This Conflicts of Interest Online post is from SDHistCon COI Online editor Andrew Bucholtz. This is the first in an intended series of post-convention recaps from historical gamers, with this one focusing on Origins 2023, which was held in Columbus, Ohio from June 21-25. Andrew has been playing and teaching historical games for two decades. He can be contacted on Twitter @AndrewBucholtz, or via email at andrew_bucholtz at hotmail.com. 

Prelude: IPCON 2023

I’d long been interested in attending Origins at some point, but two factors combined this year to make the trip up from New Orleans particularly worth it. First, Brant Guillory of The Armchair Dragoons asked me if I’d be interested in working as a GM for the Dragoons’ Wargame HQ. That would not only give me a free badge for the convention, but also present an opportunity to try and spread the good word of historical gaming to both those already interested and those just exploring the genre. Second, I found out that the Incorrigible Party group (awesome RPG live-play podcasters Jon, Emily, Alana, Bill, and Leland) would be hosting a pre-Origins retreat of their own in a giant cabin facility in nearby Hocking Hills, OH, and that that was open for anyone to attend. So, after a 4 a.m. wakeup, drive to the airport, and two flights, I made it to Columbus in the afternoon on Monday, June 19, picked up my rental car, and drove about an hour southeast to the cabin.

The cabin facility here was incredible, featuring multiple giant game rooms, a pool, two hot tubs, a kitchen, plenty of sleeping accommodations, and a deck with a beautiful view of the woods. And the people were even better. The hosts made everyone feel welcome and included, and all of the gamer attendees I encountered were great as well. Over three days, I played 15 board and card games ranging from Flapjacks and Sasquatches to Rocky Road A La Mode to Mind MGMT and Android: Netrunner, plus two distinctive and awesome RPG sessions (both using Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition rules).

We won’t go into too much more detail here given the focus of this site, as the closest I got to a historical game at this convention was the excellent Star Wars: Rebellion (hey, it happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away!), where my Rebellion was crushed under the weight of the Galactic Empire. But IPCON 2023 was a fantastic experience, and a tremendous prelude to Origins proper.

Origins 2023 arrival, Wargame HQ first impressions, a first exhibit hall glance, and some food

Origins opened for setup and badge collection on Wednesday, but I didn’t have anything I had to do there that day, so I stayed at IPCON through Thursday morning. I got up, packed my stuff, and started driving, stopping off at a nice Hocking Hills coffee shop to grab some coffee and breakfast pizza and finish posting Trevor Bender’s My Favourite Card article here.

I made it to Origins proper that afternoon, and noticed that the Greater Columbus Convention Center has some notable historical ties of its own. It’s partly on the site of the Tod Barracks, a Civil War encampment used as a rendezvous point for Union troops headed to new assignments. That encampment was built in two months in 1863, with John Tod the engineer in charge, and could accommodate up to 5,000 soldiers at once.

Today, the convention accommodates rather more than that. After the event, convention organizer The Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) announced an attendance of 16,082. That’s up 38 percent from 2022’s 11,689, but below the 20,642 at the last pre-pandemic Origins in 2019. And there were a whole lot of gamers, gamemasters, exhibitors, media members and more there. After getting my badge (which was a simple and quick process Thursday afternoon, but apparently had faced challenges Wednesday evening), I met up with Brant at the Armchair Dragoons Wargame HQ.

That HQ had an impressive central placement in the main open gaming hall in Hall C, a lot of table space for game demos, and a long list of prominent wargame designers, publishers, and GMs in attendance over the course of the week, including Jason Matthews, David Thompson, Tory Brown, Alex Knight, Kevin Bertram, Tim Densham, Gary Mengle, Mike Colello, Jim Snyder, and more. The Dragoons ran 66 events (67 scheduled, one had no players show up) during Origins, raffled off a ton of great games to event participants, and generally gave the historical gaming community an excellent spotlight at the convention. For more on their overall convention presence, check out Brant’s event report here. They also have convention reports up from writers Walter Kunkle and Patrick Rice.

My Dragoons assignment for the week was to run Harold Buchanan’s American Revolution game Liberty or Death (Volume V in GMT Games’ COIN Series) four times. I felt pretty confident with that, given how often I’ve played and ran LOD (including running a designer face-off on Harold’s giant copy at SD HistCon 2022, running online versions at previous SD HistCons online, and just wrapping up a months-long play-by-email LOD with friends ahead of the convention), but I’d still done some further rules refresh and preparation ahead of the con. So I headed off to check out the main vendor hall, which was massive.

There, I ran into the Motor City Gameworks team (they make excellent Euros) of Matt Riddle, Ben Pinchback, and Adam Hill, and had a great chat with them. I then decamped across the street to Barley’s Brewing Company for a great late lunch, having previously identified the location from a recon mission on an earlier work trip to Columbus. The beer was excellent, as was the food (I had the Italian Beef sandwich that day), and I picked up an Origins pint glass (free with coupon in the Origins coupon book) and a growler of beer for weekend fuel.

Work meetings in Columbus last year gave me advantage on a perception check to find lunch. (Barley’s Brewing Co. Origins pint glass free with coupon. And I appreciate their renaming of their Russian Imperial Stout to a Ukrainian Imperial Stout.) pic.twitter.com/KoD4fhPHjO

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 22, 2023

I then returned to the convention center and the adjacent hotels for some final rules review ahead of my first demo. And that prompted a thought on the Ohio-born presidents some of the meeting rooms are named after:

I understand that these are Ohio-born presidents, but that’s a very funny collection of presidents to name rooms after. (Is Grant, after recent historical reassessment, maybe the best of the lot?) Note: this is Benjamin Harrison, not Tippecanoe. pic.twitter.com/ZeOu8bq6WB

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 22, 2023

I also took one more look at the main vendor hall, focusing on some of the publishers whose lineup includes historical games. Here are shots of the booths for the Dietz Foundation, Decision Games, Enterprise Games (which was selling GMT Games titles), and 25th Century Games (mostly focused on Euros, including a couple of Motor City Gameworks titles, but they did also have lots of Resist! from David Thompson, Trevor Benjamin, and Roger Tankersley.

Liberty or Death, Game 1

Thursday evening saw me running the first of my four games of Liberty or Death. In all of these games, I had a three-hour window, so I went with the short-duration Southern Campaign (1778-1780) scenario. This has a few advantages for demonstration purposes. One is that it’s only three campaigns, so it can potentially be played to conclusion within that timeframe (indeed, two of the four games I ran finished in less than the three hours, one from three full campaigns and one from an instant win on a Winter Quarters victory check).

The game also comes with a two-campaign sprint scenario featuring just two campaigns, but that’s not as ideal for demonstrations in my mind, as it doesn’t include two key and cool features of the game: the opportunity for an instant WQ win, and the Brilliant Stroke cards. But the Southern Campaign scenario gives quite a decent glimpse of the full game experience, providing the opportunity for up to three campaigns. And the largest thing it leaves out (the French decisions on preparing for the war and how and when to play the Treaty of Alliance Brilliant Stroke) comes with some complexity on why you would make certain decisions that isn’t the easiest to introduce to new players. So that’s an acceptable loss from this standpoint.

Thursday night’s game went well. If memory serves, the players here were largely new to not just LOD, but the overall COIN Series. After an introduction and a rules explanation, they got into the swing of it. We made it through two full campaigns (running a little over time slot, but no one had anything else scheduled that night) with no instant win, then conducted a final scoring victory check. The French won by having opposition exceed support (their shared condition with the Patriots), but by being further ahead on their second and sole condition (combined British casualties versus combined Rebellion casualties) than the Patriots were on theirs (Patriot forts +3 versus Indian villages). This would prove to be a theme of the weekend. But the game was a hit, with two of the players saying they had picked up or would pick up copies of the game from Enterprise Games while at the con.

Liberty or Death, Game 2

I returned to Origins Friday morning for my next LOD game. I had a prime big corner table this time, which was excellent. And this one wound up being the smoothest of the four games. I believe all the players in this game had had at least some COIN Series experience, and while only one (again, if memory is correct) had played LOD (and not for years), this group quickly understood the game and its flow well. We played through all three campaigns, and still finished with time to spare. But the French won on another end-game victory check.

Running more Liberty or Death today! pic.twitter.com/XskqbNS3XX

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 23, 2023

Meeting and gaming with cool people

A great part of Origins is how the historical gaming experience can still connect with gaming from other genres. A lot of publishers and players of RPGs, Euros, and other board and card games are there as well, so it’s a great chance to interact with them. For me, one easy connection there was with Don Liles, one of my long-time online opponents in both Euros (on BoardGameArena and Yucata) and wargames (he’s in a long-running COIN play-by-email VASSAL group with me). He was there demoing for Elf Creek Games, and we met up after his shift and went for lunch to the nearby North Market (for the uninitiated, a tremendous collection of food vendors and other shops), grabbing some tacos:

I then came back to the con hall with Don, and we played a couple of games of Sprawlopolis, a fun and fast city-builder. We then met up with Dice Hate Me Games’ Chris Kirkman and played Rear Window, quite a fun Mysterium-adjacent game of getting players to identify information from pictures on cards, but with some good twists based on the famed (and excellent) Alfred Hitchcock movie. The Motor City Games team stopped by to say hi, and Don, Chris, and I then played Thunder Road: Vendetta with Patrick Hillier, which was an excellent time of vehicular carnage:

Also got to play Rear Window with @dkliles and @dicehateme! I did very poorly at my directing. But it was fun. pic.twitter.com/mNk1l7DWmh

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 24, 2023

Further Origins highlights today: lunch (North Market tacos!) and Sprawlopolis with @dkliles, hanging out with @pinchback21 , @mdriddlen, and @adamhillgames , and Thunder Road: Vendetta with @overthehillier, Don, and @dicehateme (see also https://t.co/Umm1ztcGnF). pic.twitter.com/huhe6QZKJW

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 24, 2023

I unfortunately had to run before the conclusion of that game, though, as I was meeting some friends for dinner. At a very promising place.

A mountain of pierogi

When some friends I knew from the sports world proposed getting together at Pierogi Mountain, about a mile from the convention center, I was very in. Who can resist a mountain of pierogi? And this place had pierogi with all sorts of fillings, from classic potato and cheddar through sweet corn and Old Bay through sweet plantain and chorizo through Ethiopian Misir Wot. Plus, house-made kielbasa and solid beer options. High recommendation from this corner:

Thanks to @BanachSpaceProg, @PaleDragonCbus, and @doctorbguy for a great dinner! Pierogi Mountain did indeed have a mountain of delicious pierogi, with all sorts of wild-but-great fillings, and kielbasa. Loved it. https://t.co/GUKn0Jz3Ir pic.twitter.com/ynh9fIFcsB

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 24, 2023

After dinner Friday, I went back to the convention and checked out a bit of the Origins Awards and the open gaming scene. Then I went and got some sleep before Saturday, which had me set to run my final two LOD games.

Liberty or Death, Game 3

The next LOD game Saturday morning went smoothly, with us making it through two campaigns before hitting the time clock. There were lots of battles, particularly in New York, Connecticut/Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, and the French and Patriots did well in those, paving the way for a French victory.

Liberty or Death, Game 4

Brant thoughtfully provided sandwiches for the GM team for lunch Saturday, which were great. So after a short break again visiting North Market (this time just to pick up some hot sauces and other things and hang out with Don again), I was all set to GM my last game of the convention. This one again went pretty well, and featured players with different levels of familiarity with the game and the series. The French pulled off a rare first Winter Quarters win here, thanks largely to blockades that dramatically reduced the support level.

A few overall takeaways for me from these GM sessions for future LOD teaching are to emphasize to the British how important it is not to give the Rebellion side good battle targets and how important it can be to clear blockades, emphasize to the Patriots how much they need to focus on forts and destroying villages, not just battling the British, and emphasize to everyone the potential for early victories with support/opposition divides.

Further gaming

After that last LOD game, I got to play part of the new COIN multipack The British Way with James, who had been one of the players in the LOD game. We played the long version of the Malaya scenario, which was quite interesting and wound up in a tie in the end after final adjustments. There’s lots to explore in The British Way: I’ve only played the Palestine and Malaya scenarios so far, but both have quite a bit going on, and the Cyprus and Kenya scenarios look fascinating as well.

Brant also hosted a livestream with all the GMs around talking about the best things they saw during the week:

Another cool thing going on in the Dragoons HQ was Mike teaching people Space Empires 4X. It may be futuristic rather than historical, but it’s one of my favourite games, so it was neat to see that.

After that, I went over to the Unpub room to try some prototypes. And Ben connected me with Aaron and Austin from Dr. Wictz, who I’d previously met at one of the SDHist Online events. They had two cool prototypes I tried, one focused on train dispatching and one a squad-level World War I recon game. Following that, I met back up with Adam and Ben from Motor City Gameworks, and we got in a play of my well-battered copy of Eggs and Empires (which Ben co-designed), which has been a regular presence in my convention bags for a decade.

And the winner for most loved game of Eggs and Empires in existence goes to @AndrewBucholtz !!! pic.twitter.com/Nlryo69Qfs

— Ben Pinchback (@pinchback21) June 25, 2023

We were then joined by Keith Ferguson and Paul Owen for a bunch of fun games, including On Tour: Paris and New York and Top Pop, and closed down the Origins gaming hall at 1 a.m.

Our awesome supergroup for On Tour: New York And Paris. @adamhillgames, @pinchback21, @HokieStone, and @PaulOwenGames! Keith won. pic.twitter.com/XXUxHHhdPs

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 25, 2023

Sunday: AAR and heading home

Sunday was a much quieter day at Origins, with many people heading out early. The Dragoons’ GMs met for a good discussion of the convention and how to expand historical games’ presence there going forward, and then Brant, Mike and I had a further discussion over food at Barley’s. Which saw me get more pierogi:

Lovely lunch today at Barley’s Brewing Company with Brant from @ADragoons and @MOWEbbmike. And got some more pierogi, so continuing a good trend there. pic.twitter.com/x7emmrqTdT

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 25, 2023

I then went and bought a copy of Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific, plus a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy towel, a mousepad, a dice tray, and a lot of dice. Here’s a shot of the eventual haul from later:

And, before I had to run to the airport, I even stopped off at a nice wine bar (Wine on High) to get some Littoral Commander rules reading in:

Who doesn’t pair wargame rules with a nice rose? (I contain multitudes.) pic.twitter.com/aiQRKNKTUR

— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) June 25, 2023

The trip back to New Orleans was largely uneventful, with only a slight delay, far from bad seeing all the travelling issues around the country lately. And the overall experience of a week in Ohio at IPCON 2023 and Origins 2023 was great. It was particularly awesome to get to meet so many cool people, and to get to introduce historical gaming overall and/or the specifics of Liberty or Death to some new people. I hope to make it back for a future Origins, maybe even next year; it was a well-worth-it event, and there’s lots there for historical gamers.