Back, bruised, from Tempe.

Playtesting Colonial Twilight with Joseph Vanden Borre (who came all the way from Belgium) and Ian Weir. Photo: Harold Buchanan

Okay, I am back and things went well, considering.

The day after we arrived I was starting down the stairs with Lianne on the way to lunch, and I stepped on something that wasn’t there (bright sunlight into dark staircase). I fell and got a bruise+hematoma on my but-tocks (say it Forrest Gump style) that made and makes it hard to sit, sleep, or walk normally. It’s not the ugliest thing ever to happen to my body but the bruise was so large and spectacular I gave it a name.

Apart from that, I got in some really good playtesting of Colonial Twilight, met with Mark Simonitch about the final art, cemented an idea about the ‘bot (which is the last major detail to be completed in the game), and buy-in to the forces adjustment (a slight reduction in the number of Government pieces). Also, Lance McMillan and I took Red Horde 1920 for a spin and he gave me a lump of good ideas to use in it – much improved I think.

Met lots of people I never see except at this convention – though LCOL Barsness from the Army War College was there for the first time too.

Highlight was Daniel Thorpe and the other five or six Canadian attendees organizing a Canada Day Eve event – he laid in 60 bottles of Labatt’s Blue and boxes of poutine from a US Fries place around the corner from the hotel, and group entertainment was provided with a Canadian military history trivia quiz. Team “Dieppe” won the donated prize copies of War Plan Crimson and Scheldt Campaign !