ted Raicer using his Dark Valley system and published by Revolution Games. One group said that it was so bad that they quit after only a few turns and put the game on the flea market table and sold it. A few days later I talked to another group that played it and they said they really liked it. I guess I'll have to try it and find out for myself.

For fans of seventeenth century French politics

Several publishers were previewing games that hadn't been released yet. Legion Wargames had one on the War of the Roses that looked interesting. There was more to it than Richard III from Columbia Games, the only game on the War of the Roses that I have played. If nothing else, it certainly had a beautiful map. I haven't cared much for the most recent releases from Legion but I will probably pick up this one when it comes out.

Revolution Games had another Civil War battle using the Blind Swords system. I don't even remember which battle it was - they tend to do more obscure battles.

The guys from Vuca Simulations had come all the way from Germany and were showing a 1980's NATO/Warsaw Pact game. Yes, another one, but it looked really cool. Their components are top notch so the games always look impressive.

Red Sash Games had a game on French politics in the seventeenth century using the same system as Parcel O'Rogues. My friend Erik, a history professor at BSU, will love that one. I have Parcel O' Rogues but haven't made up my mind about it yet. It has a lot of cool ideas but in my one play of the game it didn't quite seem to work. I've got another game of it scheduled at the upcoming GMT weekend in October so hopefully I can come to some conclusion. I'll either end up getting the new game or selling off the one that I already have.

Buying and selling games is always a big part of CSWE for me, heavy on the buying. The flea market is always a good place to pick up older games at a good price, especially out-of-print games. I always try to set up my game somewhere near the flea market tables so I can keep an eye on them. Every time someone brings in a stack of games I jump up so I can be the first one to check them out. That way I get first shot at any good items. Usually I end up taking a big box of games home that I bought at the flea market. Not this year though. I was good and didn't buy a single game in the flea market. I did sell half a dozen games or so. Some I had played and didn't care for. Others were duplicates of favorite games. In either case, I don't have the shelf space for them anymore so out they went.

Unusual restraint - I didn't buy anything at the flea market

But while I behaved myself at the flea market tables, I did do a lot of damage in the vendor room. It was open every afternoon and I was there every day. I ended up buying six new games so I broke even on space. I spent a lot of time shopping the very first day, picking out the games that I wanted to get. But rather than buy them all at once, I would go to the vendor room every day and buy just one game off my list. That way I spread out the fun of getting new games across the whole week. I got a little shot of dopamine every day instead of a big one just once.

The new games that I bought were:

Second Fallujah - end of first turn against Brian's Insurgents

I spent one day playtesting a new game on the Battle of Shiloh that's being designed by Steve Carey. It uses the Blind Swords system too. I had a chance to play two different scenarios and thought it was fun. I need to get more practice with the system as I am going to do another playtest session of the game at GMT weekend in October. I own several games on several different battles that use that system so I would like to really learn it.

Another day I played one of my old favorites, Colonial Twilight, with Daniel Berger. We hadn't met before and I learned that he was the designer of Caesar's Gallic War, a game that I have played and like quite a bit. He also designed Hands in the Sea, a very hard to find game on the First Punic War. I have it, but haven't played it yet. I played the FLN in Colonial Twilight and got quite a scare in the early game. As the French player he built bases all across the board and drove his score up early. He wasn't able to keep the pressure on though and I got a victory in the fourth propaganda round.

Brian and I play Second Fallujah

I also spent a couple of days playing games with Brian Scott, a friend who lives in the Phoenix area. We played several games of Second Fallujah, switching sides so he could try both factions. I don't think you realize the difficulties of playing a particular side in a game until you have played that side.

We also played two games of Labyrinth: The War on Terror. Since he was just learning we played one game open handed so he could get the hang of it. Volko Ruhnke designs some excellent games but they often have a steep learning curve. It's not that they are overly complex. It's that they can be quite abstract. Multiple indirect steps may be required to achieve your victory goals and they are not always obvious or intuitive. New players often read the rules and then just stare at the board thinking "...but what do I do?". There's a difference between knowing what you can do and what you should do.

Not that I was bragging or anything

Since I was playing Second Fallujah quite a bit of the time, a lot of people stopped by to check it out and to ask questions. I was also surprised at how many guys came by to congratulate me on getting my first game published. I have to admit that it was pretty cool. It was a lot of work but it was worth it.

CSWE runs for nine days, from Friday through the following Saturday. I always arrange a game for the last day and usually I am one of the last to leave. Back in 2019, my friend Dan Carey and I were playing Breakout Normandy and literally were the only two people left. This year Dan couldn't make it - my usual gaming partner on the last day. And since the final weekend was Labor Day weekend, I figured that I would leave a little early. I only booked my hotel for a week and was packed up and ready to go on Friday morning. Usually I don't worry about traffic because I leave on a Saturday or Sunday, but this time it was a weekday. Instead of my usual route on the 202 and I10 through downtown Phoenix, I decided to take the 101 bypass. That worked well in that traffic wasn't bad. Unfortunately a truck kicked up a big rock and put a huge ding in my window. Back in Boise, it cost me $340 to have my windshield replaced. Oh well. That's impossible to predict or prevent.

The storm created a new waterfall in Glen Canyon

Normally at this point in a post I would say "the rest of the trip home was uneventful" but it wasn't. South of Page, Arizona I could see really dark thunderstorms to the north and I was heading right for them. It started to rain and it was a serious downpour. In a 65 mph zone traffic slowed to 40 or less. I almost pulled over and stopped to wait it out but it looked like that would be a long time. By the time I reached Page the rain had slowed from a torrential downpour to just really, really heavy rain. I stopped at McDonald's for lunch and got soaked walking less than fifty feet from my car to the door. By the time I finished lunch, the rain had stopped. Then came the payoff. Crossing the bridge over Glen Canyon Dam, there was a huge waterfall pouring down into the canyon. I parked at the visitor center and walked out onto the bridge to photograph it. I've been over that bridge at least twenty times and there isn't a waterfall there, especially in August. Except that there was one now. I bet it was probably gone in an hour or two. A very unusual and spectacular sight.

After that, the trip home was uneventful. I got home at 3 am.