Convention Report – Circle DC 2025

Brant Guillory, 3 April 2025

Circle DC¹ is held each Spring up in (get this!) Washington, DC.  It’s sponsored by Fort Circle Games, and usually held some variety of historic venues.  This year, it was the DC History Center, which started life at the Public Library of Washington DC, over 100 years ago.

The venue

click images to enlarge

The convention had over 100 different events on the official schedule, plus plenty of pickup games and other random unscheduled events.  One thing that distinguishes Circle DC from other game conventions – the non-game events really stick out as remarkable, such as a behind-the-scenes tour of the US Supreme Court, or a Washington Nationals baseball game.

I popped into a couple of different games, and observed a whole lot of others.  Don’t ask for the names of all the games in the gallery here, as there were some that are being designed now that only have working titles, and others for which I never saw the cover.  Somewhere in all of this you’ve got the USMC OWS, Oath, Fields of Fire, Littoral Commander, Congress of Vienna, and Charioteer.  Among the games that are yet to be published you’ve got Forlorn Hope, Spindletop, Painkillers, an expansion for Freedom: The Underground Railroad, Volko’s Race to Rabaul, the upcoming edition of Meltwater from Capstone, and Dan Bullock’s United Fruit.

The game-playing highlight for me was a nifty little card game called Canvas designed by Walter Kunkle.  It involves matching “suits” (capabilities within the DIME paradigm of international power) to help out a fictional African country, in competition with several other great powers, plus the local government, within the context of different regions of the country.  You are vying for the loyalties of different leaders within the country to maximize your own influence, while also cutting deals with each other over specific regions.  It’s got a perfect blend of “screw you” dealmaking, asymmetric capabilities, shaping mechanics, and quick resolution that keeps players on their toes throughout the game.  The worst part about it is . . .   it’s not available to the public (as currently designed) because it was a contract project for a professional audience.  Maybe someday Walter can re-skin it.

Since I wasn’t able to cover the entire convention myself, I asked a bunch of the attendees to pitch in their thoughts, and a photo or seven.

Ryan Heilman, Wharf Rat Games

The Wharf Rats themselves (Ryan Heilmand and Wes Crawford) were both present at Circle DC representing Wharf Rat Games .  Ryan spent most of his time demoing Hermann Luttmann’s push-your-luck WWI trench warfare game, A Forlorn Hope while Wes was busy showing off his newest game, a novel take on the Battle of the Bulge.

Jason Carr, GMT Games

It’s always great to see familiar faces and meet new folks, which is one of the best parts of going to Circle DC. GMT brought the whole crew including Gene, Rachel, Mary, Kai, and Joe Dewhurst all the way from Scotland. GMT designers and developers demoed many of our upcoming games: Baltic Empires, Microverse, Combat Commander: Vietnam, Rebellion: Britannia, and Twilight Struggle: South Asian Monsoon. And while that was fun, it was even better to see folks we haven’t gotten to meet with face to face in a while. Plus, I got to give Kevin Bertram a hard time, which is always worth a flight across the country.

Drew Wehrle, Wherlegig Games

Circle DC is a really special convention. There is nothing better than a weekend of historical gaming in some of the most incredible places in the city. Playing board games in a special collections library or museum exhibition expands the experience beyond the table. Also, we were spoiled by the lovely natural light and kind staff of the DC History Center all weekend too. The community of gamers, designers, and publishers that orbit Fort Circle is wonderful and I look forward to this convention every year.

Ian Brown, Star Wars Junkie and Professional(ish) Wargamer

I’ve been fortunate in being able to run “Star Wars: Rebellion” at Circle DC since the convention’s inception. It’s partly because of an informal arrangement I have with Kevin Bertram, who is the actual owner of the beautiful custom set of planets and hand-painted units that are the definition of “table presence.” If I bring them out each year for Circle DC, I can store them at my house the rest of the year and use them as I desire, a mutually beneficial arrangement for which I received personal thanks from Kevin’s wife this year, since it means fewer game boxes filling up their own home.
But the main reason I love bringing out “Rebellion” is watching the endless variations of player decisions in a game that, at it’s core, is simply a 1v1 game with only 2 types of actions available to each player each turn. Those variations were manifest this year, with the Empire winning on Saturday using an operational concept that ruthlessly focused on spreading reconnaissance assets throughout the galaxy to squeeze the Rebellion. The Empire found the Rebel’s secret baes early on, and while there were still many turns left for the Rebels to relocate, the Empire’s recon severely constrained remaining options for a new base. And as it happened, it only took a couple more turns for the Empire to find the new base, land troops, and grind the Rebellion into dust under the trees of Endor.
On Sunday, the Rebels fared better, stirring up lots of activity to keep the Empire’s attention focused on fighting—including a daring but unsuccessful “thunder run” by a Rebel fleet directly to Coruscant—rather than reconnaissance. When we had to end the game, the Imperial players confessed to having no idea where the Rebel base was, even when I gave them some free guesses as to its possible location to see if their future moves might have born fruit.
The common theme across both games, however, was player collaboration, and it was beautiful to watch. One of the reasons I’m passionate about using games as a teaching tool, especially for military players, is that players can build their plan, weigh options, and then act, and see the consequences of their actions so that it feeds into their next planning step. Despite the fact that “Rebellion” is technically only a 1v1 game, I had teams of players as both Rebels and Empire, and both teams thought deeply about prospective actions, weighing options, and agonizing over whether doing X now might prevent them from doing Y—which could be more impactful—later. As the Empire, do you investigate a bunch of planets on this turn with a random chance of finding the Rebel base, or use your actions to interrogate a captured Rebel leader to glean more targeted intelligence? As the Rebellion, do you protect your very limited military forces as much as possible, or potentially sacrifice a fleet in order to achieve an objective that cuts down the number of turns the Empire has left to find your base?
There’s no right answer, and so players might see a gamble pay off, or find themselves continually frustrated in failing a mission that seems straightforward. “Rebellion” brings the agony of decision-making to the forefront, and each and every year it’s gratifying to watch players devote serious thought to planning, execution, and adaptation. So, to Kevin and the players who came to my table this past weekend—thanks for another chance to introduce this amazing game to new players (and thanks for letting me hang on to your cool planets!).

Rachel Billingsley, GMT Games

I had a great time at CircleDC! It was really nice to meet some of the people I’ve talked to online in person for the first time. This includes people like Brant from Armchair Dragoons (some of you might be familiar with him), the guys from Legendary Tactics, Rodney from Watch it Played, Edward from Heavy Cardboard, and many more.

Between chatting with people and visiting various DC sites, I had time to play two games that happen to be on GMT’s P500 list currently – Rebellion Britannia by Maurice Suckling and Daniel Burt and Tsar by Paul Heller.

Rebellion Britannia was not complicated to learn once we got going but keeping up a good/consistent strategy was challenging and fun when there were elements of luck/randomness like the card draws. Playing Tsar, I was the Pragmatist faction and had a great time scheming to manipulate my standing on the council and the feelings/actions of Tsar Nicholas II while trying to avoid his wrath. I would absolutely play both games again, and overall, I would absolutely attend CircleDC again.

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1. official title: “Circle DC: A Conference on History, Education & Play” and often called “CircleCon” by other folks