Target Games specializes in miniature wargames with a fantasy or futuristic bent. Their flagship products are Chronopia and Warzone. This company was kind enough to demo Warzone at the February club meeting, and we hope to bring them back again. Target recently abandoned its former name, Heartbreaker, in favor of its international moniker. Their U.S. operations are located in a suburb of Philadelphia: Clifton Heights, PA.

by Scott Salvatore

DONCON 1999 REVIEW
by Robert L. Sohn

AvalonCon is dead. Long live DonCon. Like a phoenix rising from the remnants of Avalon Hill's acquisition by Hasbro last year, the Avalon Hill (AH) company-sponsored gaming convention has been resurrected this year in an improved incarnation by the former AH-executive, game designer and developer and grognard, Don Greenwood (who can forget that 9-1 American leader counter in Squad Leader?). Although officially named the World Boardgaming Championships (WBC), many people have come to call this DonCon in honor of the founder and driving force behind this tournament focused on gamers.
Annually since 1991, AvalonCon was run (primarily by Don) as a very smooth--but plain vanilla--gaming convention that focused on providing tournaments for AH games exclusively. The only way to play games from other companies was in the relatively small open gaming area. Also, no booths (except AH's, of course), no auctions and nothing else that you might find at Origins, GenCon, etc. (which fortunately meant you didn't have to deal with Magic or CCG players underfoot or crossing paths with "quirky" costumed Gothic or D&D role-players). What you got was four days of intense, "open"-style tournament competition for some of your favorite AH games. In a very professional touch, the tournament winners were provided with trophies, had their pictures posted in The General gaming magazine and repeat-winners were inducted into the AH Gaming Hall-of-Fame.
This year's DonCon was held from July 27th through August 1st in the suburbs of Baltimore at Hunt Valley, Maryland. (Our Heroics editor, Brian, has been politely reminding me to get this article to him since August, but I have missed every deadline he set for me. I don't think he will ask me to contribute ever again.) According to Don, the registered attendance of about 900 was down about 10% from last year (probably due to losing some channels of advertising like The General), but I didn't notice any impact from such a drop-off. Even with "World" in the title of WBC, attendees primarily appeared to be from the East Coast. However, I personally did meet some people from the Mid-West, West Coast, South and even Europe.
In no particular order, the following are some of my general observations about DonCon/WBC:
Hunt Valley Inn: This is my third or fifth time back to this same facility used by AvalonCon and WBC. I have gotten used to the Marriott by now, but I truly can't remember how many times I have been there because they all merge into one big blur of very ugly carpeting (ideal for losing counters). The mini-Pizza Hut and catering service has somewhat improved, but I have been going to the local grocery store more often. The new Outback steakhouse is a great improvement over the hotel's restaurant and local mall food. For what is paid by WBC (free meeting rooms, as long as the hotel block is sold), it's a good deal, and the location probably will not change anytime soon.
Boardgame Players Association: BPA is the new-fangled, non-profit organization set up by Don to provide some financial continuity and institutional-memory for WBC. There is also an elected board that provides guidance for WBC issues. The BPA members also get to vote primarily on which new games will be tournament eligible. Since there is an artificial limit of 100 tournaments, events that do not draw enough entrants are replaced with new games. This provided the opportunity for many great non-AH games to be included this year, e.g., Axis & Allies, Settlers of Cataan, Medici, Euphrates & Tigris, Paths of Glory (sponsoring gaming companies were allowed slots for new releases). I consider this openness to non-AH games to be the great silver lining in the demise of AvalonCon. Another positive result was more women and younger players participating in events due to more family-friendly games than I remember from past cons.
Must Have Games: Usually, there is one game that many people buy and carry around at the con trying to find someone to teach them the game or find opponents. This year at the WBC, it appeared to be GMT's Paths of Glory. GMT did a great job in bringing in the designers for all their latest releases to demonstrate the games on these amazing boards and pieces that were enlarged by about 6- to 10-fold and mounted on Styrofoam backing. You had to see it to believe it: Paths of Glory, Galley, Tigers in the Mist, etc. on boards about 6 x 6 feet. Rio Grande Games also had extensive demos of all their imported games like Ra, Tikal, Horn, etc. Avalanche Press and Decision Games were present, but I did not see any demos. Also, there were several designers with homemade versions of their games that were being play-tested.
Booths: Besides the publishers selling their titles, there were several dealers selling their wares. Nothing spectacular: new and used games, demos and accessories. I guess the WBC needs the money, but the impact was the loss of already limited open-gaming space. During the peak gaming period of 9 AM to 9 PM, it was hard finding any available space. Which reminds me, another great sight was of The Gamers' DAK monster-game being played on mounted boards.
Time: In the old days, you would show up late Wednesday night and play from Thursday to about noon on Sunday. I normally got only about 3-4 hours of sleep per night from playing in tournaments and playing with friends. Since I was somewhat younger, I could still function without much sleep. This year, DonCon started with events on Tuesday night and continued until Sunday. It was brutal. My body just couldn't take it anymore, and I had to pace myself to last the full 5+ days of gaming. I'm getting old.
Trophies: Previously, only winners got the wood. This year the prize schedule went deeper depending on the total number of entrants and gaming time involved. Besides trophies, winners received T-shirts that proclaimed them as Centurions (with reference to the 100 events). The winners and event summaries are to be published soon in a yearbook and maybe on a web-site. This is to continue the tradition of tracking multiple-winners in a Hall-of-Fame format.
Gamemasters: The gamemasters for most of the events were great and made the entire experience really enjoyable.
Now for the part that Brian wanted me to actually write about: a recounting of the personal convention experiences of the members of one EPGS team. As background: the team tournament for WBC allows you to score points for placing in one event for each of the four team members. The number of
points scored depends on final finish ranking and number of entrants for that event. In the old days, the team tournament was rather important because the winners got free hotel rooms for the following year (I think). Now, it's just for braggin' rights. This year, EPGS sent four teams to WBC. The members and events of EPGS Team #1 were: Alex Kondas (Breakout Normandy), Steve Cameron (Medici), Tom List (History of the World), ) and myself (Euphrates & Tigris).
Alex Kondas: Alex didn't provide a summary of how he did in Breakout Normandy so this will be brief. This was a Swiss-format event and Steve thought Alex was doing well when he looked in on the scoreboard during the tournament. However, Steve cautioned that someone may have mis- explained the scoreboard to him. Alex can probably best explain what happened in the tournament, personally.
Steve Cameron: Steve played in one qualifying heat for Medici, and he managed to get into the elimination rounds. Yay, good going Mr. President-For-Life! Now, for the details: Steve apparently did well after the first round of scoring with a reasonable mix of commodities and a balanced 2-2-1 warehouse. In the second round of scoring, he slipped as one player got commodities cheaply and another managed to reach the 10 point bonus level in grains. At this point, Steve was leading in furs and second in grains. Going into the final scoring round, Steve had a reasonable chance of scoring well. Unfortunately, Steve faced some early bad luck as value-5 fur cards came up to his right as single cards. He failed to get it even while bidding greater than face value as the player to his right began to challenge in furs. Steve still managed to keep the lead in furs by snagging a value-3 fur and a cheap value-1 fur to guarantee the 20-point bonus in furs. Here, Steve notes that he didn't want such low value cards since he thought he was out of contention for winning (but did want the fur bonus). For his third and fourth spot in the cargo hold, Steve managed a high-value grain and another commodity, respectively, that would provide him second place in that commodity. It was now down to Steve and another player, each with only one space remaining. There were few decent cards left, but the value-10 gold and some high commodities remained. Lucky for Steve, during his turn he managed to flip the value-10 gold. The other player bid 10 and Steve took it for 11 (good deal). Now with high-value, Steve was figuring on a relatively high finish, but still thought that first-place was out of reach. However, after scoring for cargo value and adding up the other points, Steve gradually realized that he could win. In a surprising finish, he nosed out a win with the top three scoring 95, 94 and 93 respectively. After this impressive finish, our President-For-Life failed to advance any further because he did not show up to the semi-finals in time as he limped to the event about 2 minutes late (c'est la vie). He was delayed because of an arguement about some movie charges while checking-out at the front desk.
Tom List: Tom got to WBC on Tuesday night and started with a fun game of Stock Car Championship (a game using large car models in a simple line). The following day, Tom played in the Monsters Ravage America tournament. Playing Frothomir, Tom was assaulted early and sent to Hollywood (being killed off once). In a long game, Tom managed to hang on as the other monsters kept on exiting the board to relocate. During the Monster Challenge, Frothomir was on relative par with the other monster even with half- strength and having "gone Hollywood." Unfortunately, Konk wiped out Frothomir in the first Challenge Round. Tom still managed to receive an award from the GM declaring him a "Mon-Star" for starring in B-monster movies and coming back into the game. In his team tournament of History of
the World, Tom achieved the lead by end of Epoch II with the Sung and the Assyrian empires. Unfortunately, he became isolated as the Celts, Goths and then the Franks were thrust upon him before he had any choice (this is why I
would recommend History of the World with Bidding-at least you have a choice in empires - RLS). Being confined to Northern Europe, Tom advanced swiftly to the rear in victory points. While he managed to get couple of decent empires in the last two Epochs, the game came to an end too quickly for his planned comeback. With Spain in Epoch VI and England in Epoch VII (and a monster 50-point last round), Tom managed to trim a 20-point deficit between him and the next-to- last player down to only 1 point. Finally, Tom played several demo-games including Ra and Lost Cities (a fast paced archaeological game) from Rio Grande Games. Tom also play- ed a demo-game of Demolition Derby which had the same look and feel as Stock Car Championship and was just as fun. When not otherwise occupied, Tom was at the Decipher booth discussing the upcoming Star Trek and Star Wars CCG sets. With several young gamers, Tom played many games of this fast and fun CCG, especially as a Young Jedi (Tom. Use the force.) He also met up with Kevin Youlles and his wife, former members of EPGS who had moved, and gleaned from them the fine art of the Wrasslin' card game.
Bob Sohn: One of the great things about this convention is that I get to see old gaming friends from the past and from previous conventions. Throughout the con, I managed to play several open games with friends, which were all very fun: Euphrates & Tigris, Victory, Outpost, Settlers of Cataan, Titan the Arena, Ra and Acquire. For tournament events, I entered one heat each of Atlantic Storm and History of the World (with bidding) and didn't go anywhere in either game. The greatest expenditure of my time an effort was in GMing for Titan the Arena. With about 120 total entrants and 40-60 entrants per heat and the finals, this took up a tremendous amount of my gaming time (about 12-15 hours). I have a newfound respect for what GMs
do. Please be nice to them. In my official tournament game of Euphrates & Tigris, I managed to win in two heats and qualified for the semi-finals. Both games were very close with a 7-point-win and a 6-7-tie-break-win. Without going first in both games, I'm not sure I would have won because of the stiff competition. Unfortunately, in the semi-final game, I went totally brain-dead and went after the treasures while others built monuments. I wound up a very distant fourth with 4 points in red with the winner at 7 points. Finally, my most successful tournament was in Air Baron where I placed second, for wood. My qualifying round found success with a modified-Jumbo strategy (explained perhaps in a future article) around the Florida hub, eventually taking out New York for the win. The semi-final was again a quick win with the LAX hub attacking into SFO. The finals was a long game where the LAX hub-player tried for an early win, but was beaten back to settle into a stable game. I had the chance to win the Air Baron final about 4-6 times, but couldn't make the offensive rolls. However, my defensive rolls were holding their own and I eventually had a great defensive inter-locking position of controlling ORD, DTW and DCA with all the foreign spokes (defending usually at +5 or +6). What killed me was that I couldn't put together 2 successful take-over rolls in a row. Finally, the player skulking around in last place and based out of Florida managed to sneak in for the win while nobody was looking.
Bottomline: an overall fun time was had by all. I think we would all encourage everyone to attend WBC next year.

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