Alessio Cavatore, a former Warhammer 40,000 designer, lead designer on Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and the creator of WW2 wargame Bolt Action, has joined up with US theater company The American Vicarious to create a hybrid wargame slash performance installation themed around the invasion of the American capitol building on January 6 2021. The 20-player tabletop wargame will be live in Brooklyn for one weekend only, and features a colossal 14 foot wide model of the Capitol building.
The model Capitol sits at the centre of a 50 foot square playing area, surrounded by 10,000 hand-painted 28mm protestor figurines. A further 2,000 miniatures representing the Capitol Police will stand at the building’s entrances. To give some sense of scale, the room-filling Warhammer 40k diorama at Warhammer World only contains 6,000 miniatures – though admittedly, Space Marines and Warhammer 40k Titans are a lot bigger than the January 6 protestors.
The game, called Fight For America!, will run on the weekend of January 24-26. Players will be split into Red and Blue teams – the traditional division of forces in military wargames as well as in American politics. Each side will be given character cards that represent real-life witnesses and participants from the actual capitol invasion. A gamemaster, described in the event’s press release as “Uncle Sam on Roller Skates” will brief the two teams on the rules, before setting them to re-stage the conflict.
According to a press statement, “participants and viewers alike are prompted to reflect on the urgency of de-escalating political tensions in an increasingly divided landscape while underscoring how the win-at-all-costs game mentality furthers the extreme polarization in American politics”. Games will last for three to four hours.
Special guests will be present at the event, including designer Alessio Cavatore, and Former Capitol Hill Police Officer Winston Pingeon who was serving at the Capitol during the attack. The game will eventually premiere in London “later this spring”.
It’s an interesting turn for Cavatore, who has an enviable list of wargame design credits to his name but no prior connections to theatre or art installations. His career at Games Workshop included co-designing notable titles like Mordheim and Lord of the Rings, and he took on the lead developer role for all Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k rules in 2006.
Since leaving the firm he has authored notable fantasy wargames including Kings of War, and Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings, among many others.
We spoke to Cavatore about one of his more recent projects last year, when Mantic Games announced its small-scale miniature game Warpath – find out all about what he’s been up to in this article.
Source: Wargamer
