San Diego Historical Con 2020: Wargamers go online

With in-person conventions falling by the wayside this year because of the global pandemic, a spate of online conventions have been cropping up. Last weekend, the San Diego Historical Games Convention — or SDHistCon for short — made the jump into the virtual convention world, and, as someone who has never been able to go in real life before, I’m so glad they did! 

Run by Harold Buchanan — designer of the COIN game Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection — SDHistCon is a historical board and miniature gaming convention that’s taken place around the Veterans Day weekend. Buchanan said this year’s online convention took about five weeks to plan and it sold out in two weeks, with 170 gamers virtually attending. The in-person convention attracts wargamers from all over (there’s overlap with the Consimworld crowd), and who doesn’t want to spend a few days in sunny San Diego in November? 

Buchanan has been running this convention since 2015. On this year’s experience, “first, we had an absolute blast managing the convention — a testament to the people involved. Second, the outpouring of appreciation from participants is overwhelming. I may have underestimated how much we needed the interaction with other gamers,” he said. 

The entire convention was based out of Discord, which initially greeted you with the #Lobby, #Lounge and a few other general channels. The channels were then organized in alphabetical order by game designers, who then had their own subchannels (both for text and voice) for the games or sessions they were running. It made it easy to hunt down which room you were looking for based on the schedule on Tabletop Events. Inside the schedule, it also listed if a game or demo was going to be carried out via Tabletop Simulator or Vassal, online platforms many use for gaming, and whether you should download it ahead of time. 

“We refused to go forward until we were comfortable the technology would work, we were properly staffed for support and we had the interest from the celebrity designers that have always made this con an unparalleled experience,” Buchanan said.

And that celebrity designers’ list? Impressive and consisting of many, many years of experience.

Friday

The first session I attended that Friday night was the COIN Reunion, a panel discussion with most of the great COIN designers of the GMT game series. The COIN designers present were Volko Ruhnke, Mark Herman, Morgane Gouyon-Rety, Bruce Mansfield and Brian Train. It was so lovely hanging out with them all in one space and learning more about each designer and their design processes, and what it took to get their game published. And here’s a hint: It definitely does not hurt to have Ruhnke look at your design! 

I then popped into photographer Scott Mansfield’s “Photographing Your Games” session, and this was an absolute treat! Mansfield shared his presentation through the Discord stream, along with many tips for lighting and angles, as well as incorporating storytelling and compelling captions with your image on hand. Also, using simple tools such as foam core and flashlights, you can really make your image stand out. This was one highlight of my convention!

After that, I hung out during “After Hours” with Moe & Harold while they caught up with designers Ananda Gupta and Bruce Mansfield, with Scott Mansfield joining in later on during the stream. Again, lots of fun, light-hearted discussion about each designer and their games, and the convention overall — like hanging out with a bunch of folks catching up. 

Saturday

I popped into an afternoon demo for Hollandspiele’s Brave Little Belgium with designers Ryan Heilman and Dave Shaw. Two other players had signed up to play this, but I was observing the game through Vassal and listening in on the discussion on the Discord channel. Heilman was nice enough to navigate through how to find a room in Vassal, which I downloaded for the first time for this event. It’s always great when a designer teaches their game, and since I do own a copy of this, its time to get Brave Little Belgium on table soon.

Later Saturday afternoon, I popped into Andrew Bucholtz’s table, where they were playing Liberty or Death, to say hello and watch a few rounds. I wanted to see how this game looked on Vassal, the online system I’m least familiar with since just downloading it for the first time during the Brave Little Belgium session. The board for Liberty in Vassal just looks so gorgeous!

On Saturday night, I joined Cole Wehrle during his panel discussion for a second edition of John Company. He his brother Drew streamed on Discord and Twitch, and it was neat seeing early iterations of John Company and learning what went behind its creation. I’m so looking forward to the updates to this sandbox-style negotiation game. 

Lastly, I joined a game of Pax Pamir, my top game of 2019, with Dan Bullock and to other gamers. We played on Tabletop Simulator, with discussions on a table channel in Discord. The convention had a bunch of open tables for gamers to congregate in through Discord and get a game going. Our 4P game lasted two hours, and I won by getting the last dominance check, which doubles VPs for the check. Good times! 

Sunday

On Sunday morning, I joined and watched a demo for Bullock’s latest game, 1979: Revolution in Iran. Like his previous game No Motherland Without, 1979 is another interesting and tense card-driven game. This game also adds a card-drafting mechanism to rounds — what an cool twist! Can’t wait until this game is out!

Overall, I had a great time at SD Hist Con. I particularly enjoyed the variety of games and panel discussions — there were so many events to choose from, and I’m bummed I couldn’t make it to more, such as the Wargaming Bootcamp! It’s also inspiring to see how battles or historic eras influenced these designers so much that they would devote a good chunk of their time to creating something for everyone to enjoy.

When asked what his highlight of convention was, Buchanan replied, “The chance to document and share the teaching of great designers like Mark Herman, John Butterfield, Cole Wehrle, David Thompson and Volko Ruhnke.”

But honestly, the real heroes were behind the scenes, folks like Bobby and others, who popped into sessions to make sure things were going swimmingly — technology wise — and were always so friendly when you popped into the #Lobby channel to ask a question. Thanks for everything! And a big thanks to Buchanan who enabled me to attend the weekend’s festivities. “It became personal for many to make the experience excellent,” he said.

And that it was. Whether gaming in person or virtually, the San Diego Historical Games Convention is a fun and inviting place to learn and play wargames.