Category: Whatever

08/22/14

A Report From Connections 2014

Guest columnist Brian Train gives us a peek inside the annual premier gathering of professional wargaming practitioners.

Once there was an Air Force Captain named Matt Caffrey who realized that commercial wargame designers had a lot to teach and learn from military and government analysts, planners and other subject matter experts. So in 1993 he organized the first CONNECTIONS conference, for the purpose of bringing these two worlds together to talk, for a few days at least. Now retired, Lieutenant Colonel Caffrey has worked to make this conference happen each and every year since then. The 21st annual CONNECTIONS conference on professional wargaming was held at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, August 4-7, 2014, and I attended.

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Monday, August 4, was a half-day featuring presentations and discussions by individual speakers. Matt Caffrey spoke on the history of wargaming using information from his upcoming book, the engaging Dr. Peter Perla, author of The Art of Wargaming spoke on analytical wargaming, and Dr. Joe Saur and Chris Weuve spoke on the basics and pitfalls of wargame design.

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08/20/14

GenCon 2014 – A Report From The Floor

Cyrano ventures south (from him!) to Indianapolis, to file this report from GenCon

Somewhere, amidst all the other detritus I’ve gathered, I have this angry pin. It was made the year after Those Who Make Gen Con (TM) chose to take historical miniatures gaming and place it in a dark basement (I neither jest nor exaggerate) of the Milwaukee Auditorium. It reads simply: “I found the miniatures games at Gen Con”.

Gen Con left my hometown for the center of Indiana over a decade ago, and historical gaming of all kinds has fared little better since. Cards and clicks may have been replaced by cards, anime, and cosplay, but it still takes a dedicated grog to find something appropriate to his or her tastes.

Role-playing, of course, can be found in abundance
Role-playing, of course, can be found in abundance

And Gen Con this year took real patience. It’s fairly well known that the hotel block reserved by convention organizers was significantly increased this year but still sold out in less than an hour. The on-line “wishlist” event registration system resulted in large queues and, at least anecdotally, gamers not getting into their first, second, or third choices. The exhibit hall was expanded yet again and yet, according to the folks to whom I spoke, sold out in near record time. I’ve long made it my habit to hit the convention hard Wednesday through Friday in the hope of avoiding the worst of the crush of humanity that arrives on Saturday. This year the crowds came on Wednesday night and never seemed to let up.

In all this, though, there were those flying the wargaming colors and I write this to honor them.

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07/23/14

Wargaming History – A Look Into The Past

University of Maryland Professor (and more importantly, wargamer!) Matt Kirschenbaum is on a European odyssey this summer.  While in Switzerland for an academic conference, he made time to swing by a local museum and found an excellent display of wargaming history.

 

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I was recently in Lausanne, Switzerland for a conference and, well, it rained the entire week. Looking around for something to do I noticed the Swiss Games Musuem, Le Musee Suisse du Jeu, was a short train ride away in the nearby town of La Tour de Pielz. Reading further, I discovered the museum was housed in a castle. A games museum in a castle? Let’s go! Upon arrival, I found two unexpected bonuses: first, the weather briefly cleared, *and* there was a special exhibition of WWI games on!

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06/27/14

Origins 2014 – The Photos

Wrapping up the key Origins coverage of Origins 2014, here are several photo collections, covering gameplay, the exhibit hall, the minis room, and the GrogHeads Central Command.

There are some some interviews with people from Origins coming up later, but the coverage of the show itself pretty much wraps up here.  We hope you’ve enjoyed our look at a great game convention and that you can join us next year at the GrogHeads Wargaming Central Command at Origins 3-7 June, in Columbus OH.

Click photos to enlarge.  Photos by either Corinne Mahaffey or Brant Guillory

 

GrogHeads’ Central Command

with the Staff Wargaming team (man, we gotta get a better name for them!) and the organized wargaming events for Circle of Fire, Orange Crush, Sergeants! Miniatures Game, Julius Caesar, Spearpoint 1943, and Test of Mettle.

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