SDHistCon Second Front 2024, held online on Saturday June, 8, featured a ton of incredible presentations. Here are some of the many events that were held, specifically those that were streamed live on YouTube:

The Courtroom as Battlefield: Conflict Simulations and the Law: Designer Jason Matthews moderated a SDHistCon Second Front 2024 panel on June 8, 2024 on legal game designs, featuring Talia Rosen (designer of First Monday in October), Alex Berry (designer of High Treason), Dan Hundycz (designer of Affliction: Salem 1692), and Samuel Bailey (co-designer of Lawyer Up).

Interview with Brian Train: Designer Brian Train spoke to SDHist’s Andrew Bucholtz on his designs, including entries in GMT’s COIN Series, the District Commander series from Hollandspiele, and Brief Border Wars and Brief Border Wars 2 from Compass Games.

Publisher panel with Tim Densham (Catastrophe Games), Kevin Bertram (Fort Circle Games), and Drew Wehrle (Wehrlegig Games): SDHist’s Dan Bullock spoke to three publishers about their approach to publishing historical games and future designs and development:

We Intend To Move On Your Works discussion: Dr. Stuart Ellis-Gorman and Pierre Vagneur-Jones spoke to SDHist’s Andrew Bucholtz on their podcast project of playing through games covering the American Civil War in chronological order:

GMT Talk Live: GMT Games’ Luke and Gene Billingsley and SDHist’s Mike Smart hosted a live special two-hour edition of the GMT Talk podcast, featuring many GMT designers and developers providing updates on their projects.

Harold Buchanan interviews Brian Train and Dr. Rex Brynen: SD Hist founder Harold Buchanan spoke to designers Brian Train and Dr. Rex Brynen on their We Are Coming, Nineveh design and designing games on modern conflict:

Interview with Volko Ruhnke on series games: Grant Linneberg of Pushing Cardboard interviewed designer Volko Ruhnke on his work on series games, including GMT’s COIN and Levy and Campaign series:

Interview with Gary Mengle (Ardwulf) and Ryan Heilman about the Charles S. Roberts Awards:: SDHist’s Harold Buchanan spoke to Gary and Ryan on their work managing the CSRs over the past few years, and what’s ahead for the awards.

10 Axioms for Combat Commander players: Patrick Pence of Patrick’s Tactics and Tutorials and Kai Jensen spoke about 10 axioms that can help new or experienced Combat Commander players:

La Desbandá 1937: Designing historical role-playing games: Designer Pablo López discussed the creation of his free historical roleplaying game La Desbandá 1937, previously covered in Conflicts of Interest Online here.

LudoStoria panel on games and stories: Riccardo Masini, Fabio “Il Cap Games,” and Annie “Scissorhands” Petronelli (“Il Club della Tovaglia”) of Italian Facebook gaming group LudoStoria discussed stories in games. More on their panel and approach can be found in this COI piece from Riccardo.

Up Front playthrough: The Legendary Tactics team ran and streamed a playthrough of Up Front.

Interview with Dr. Stuart Ellis-Gorman on historical gaming, research, and reviewing: Dr. Gorman spoke to SDHist’s Andrew Bucholtz on his history with gaming, his academic work on medieval crossbows, and his approach to reviewing:

Convention wrap-up show with Ardwulf: Ardwulf discusses the convention with designer Mark Herman and SDHist’s Harold Buchanan and Mike Smart.

Thanks to everyone who attended SDHistCon Second Front 2024! Stay tuned to Conflicts of Interest Online for further articles. We hope to see you at a future convention, whether that’s a physical one like SDHistCon East 2024 (Newport, RI, Aug. 8-11) or SDHistCon Summit 2024 (San Diego, CA, Nov. 8-11), or another digital one (we plan to have two online conventions again next year, with the first coming in the first quarter of the year.)