Connections Wargaming Conference 2024

By Mitch Reed

Another Connections Wargaming Conference is in the books and this last event was yet another benchmark performance. Held in Carlisle PA, the host Army War College Conflict Studies Laboratory exceeded what they did when they last hosted the event in 2019. We have covered this event over the last few years, and it is the premier event where wargamers from defense, industry, academia and the hobby community gather to talk about how to make wargaming better and what the next generation of wargaming looks like.

The attendees once again hailed from a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities and their attendance led to many great panels and briefs on the state of wargaming. One aspect I like about Connections is the growing number of hobby game designers. This year I got to play with Mike Denson the designer of GMT’s Last Hundred Yards and played the upcoming game Ortona with the designer Non-Breaking and Stephen Rangazas. I even spotted Ryan Heilman from Blue Panther Games stopping by to check out the event.

The tie between the hobby game community and the professional community is an important one. Game design is a talent that not many have and when very successful hobby game designers offer some advice I will always listen.

The focus of Connections are the many wargamers tied to defense related organizations. I usually take this opportunity to tell other organizations what mine is up to and look to make a “connection” on where we can exchange ideas and partner in the future.

This aspect is very important, most of us while representing our individual services are still part of the joint force and we wargame the same problems and when we can add other services to our games, we can give our senior leaders better insight in how the joint force can tackle problems. This year included a full day of classified briefings that many felt should be a staple of the event in the future.

The NDNG team ran the third annual “Dice Breaker” event. The “Dice Breaker” is where we raffle off games donated by many game companies. This year we raffled off over 110 PC, board and miniatures games. Many look forward to this event and I feel it is an important part of Connections. Many professional gamers do not play very many hobby games and that is something that needs to change.

A lot can be learned from playing a wide variety of hobby games and you never know when a game mechanic in a hobby game can help a wargame organization in how to wargame a tough problem in the future. The creator of the Connections Conference, Matt Caffrey even noted that in the open gaming session after the raffle that many of the newly won games were on tables with crowds of players enjoying them.

As the conference wrapped up, I saw a lot of smiles on the 260-plus attendees and looked forward to Connections UK in September and next years event.

Of course what would a trip to Carlisle be without a stop at Gettysburg. They re-opened Little Round-Top after two years of work and the views are better than ever.