SDHist Con 2023: Molly House, Shores of Tripoli, Fire and Stone: Siege of Vienna, Ahoy

On Nov. 2, 2023, I made the trek from Phoenix to San Diego for SDHist Con, an annual historical board game convention that was founded by game designer Harold Buchanan. This year it was held on Nov. 3-5, 2023. It’s my second time attending the convention in person, and after last year’s convention, I knew this one was a must-attend-every-year convention for me. This year, about 150 tickets were handed out, a combination of gamers, designers and publishers alike. It’s the convention to playtest and pitch your game, meet with wargaming companies, and, just overall, enjoy the sea, sun and seafood that San Diego has to offer! 

I arrived late Thursday afternoon, checked into my airbnb (though there are plenty of motels and hotels near the convention location), and met up with Dan Bullock before heading to Eppig Brewing for a pre-convention meet and greet. SDHist Con provided pizza and salad and reserved space for convention goers at an outdoor beer garden overlooking a San Diego marina. I tried all the sour beers Eppig had and they were all quite tasty. 

I met some cool people for the first time and I really enjoyed the evening. More conventions should schedule a meet and greet beforehand! It’s a great time to meet new people in a low-key social setting before diving head-first into nonstop gaming the following morning. 

Friday

On Friday morning, SDHist Con began! This year’s convention was held at the S.E.S. Portuguese Hall of San Diego nestled in the Point Loma Marina area of San Diego. There are lots of restaurants, coffee shops and breweries within walking distance, including Point Loma Seafoods, a seafood counter place where you can buy food and eat at picnic tables overlooking the marina. The hall was such a great location, and it’s quite near the airport, so you don’t really need a car to get around, unless you’re exploring more of San Diego. 

First up, I ran into Alex Knight, designer of Land and Freedom: The Spanish Revolution and Civil War. I really enjoyed his game when I played at Consimworld this past fall and was excited to meet him in person and ask him to sign my game. It’s a great historical game that plays at 3P, fighting against a common enemy while trying to balance your faction’s needs.

My first game of the con was Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games, a card-driven historical wargame on the First Barbary War. It’s a 2-player game (the Tripolitania and its allies, vs. American and its allies) and I played as the side of the Americans. Each side had their own deck, and the game takes place over 6 years,starting in 1801, with four seasons (a card play each season) in each year. Army. If neither player has achieved victory by the end of 1806, the game ends in a draw. It’s a neat card-driven game that plays in about an hour. Those who played Shorts of Tripoli (there were four games simultaneously going) were entered into a raffle, and I won a copy of the game! 

I stopped by to see Dan doing a demo of his game Blood and Treasure. This is such a great game, and I really hope a publisher picks it up soon! I’ve played it twice before and think it’s such a unique game.

I then signed up for a teach of Matthias Cramer’s The Promised Land, a game that covers the Israelian-Arabian conflict between 1960 (end of War of Independence) and 1978 (Camp David). It’s a card-driven mostly political game, but players can go to war while also negotiating the peace treaty as well. The game has a lot of tracks, and in addition to playing a card from your hand, some dice rolls can determine which actions you can take.

I learned the game with all these cool people. We played through one war to get the gist of the game before our scheduled time was up. So many games, so little time!

Next up was Molly House. This was the game I was most excited to check out at this convention! Molly House, which just wrapped up its BackerKit campaign, is the latest from Wehrlegig Games. Players take the roles of the gender-defying mollies of early 18th century London. Molly House has masquerade balls, back alleys for cruising and moments of joy within the queer community. But, there could be a constable among you that’s threatening to ruin all the fun! 

I love the inclusive and unique theme, and I know when the final product is released, the components will be top-notch. This demo included fun fancy pieces, and I immediately backed the game after playing it at the con.

I then attended a panel on creating written content, which was hosted by Andrew Bucholtz, and featured Dan Thurot, Candice Harris of Board Game Geek, and The Players Aid. SDHist Con has an entire schedule of panels and discussions in addition to scheduled gaming in the main hall. 

It was really neat listening to all the panelists discuss their backgrounds and how they got into creating board-game content. I always love listening to fellow writers to get some inspiration! Plus, I got to meet the Players Aid guys for the first time!

After dinner, I played an unnamed 2-player card prototype from Joe Schmidt. It’s a quick area control that is played out over three rounds, and the map itself is just four different cards, with the player first to 7 points wins the game. Meeples are either pawns (when they’re lying down) or knights (when they’re standing up) Your card has an initiative number, one of two actions you can do, and where the action can take place. It was really easy to pick up and doesn’t require a lot of space on table (or in your bag!), while still being tense and enjoyable.

I then played Lost Legacy, a spin-off of Love Letter, where you draw and play a card, with the hopes of finding the “Lost Legacy” card. I had so much fun playing with these cool folks that I actually forgot to take a photo of the game itself!

I then taught a game of My Favourite Things, a trick-taking icebreaker card game that’s one of my absolute favorites! You never really know how this game will play out when playing with people you don’t know too well, considering a lot of these people I met for the first time in real life at this convention. But it was a hit! My demo copy of the game was sent to me from the publisher, so this may or may not be the final look of the game.

Players pick a category and ask their neighbor to write down their top 5 favorite things in that category, plus one they hate, into these card sleeves, at the end covering up their number ranking when you slide the card back into the sleeve. You then play these cards as a trick-taking game, guessing the best way you can about which items are ranked more favorably than others. We got some absurd categories and even more absurd things. It was a riot! It was such a fun way to end the first day of SDHist Con. 

Saturday

I began Saturday by teaching Lacrimosa. I always bring a few games with me to SDHist Con in case anyone would be interested in playing a non-wargame. I taught a 3P game and everyone seemed to enjoy it! The theme is unique – we did have a few “Weekend at Bernie’s” jokes about Mozart traveling across Germany – and the components and dual-layer player boards are just exquisite. 

I then had lunch at Point Loma Seafoods. SDHist Con actually had this place on the convention schedule, which provided an easy option for gamers to have lunch, plus a good reminder to get some food to fuel your day. I had some fish and chips. I was not disappointed! 

I then played Fire and Stone: Siege of Vienna 1683, which places you in one of the most dramatic sieges in history. Each player has their own set of cards, and you’ll be playing them to attack, dig tunnels and advance your forces, while your opponent is doing exactly that, or you can use the event written on the card. I enjoyed taking my Ottomans toward the Habsburgs in the Vienna capital. 

Fire and Stone plays in about 60-90 minutes, and with its familiar card-driven mechanism and large hex-based map (instead of a daunting map of teeny-tiny ones), it’s one that makes it perfect as a finalist for the 2023 Summit Awards.

The Summit Award aims to recognize a historical board game published in the preceding year that most broadened the hobby through the ease of teaching and/or play, uniqueness of topic, or novel approach. I’ve played all four of the Summit Awards nominees, and they’re all different yet fantastic games. I’ve reviews Stonewall Uprising and Votes for Women on The Five By, and John Company I had the pleasure of playing at last year’s SDHist Con with Cole and Drew Werhle! The diversity of these games’ themes and accessibility of gameplay are what I would love to see more of in the historical gaming corner of our hobby. 

I then attended a seminar from Tory Brown, the designer of Votes for Women! I seriously was fangirling the entire time. I’ve taught Votes for Women countless times, to experienced gamers and newer gamers alike. The game has appealed to my girlfriends simply because of the topic, and with that, they jumped into a wargame they wouldn’t otherwise and learned what a CDG is. Tory’s seminar also reiterated how much time and commitment it takes to design a game. She said she started in earnest in April 2020, in the midst of the early pandemic, and worked on the game full time, which was finally released earlier this year. I don’t know how all you designers do it! Props to you all and your time-management skills. 

I then stopped by to listen to the start of a demo for Tyranny of Blood: India’s Caste System Under British Colonialism, 1750-1947 by Akar Bharadvaj. The game is the winner of the 2021 Zenobia Award, which is both a competition and a mentoring program in which game designers from underrepresented groups develop and submit historical tabletop game prototypes. I didn’t get a chance to play Tyranny of Blood but hopefully next time!

I then played one of the new factions in Ahoy by Leder Games. Like with all Leder Games, this game just looks so darling, and I have fun playing the Blackfish Brigade. Ahoy is a lightly asymmetrical game where two to four players take the roles of swashbucklers and soldiers seeking fame on the high seas. The latest Backerkit campaign introduces four new factions, one of which is the Blackfish Brigade whales.

In Ahoy, you roll dice at the start of the round and use those dice to fill in sections of your board to take actions. The actions may have certain dice requirements, which will affect which actions you can do on your turn. I did a lot of moving my whale pod around and dropping off fins in order to score area-control points at the end of the round. 

A big group of us went to get Asian dumplings for dinner down the street at Meet Dumpling. The sweet corn and chicken dumplings hit the spot for me. Look at this fun group! 

We then walked over to Craft Creamery for some ice cream, and I seriously squealed when the ice cream of my childhood was being sold at this shop. I spent a lot of time at Fosselman’s Ice Cream after school and totally had to order ube ice cream. 

When we got back to the hall, the giant Liberty or Death board game was about to start. Look at the costumes! 

I then ran my largest  game of Fit to Print yet at 6P. This game is so, so fun! There’s nothing like being on deadline! Upkeep at 6P was a little daunting but everyone was having a good time analyzing their front page and what they could do better in the next round that nobody seemed to mind the time I spent adding up the scores. 

Sunday

On Sunday morning, I attended the SDHist Con board meeting, as the public was invited! They talked about the state of the convention, what events are planned for next year, and just overall how they can increase diversity and accessibility at their events. I love hearing discussion on this because it’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. There have been countless times I’ve attended events where I’m the only person who looks like me and have even been asked if I’m waiting for my husband or boyfriend. I was not, thank you very much, I was there to play some games. 

SDHIst Con is a convention where I’ve never felt out of place and have always been welcomed. I love schmoozing with all the game designers, listening to their design process, learning new games, and understanding the ins and outs of publishing without our hobby. There’s so much helpful knowledge and feedback being passed around at this intimate, laid-back and friendly convention. And bonus, you also learn a lot of about historical battles and moments in history that people are very passionate about!

The last game of the convention was Heat: Pedal to the Metal, which I was happy to play alongside Harold, fearless leader of SDHist Con! I’ve been playing Heat a lot on Board Game Arena lately, so I was familiar with the game, but it can’t compete with zooming your little plastic car around a hairpin turn and pressing luck by not spinning out.  

And with that, three days of gaming in San Diego came to a close and I began my drive back to Phoenix, which takes about 5.5 hours. Not too bad! I don’t have the dates yet for next year’s convention, but I’ll definitely be there again! I’d love to spend some extra time in San Diego, too, next year. 

Lastly, here are the games I acquired during the convention. I purchased Dan’s The Gods Will Have Blood, a solo game set in France in April 1793 about presiding over trials and influencing the legitimacy of the court, a copy of Shores of Tripoli that I randomly won for playing, and Shikoku 1889. Thanks, Grand Trunk Games for giving me a copy! I can’t wait to get it on table! 

Thanks for reading, friends! Let me know if any of these games look interesting to you. And if you made it all the way down here, here’s a cute photo I took of a driver and his canine companion in San Diego. It’s a sunwoof!