Tag: sekigahara
Consimworld 2019: Wargames in Arizona

Consimworld 2019: Wargames in Arizona

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Do you like wargames, whether COINs or the hex-and-counter variety? Well, you need to come down to Consimworld! This 8-day wargaming convention happens every year in Tempe, Arizona, literally in my very own backyard. I love attending this convention every year it allows me to play some games that normally wouldn’t come out at other conventions, plus I get to hang out with some of the wargaming legends!

Look at all that cardboard, plexiglass and chits! Gaming is officially underway.

Consimworld was June 22-29. Sorry for the delay of this post; it’s been a whirlwind few weeks. Consimworld is located at Tempe Mission Palms, and the location is so convenient. You don’t need a car as the hotel provides a shuttle to the airport, or you can take the light rail to it. The best part too is that there are plenty of food options in walking distance. (I’m giving a lot of other conventions the side-eye here.)

I arrived on Day 1 and learned to play Maria with my buddy Dan flew into town from Milwaukee. This 3P game is so freakin’ awesome!  It’s set during the War of the Austrian Succession. One player is Austria, the second player is France and Bavaria, and the third plays as Prussia and the Pragmatic Army. Each army has their own set of cards, and armies battle each other based on the suit of the location they’re fighting from. You have to manage your card hand, as well as ensuring your troops are still within range from their supply line. I really want to get a copy of this game!

Maria is such a great game! It’s a 3P wargame, where battles are resolved based on the suited cards your hand and which suitted terrain you’re sitting on.

Dan then showed me his game that’s he’s working on. It’s an Age of Sails wargame that plays in about 2-3 hours set during the Battle of Virginia Capes, a crucial naval battle during the American Revolutionary War. One player plays as the French, and the other as the British, and they move and position their boats along a checkered board (in accordance with the wind direction), and they take turns battling each other. You then both secretly decide which order your ships will fire, and you roll dice to fire upon your enemy.

Dan always has the fanciest prototypes! Here are the ships battling each other out at sea.

Hit points are marked on individual boat cards and designated to an area on your boat based on your opponent’s directive, which makes for interesting player decisions of how to allocate damage. If your boat can no longer move, then it’s removed from the game. The French are trying to last 12 rounds — which killing British ships shortens the game — while the British are trying to move up a track by destroying French ships. The game was tense and super fun, and I liked being able to allocate where on my enemy’s boat they should mark the damage. (It’s like a wargame roll-and-write!) I’m crossing my fingers that it gets picked up by a publisher.

Dan created these ship cards that you mark you hit points on with a dry-erase pen. If your ship can no longer move, it’s out of the game.

Next up was Fire in the Lake. The last time I played Fire in the Lake was at last year’s Consimworld. Man, I was so rusty! And the last few times I had played as the NVA (because I like red), but this time, I played as the VC for the first time, and it took me a bit to start terrorizing and spreading out my VC guerrillas. This game lasted way late into the night, and we had to call it. It looked like the Americans were winning.

Fire in the Lake has the most vibrant board and is one of my favorite COIN games.

Day 2 began early by cracking open Gandhi. Fire in the Lake ended so late on Saturday night that it was a quick turnaround for a 9 a.m. game of Gandhi, one I had briefly looked over the rulebook, but luckily another player read the rulebook as well, and we all decided it was going to be a learning game that morning.

Gandhi is the latest COIN game from GMT Games.

I had been excited to see how a nonviolent factions play out for a COIN, and was equally surprised to see that two of the factions do not have any currency. The British Raj’s actions are tied to the Restraint track, and the Revolutionaries’ actions costs resources. I played as the British and particularly liked being able to affect how much my actions cost. I plan to write more about this after a few more games under my belt. All I can say is this: Gandhi is a great COIN and seems more accessible than the other ones. Here’s me playing Gandhi:

I then played the first of many games of Pax Pamir (second edition) this convention. Oh. My. Goodness. Love at first play! I’ve played Pax Porfiriana and Pax Renaissance before, and while I enjoyed both of them a lot, the game ALWAYS seemed to take so much longer to explain than the actual game itself. And especially with Pax Porfiriana, it was difficult to visualize and keep track of who is dominating what.

Look at these amazing components! Pax Pamir is really well done.

That’s not the case with this second edition of Pax Pamir. The added map and individual player dials make this game much, much easier to see which faction is dominating. The components are gorgeous, and each game I’ve played of this has been different. There are just so many cards, and I ended up playing this game two more times during the course of the convention. I played it as a 3P and as a 5P. I think Pax Pamir plays best at 4P, even though I did end up winning my 5P game.

I absolutely cannot get enough of Pax Pamir! I wish I owned a copy of this game.

Saturday night ended with another awesome game of Battlestar Galactica. This is the second year in a row I’ve played with Dan, Mike, Harold and Jordan. We even got Kurt into the mix! These guys are always so much fun! I became a cylon sympathizer during sleeper, and despite two cylons and me as the sympathizer, we still lost to those awful humans. The worst!

These guys are so much fun! I look forward to avenging my loss next year!

I took a day off on Day 3 since it was a Monday. I played a quick game of Sekigahara, and by quick it was about 2 hours. The game continued through all seven weeks and came down to victory points. I love this game so much!

My favorite part of Sekigahara is the hidden info of which armies are going toward you.

I then played my other two games of Pax Pamir at the various player counts. I then got a chance to play Rococo. It’s a shame that this game isn’t more widely available! It’s a deckbuilder about making dresses. Players collect materials at various locations on the board, and ultimately, it’s an area control game in regards to where you display your dresses and coats. The game plays out over seven rounds. 

Making dresses in Rococo can be cut-throat!

In the middle of Rococo was the welcome ceremony. John Kranz took time to welcome everyone and give expo updates. Altogether, over 350 people had signed up, with more than 60 newcomers. Very cool! He also highlighted those who came from afar — some as far as the Philippines and Bahrain! That’s super neat to see people travel for all the wargames!

Everyone’s all gathered! John Kranz likes to give updates about the convention, and there’s a giant raffle at the end of this meeting as well!

One slide featured a nice tribute to my buddy Tom Wells. I miss gaming with him; there was never a dull moment gaming with him.

I finished Monday night with another tense game of Maria! My buddy Mark and I did better this time, but Dan still beat us. (It’s one of his favorite games, after all.)

Dan and Mark are too much fun! Dan and I are heading to SD Historical Con in November. I’m looking forward to that!

The rest of the week I worked during the day but I stopped by afterwards to get in a game or two. On Tuesday night, I got a chance to play a prototype of Barrage. What a clever eurogame with very specific spatial and timing quality to it! You are all companies trying to harness the power of water to get electricity. You have to build dams, conductors and power factories on this hill so that you can capture that energy as water flows down.

There’s an intricate network of how things need to be powered, and when you spend resources to build your buildings, they’re locked up on this wheel on your personal board, and they can only become available to you again when you build more buildings, which you probably won’t be able to do since your resources are tied up in this wheel! What a dilemma! You can, however, spend actions on this main board to move that wheel along. The main board is where the majority of the worker placement happens.

Stuff rolls downhill! Here are are trying to harness the power of water, and hoping someone’s dam doesn’t get in your damn way.

Each player has a team of engineers, and you can allocate however many you want to an action spot when it’s your turn. Players take turns placing their engineers until they’re have no more workers and must pass. So you need to manage your pool of engineers with the actions you want to do, while also trying to complete objectives during each round. Lastly, the last piece of the puzzle is that water isn’t always available each round. It will flow according to the cards drawn, and if someone else’s dam blocks water flow to your buildings, well, that’s a damn shame.

On Wednesday, I fangirled sooooooo hard. I got a chance to sit in as the awesome Mark Herman taught one of his games, Pericles: The Peloponnesian War to John Butterfield, Nick Karp and Bruce. They all go way back to Victory Games, and it was like being among the wargaming legends.

Here’s me being chill, even though I’m fangirling so hard inside.

Mark taught one round of Pericles, and I jumped into a second round, (holding my own I might add!) and pushing the Demogogues forward. It was great hanging out with them and hearing about old industry stories.  Also, achievement unlocked below: my dinosaur dress got into a C3i report!

The last night I attended Consimworld, I played Root twice, first with Kurt and Jordan, and then we picked up a fourth player for our second game. Kurt LOVES, LOVES Root (and if you want to be highly entertained, next time you see Kurt at a convention, ask him about COIN games.) 

Our first game of Root that evening. I won as the cats!

And just like that, an entire week of wargaming ended. I always have such a great time at Consimworld, and I always feel included among all the gamers here. That said, I’d love to see more younger folks here, especially more women and people of color. If you’re interested in these types of games, please let me know and maybe we can schedule something special for next year. I’d love a chance to teach some of these heavy games! Save the date: next year’s convention will be June 6-13, 2020. You’ll find me in the back with some giant tweezers pushing some cardboard chits.

Thanks for having me, Consimworld! Can’t wait until next year’s con!
Sekigahara: Marching warriors across Japan

Sekigahara: Marching warriors across Japan

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Sekigahara has been on my wishlist for a while, and I couldn’t have been more ecstatic when I saw this at game for $30 at a recent Arizona Game Fair flea market — unstickered!

Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan is a 2-player game published by GMT Games in 2011. According to the description, “the battle of Sekigahara, fought in 1600 at a crossroads in Japan, unified that nation under the Tokugawa family for more than 250 years. Sekigahara allows you to re-contest that war as Ishida Mitsunari, defender of a child heir, or Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s most powerful daimyo (feudal lord).”

Sekigaha plays out for seven weeks, with each week consisting two movement and battle phases for each player. The game comes with 119 wooden pieces, which you’ll need to sticker yourself. There is a lot of stickering. But it isn’t too bad as the wooden pieces are substantial and it’s not too hard to align the stickers with the edge. Mitsunari’s forces are yellow, while Ieyasu’s forces are black.

Stickering took some time, and I thought I had lost one sticker but I accidentally placed it on a second side of one block. This is what happens when you’re up late stickering. Friends don’t let friends sticker after midnight.

Sekigahara also comes with 110 cards as each player has their own deck to draw from. Lastly, there’s a mounted map, rulebook and a handy-dancy player aid for each person. The game isn’t difficult to learn compared to other wargames, as the rulebook is well written.

The game lasts about 3 hours, but the time goes by quickly because there’s little downtime, as there is constant movement on the board, and you’re always strategizing your next move.

In a nutshell, Sekigara is a card-driven wargame that involves blocks on the board, which represent a unit that warriors that correspond to a daimyo  You are marching your forces across Japan to defeat your opponent’s leader, and using cards in your hands to deploy warriors and inflict war casualties. The cards are suited, and their symbol must match the daimyo warrior block you’re deploying.

This is the setup for Sekigahara. Starting blocks have a symbol for their starting position on the board, and a few random blocks drawn from a bag are added to various locations.

The coolest thing about this game is the hidden information. Your warrior blocks are facing toward you; and your opponent’s blocks toward them. You can see a giant formation of blocks marching toward you, but you don’t always know how strong the warriors are who are coming down to attack you and which leaders accompany them.

At the start of each week, players must play a card to bid for turn order. If your card has the highest number, you get to decide if you want to go first or second in each phase. Turn order stays the same throughout the week.

When it’s your turn, if you play zero cards, you can discard any number of cards and redraw from your deck, or you can move exactly one stack. If you discard one card, you can move three stacks. If you discard two cards, you can move all your stacks. Additionally, you can muster blocks from your recruitment box in place of a stack movement. The recruitment box is filled with a specific number of blocks at the start of each round, and they just sit there until they’re recruited.

Decisions, decisions! The cards in your hand are used for movement and battle.

Cards also come into play during the movement phase. Each stack has a base movement of one space. Highways; leadership from a leader, castle or capital; and a force march from discarding a card will give you movement bonuses, while the size of your stack will negatively affect your movement total. The larger the army, the slower they’ll move. And to get a leader bonus, you’ll actually have to show a leader from your stack, which can make for some revealing moments. When you enter a space with your opponent’s blocks, the movement stops. If you have four times as many forces than they do, their block is overrun and it gets removed from the game. Otherwise, battle occurs.

When players battle, the attacker deploys the first block by playing a card with the matching symbol. Initiative is calculated based on the number of symbols, plus bonuses for matching special attack symbols as well as matching the symbols from previous blocks deployed in this battle. The losing side holds initiative then and keeps playing cards to deploy blocks until they take the initiative lead. There are also Loyalty cards that can be played as an interrupt, and if the recipient doesn’t show a card with the matching symbol, the impact for that block gets calculated for the other side.

The battle continues until one side declines further deployments. The impact is then calculated. For every 7 points worth of impact, the opponent removes one block from the game. And the losing side also removes one block. For every two blocks removed, that side gains 1 card. Both players then redraw for every card used in battle.

These are some cards I used in a battle. The one with the double symbol allows you to deploy two blocks, with impact resolved for each block individually.

When the two phases are done, the week ends and the reinforcement phase begins. Players discard half of their cards, draw five cards and draws blocks from their bag to add to the recruitment area. There are also various locations on the map, that when controlled, either give you more cards at the start of the week or more blocks to add to your recruitment area.

The game ends immediately if the Tokogawa block is destroyed, or the Ishida block or Toyotomi disk is destroyed. If neither of these things happen after seven weeks, VPs are calculated — 2 VPs per castle and 1 VP per resource location to whoever controls it, and the person with the most points wins the game.

Ishida’s forces are surrounded! This battle might not have ended well for the Ishida side.

Sekigahara is so much fun to play! The combat is very in your face, and you have to make tough decisions about how to spend your cards. You need a lot of cards to move around the board quickly and to be successful in battle, but you also need the right type of cards to be able to deploy your warrior blocks. There were some moments when one of my blocks just got annihilated because I didn’t have any cards that corresponded with that stack. I’ve learned that it’s a good idea to keep your armies varied, so that you can be prepared for anything. But you’re at the mercy of which cards are drawn, and which blocks enter the game. And man, you can blow through your hand so quickly when discarding to move stacks around.

If you’re looking for a great introduction to wargames — and have a few hours to spend — Sekigara is just so much fun! The game is visually appealing, and the blocks and use of suited cards make the game accessible to many types of gamers. The game mechanics are simple and streamlined, but there’s so much strategy and history in the game. I immensely enjoyed the hidden information aspect of it, and I can’t wait to get this on table again! Hopefully at next week’s Consimworld — let me know if you’re going to be there!

Sekigahara is just delightful. Have you played this?