As always, Origins was a blast! And it began a day early for me, as I left work early on July 4th and met Steve Smith and the gang for dinner at Barleys. Our usual Wednesday night dinner spot, Thurman's Cafe, was closed for the holiday. Afterwards, I dropped off my stuff for the DBA Tournies at the booth, checked into the hotel, and went back to the con. The Olde Worlde Warriors of Toledo twisted my arm into playing a massive game of Man O' War, which was fun. We finished at midnight, so managed to miss meeting up with the rest of the gang at the Big Bar on Two. We did find out it had raised its prices by about a third and dropped its beer selection to next to nothing, so we resolved to spend way less time there, this year.
Bob
Boggs' Late RomansThursday was my GM day, when I ran the two DBA Tournaments we had scheduled for that day. I had moved the 15mm Double Size event to the morning, as it was running long (cutting into our drinking time!). So, my player pool dropped from 12 last year to 10 this year. I put everybody in one bracket, and Tom Graves ended up winning with his Seleucid army. After a break and some dinner, I hosted the first ever Matched Pairs DBA Tournament. I'd been wanting to run one of these ever since playing in the ones at Siege of Augusta. The format was popular and we had 20 players, which was great! Andy Swingle and Art Hayes were the winners. Afterwards, we went to the MoJo lounge on High Street, following Steve Smith's recommendations. Of course, he was busy doing Origins work, so we waited and waited for him. Eventually, we got tired of his lameness and commenced a multipronged cell phone assault on him (I think about a dozen different folks ended up calling him asking him where he was!).
Jason
Stelzer, Art Hayes in Matched PairsFriday was a play day for me...which is generally a rare thing for Origins, when I do a lot of GMing. I had scheduled a Man O' War session for 10 am (not realizing I'd be playing it Wednesday night). It was a one on one game, and I had a good time. I did some shoping in the Dealer Area afterwards, worked some time at the Miniatures HQ, and then played in Mike Stelzer's 15mm Open DBA Tournament. My Antigonos Gonatos army went 2-2, but I felt like I was "in" every game. It was nice to be a player in a big (26 players!) tourney, for once. That night, we moved the Great Lakes Drinking Club meeting to Barleys, and had a great time, as usual.
Friday Night's 15mm Open TourneySaturday was an odd day at Origins for me. I wrapped up the Charity Raffle I was doing for my brother's best friend. His 6 year old as brain cancer, and I was raffling off one of my nicer DBA armies to help the fund raiser they were doing that evening. Thanks to many, many generous gamers, I ended up raising $855. Don't ever let me say gamers are "tight" again, as their generosity was quite touching. I played in Steve Sattler's Hordes of the Things tourney that evening. My dice, in a couple of games, simply decided there was no way I was going to win. It was frustrating because I felt I put all the right troops in all the right places, and I kept coming up short! Four games with one win is definitely a subpar showing for me in HOTT! We wrapped up Saturday's festivities by joining with the Olde Worlde Warriors at Barleys once more, as they initiated a new member of their club. We ended up closing down two bars with them, then sitting outside their hotel chatting till after 4 am...yikes! What a nice group of people, though!!!
On Sunday, we broke the HQ down, had lunch with Steve and Steve, and called it a convention! Origins is always a blast, and I certainly enjoyed 2007 in not having to spend most of the con GMing...it was nice to be able to play (even if I wasn't very successful, at times!).
No, you're not going crazy...this report was not here when you read the Origins report, above. Schoolwork has kept me behind, but I felt I had to put an entry onto this page for Warparty. As advance payback, I had to work from 4:30 am till 1 pm on the Saturday of Warparty (ensuring I'd have the Sunday of Origins off!). I skated out early, so was able to make it down to Cincinnati about half hour before the start of the Hordes of the Things tournament. I'd missed the DBA Tournament, but everyone said it was a good time and they had a fairly decent turnout.
I sensed a set up when Zeke had my first round matchup against Dave Welch planned in advance, and Dave's video camera was all set up. That, plus he showed NO reaction that he was paired up against me, either. Well, I learned why when Dave pulled out his "Candy Corps" -- an entirely edible army. Dave had been threatening to do a silly HOTT army for months, knowing how it got under my skin. As I've said before, I like my fantasy gritty ala The Lord of the Rings -- not whimsical. So, when Dave deployed his ranks and ranks of gummy bears based on graham crackers, I knew the setup had been planned for a little while.
I'd taken my Splintered Light Miniatures Leonine army to the tourney, and was showing off the walled city of Leon, their freshly built stronghold. Despite our much more serious demeanor, Dave's Candy Corps started out hot against us. My force of Beasts and Riders were being fragmented by Dave's gummy bears, losing two stands, so we pulled back. Leaving crumbs behind, the candy army followed up, and that was when things began to go my Lion's way. One Beast stand developed a serious sweet tooth and ate up three stands of gummies (Warbands) himself! Eventually, the Leonines triumphed after a long, epic struggle.
In our second round we played perennial gentleman and Nashvillle native, Paul Potter. Paul early contracted what I call the "Dennis Frank Disease." It is an affliction where your opponent cannot roll anything but 1's, it seems. The more critical the situation, the more likely a "1" will show up on the dice. I felt I manuevered well against Paul, but what really lost him the battle was his dice rolling. He ws a gracious opponent and pointed out what I'd done right with my army, but it was one of those battles you feel guilty winning.
Next, I played my HOTT nemesis (it appears, now): Mike Stelzer. It was probably my quickest game of HOTT ever. My mounted force was keeping up with my attack wing, led by my warband general, protecting its flank, but not engaging his superior mounted troops. I forgot about his follow up distance one turn, and the general followed up out of their protecting zone of control. Mike's chariot unit (Knights) turned, hit him in the flank and of course, beat me on the die roll. Game over after maybe four turns. Embarrassing.
I ended my HOTT Tourney run by exacting revenge on Jack Shaw's 10mm WW II Russian HOTT army. Jack had beat me at Warband, earlier this year, and felt it had been a crowning moment. He had earned the victory with great tactics, patience, and knowledge of how to play his army, though. This time, they were facing my Leonines, who were more of a manuever army. We were able to outflank the outnumbered Russians (all my stands are normal cost, so it was my 12 elements against his 9 or 10), win our flanking "kill rolls," and end the tourney 3-1.
We closed with a nice dinner, chatting about painting, gaming, and life in general. All in all, Warparty was a good time. I hope to post some pics of it on here, soon...
(Report by Keith Finn)
Here is a short after-action report of the HeroScape game. Lacking a scenario for 5 players, we made one up. Each side had 600 points, but Alex, Ptom and I had 9 potential actions for our side, while Joel and Mike had on 6 (we added 1 action for Mike, since he had 4 squads). The action-inequity was a harsh penalty, in retrospect. The scenario was a basic search and destroy (pickup glyphs and kill the otherside). Lessons learned:
· Examine your opponents card - this is very legal, and encouraged. My Grimak (big lizard) could chomp and eat any adjacent squadie of human height - and he could chomp a Hero on a 20 roll of 16-20 (25% chance). Joel didn't know this, so he moved his invulnerable shooters (agents) too close...Grimak CHOMP!
· Mike choose a high point squad of Scotsman, but they needed a certain type of Hero in his group to be fully functional. They didn't have this guy along, so they got chopped by a bunch of lady elves of half his point value (40 vs 80).
· Orcs are too stupid to activate a Glyph.
· Small and medium squad figures have to RUN from Grimak.
· The Paratroopers should throw grenades ASAP
· Read the abilities CAREFULLY - 2 squads did not fuction al they should - they both belonged to Alex, so maybe the errors cancelled each other out. The Marro squad clone ability is used INSTEAD of attack, All the surviving Marro roll a 20 side die for cloning, and any new Marro can show up, but don't fire or move until next bound. And his Samurai had a nasty ability in close combat we missed. Any shields they roll (5 dice!) to block hits, excess shields not needed to block hits are treated as skull hits on the figure rolling the attack (this is called counter strike), very nasty! Shoot these guys at a distance!
· If you stay on road/cobblestone hexes your full move, add 3 hexes to your move.
· Since you have to stand on a glyph to activate it, no one wants to stand on the glyph in the lava field.
A short recap of the game:
Alex, Pthom, Keith have 200 point armies, of a generally evil disposition. Joel and Mike have 300 point armies, of a generally not so evil disposition. Keith had 1 high point Hero fig (Grimak - 120 points) and 2 40 point Orc squads (3 Archer, 4 HTH). The orcs get to add 1 die to attack and defense when next to Grimak. Alex had 3 squads - Samurai (HTH attack), Marro(ranged), and Gorillanators(ranged). Pthomas had 2 squads, and one hero. Robot snipers (ranged), lady eleves (HTH), and Su-Nok - something(ranged), with a paralyzing stare and a decent attack & defend. Mike had 3 squads and 1 hero Roman soldiers(HTH), Roman archers (ranged), Highlanders(HTH), and a Roman Hero(HTH). Joel had 2 squads and 1 hero, Krav Maga agents(ranged), Agent Carr(ranged), and Paratroopers(ranged)
We setup, and rolled initiative.
Turn 1
Keith moved first, and did something that in retrospect was really clever - an expendable orc jumped on the nearest glyph, which did a Summoning (grab ANY figure and place it adjacent to the glyph) - so Keith took Mike's best fig and dumped it in the middle of Alex's setup troops. This occupied Alex for a LONG time, and it crippled Mike's force, since the Roman Hero added bonuses to the Roman Soldiers and Archers if he was close to them. Then Alex moved his guys to surround the Roman Hero, and Pthomas moved his guys out (snipers for a good firing position, and the lady eleves were doing a flank march on the far left.
Mike (really grousing about the lousy trick I had done) moved his Romans to try to rescue his Roman warlord. His (vastly over-confident) Scotsmen ran out to foil the Lady Elves. His Roman Hero expended the orc that summoned him (and, appearently, the only orc I had that could actually use a glyph). Joel's agents moved forward (in a very tricky manner) while he scouted a drop zone.
Turn 2
Keith moved first again, and Grimak, surrounded by orcs, moves up slowly. Alex's troops again surround the Roman Hero, and shoot and stab him (but not to death!). Phtomas also shoots at the Roman Hero with his snipers, while the rest of his troops wade the stream. Joel's agents move up and start picking off orcs (the orcs shoot back, but the agents are VERY hard to hit) - Mikes Scotsman slaver at the thought of lady elf slaughter, while his Romans march froward to try to save their warlord. Mikes Roman Warlord kills another two figures of Alex.
Turn 3
Paratroopers come in this turn. Pthomas lady elves kill 2 Scotsman, and the other 2 Scotsman have a terrible reality check. After an epic battle, Mikes Roman Hero dies after killing 2 more of Alex's squaddies, and absorbing the fire of 3 squads, and the HTH of a samurai. Pthomas uses Su-Nok - something to paralyze an roman archer, and does, but misses his attack. Grimak moves next to an agent, and CHOMP! (one agent down). Gramak then uses normal attack on Agent#2, and misses, but an orc squaddie gets the agent with lucky swing (2 agents down). Joel moves up Hero Agent Carr to attack Grimak, and puts 2 hits on the big beastie. His paratroopers land on the big hill in the middle, and contremplate tossing grenades (they should, but decide otherwise).
Turn 4
Alex's Gorillinators kill Joel's last agent - Another Scotsman is downed by lady elves (oh, the screeching of the pipes!) , EVERYONE shoots at paratroopers, the Roman Archers fire a volley (surprise) and pincushoin Pthom's Hero to death. Agent Carr wounds Grimak again, and gets CHOMPED! Keith's Orcs jump up and down on sundry non-functional glypths. The Roman Soldiers form a testudo and fend off all assaults. Snipers are sniping, gorillas are gorillanating, marros are cloning, Grimak is CHOMPing, Scotsman are crying, Lady Elves are chorteling, Romans are dying like dogs, orcs are orking about on glyph-mimics ... the game at this point has reached a CRESCENDO!
Turn 5 - the anti-climax
All the paratroopers die, one Scotsman is left, one Roman soldier huddles behind a tree, Gramak has nothing left to CHOMP - its over.
Things to think about:
Mike really got shafted in game - the lack of a human Champion crippled his Scotties, while getting his Roman Hero yanked on turn one really altered his other Roman troops (the Roman archers have a 12 dice attack volley when near the roman hero). Joel moved agents too close to Grimak before finding out about CHOMP.
After the mixed reviews of Tom's Superhero adaption of AK-47/Heroscape, our buddy Dave Zecchini had urged us to give the collectible game of Heroclix a try. He allayed our immediate reservations about a collectible game by assuring us he already owned pretty much everything we'd need for the game, so we wouldn't have to worry about buying the miniatures if we enjoyed it. Zeke crafted a scenario to break us in gently on the multitudes of powers and abilities the superheroes of Heroclix can do, simplifying it as much as possible. Somewhat ironically, he used the Heroscape hex terrain boards to set up a remote, Honduran jungle base (what is it with remote jungle bases in superhero games?). All of our teams were given various missions, with our host, poor Steve Sattler, relegated to playing "the neutrals."
The bad guys -- Allen, Joel and Alex -- bounded onto the board
quickly, rushing towards the base and brushing aside Steve's Honduran army
troops guarding it. Keith, Tom and I as the good guys moved forward as fast
as we could -- needling each other for being slowpokes. Two main clashes
developed between the player teams: Keith's X-Men tore into Allen's Brotherhood
of Evil Mutants, knocking out villian after villian. My own Avengers group
faced off -- fairly ineffectively -- against Joel's equally ineffective
"Lame Bad Guys," as he took to calling them. I did have one moment
of glory, though. My leader, Captain America barrelled into his group's
Controller, all but knocking him out of the fight with one blow. Meanwhile,
Alex's Evil Hand ninja group ducked into the compound building to grab the
meteorite that was everyone's objective. His Dad Tom, though, sent Nick
Fury and his agents of SHIELD into the building and placed an explosive
against the object.
With the blast, we all quickly discovered the scientist working on the meteorite was none other than Bruce Banner, who was transformed into a very pissed off Hulk. The Hulk proceeded to mop up the bad guys who were truly having a bad day. The game took a good 5-6 hours to play, with a cookout dinner break provided by our most excellent host, Steve. It was a good time, and provided us with a fun and interesting way to learn the game that Zeke and Steve spoke so highly of. Rumors abound now of Tom running a Heroclix campaign, with all of us to form teams of heroes or villians. If nothing else, it should give us a chance to see Steve and Zeke (who loves the game) more often...!
A long, but thoroughly enjoyable weekend of gaming, beginning with a Thursday Before Drums evening of revelry, two days of Drums, and a post Drums trip to Cleveland to meet with the NOWS DBA Group at Gamers Haven. Read the report here.
Tom had been working on a variant of the AK-47/Heroscape rules to for the superheroes genre. We convened at his house for the first playtest. Joel, Allen and myself were African factions raiding the neo-Nazi stronghold to capture the results of their genetic engineering. Keith, Tom and his son, Alex, were the neo-Nazis with their superheroes. The best account of our bungled assault was written by Keith, which I quote here:
But here we are, a bunch of megalomanical neo-Nazis, quietly living in the peaceful jungle, doing research on Genetically Modified Food and Organisms - and a bunch of rude Africans(!) burst upon us, to find us, well, not surprised at all! (I guess we were tipped off OR perhaps just typical Tuetonic efficiency! We are deployed in hardpoints, with MGs, mortars, howitzers for god's sake, and GEH (Genetically Enhanced Humaniods) as well as SBA (selectivly bred Aryans). Golly.
But it gets Worse: African Commander CurlyJoe deploys in the woods, and misses that he has walked into the mortar team's (under Actungminen Ptom) practice range. Whoops, time for a morale check! CurlyJoe's other squad deploys where a fireteam (under Grebblerblabber Finn) of normal, maladjusted Nazis in a concrete watchtower kill 2 of them with LMG fire. And in final insult, a band of neo-Nazi black militia (we are DIVERSE Nazis, under Oberspatula Alex) use LMG and RPGs to kill another trooper. A bad first turn for Commander CurlyJoe -- he deploys into a cross-fire from three different commands.
Commander Larry burst onto the scene with two gaggles of militia and a Technical with an HMG. The militia tried to infiltrate thru the woods, and was baffled by the seemingly impenetrable wall of trees. Commander Moe's mechanized colunm advanced slowly, using masking terrian but in constant danger of bogging down. There is some desultory sniping between Commander Moe and Oberspatula Alex, but nothing seriously bad happens here -- yet.
It gets worse: Grebblerblabber Finn sends the GEH-MA (genettically enhanced Humaniod - Martial Artist) aka 'Spankpants', into the woods, where she terrifies the militia into firing RPGs into themselves, causing 3 'own goals' before she gets into gear. But, Commander Larry has his Technical drive out and shoot my SBA squad in the back of the head. I don't think intellect was involved in the selective breeding process. Meanwhile, Oberspatula Alex sends a GEH-EP (energy projector) flying up to blast Commander Moe He does, but Moe is up to the challenge, and his HMG sends the GEH-EP back to the blockhouse, trailing smoke and ichor. I think a Toyota got blasted in the exchange, too. In the meantime, Commander CurlyJoe's remaining men try to take cover hunker down, hide, etc., while recieving fire from three different directions. And, Ptom starts a GEH-BR (brick) tromping towards the woods where a couple of CurlyJoes men had ALREADY had a bad day.
But, it gets worse! Because, Commander Larry gets one of his miltia gaggles to the edge of the woods, and that group of normal, maladjusted Nazis in the watchtower kills 4 (out of 8) of the militia - good shootin Tex! AND, the Technical drives back to support the militia, trying to deal with 'Spankpants', except 'Spankypants' jumps INTO the Technical and throws the machinegunner into the lake, which sparks a tremndous agrument between 'Spanypants' and the crew of the Technical, over who will get shot by the MG, and who gets to do the shooting. In the meantime, Alex trundles his howitzer onto the road, and blasts another of Commander Moe's trucks back to Nagoya. Also, while Cmdr CurlyJoe's remaining men flee the GEH-BR, I think the mortar gets another one, and the african neo-Nazi miltia get another as well.
But, it gets worse. The argument in the Technical is over, the regulars fire at 'Spankpants', and miss, and she throws another machinegunner into the lake. Meanwhile, the driver of the Technical puts his vehicle into a swamp, where it begins to sink. And, a group of about five of Commander Larry's militia get into a tremendous argument over firing their RPG's into their own technical (forgetting that the squads RPG gunners are lying dead at the edge of the woods). Commander Moe has been able to hide his remaining vehicles and men behind a hill, and the chicken GEH-EP doesn't want to try another taste of HMG to get him.
And then 'Spankypants' throws ANOTHER machinegunner into the lake. And, with a cry of "we have suffered the ordeal of the bugalo!," the poor Congolese beat a very hasty retreat.
Although we normally seem to do HOTT in 15mm -- especially at conventions -- Keith is a big fan of the bigger scale, so hosted an evening of 25mm HOTT. Joel brought along his and Allen's 25mm Goblins for one side (ably assisted by "Tom's Winning" Graves), while Allen, Keith and myself rummaged through Keith's extensive catalog of ready made HOTT armies for their opponents. Check out the report and photos here.
I took some pictures of last night's game at Keith's house. As usual, it was a blast. Tom had set up a neat scenario involving a British attack on a Mahdist town. He then wrote up a great report and Joel chipped in with a Rudyard Kipling-esque poem to set the mood. Read the report and see the pictures here.
March
25, 2007: AK-47/Heroscape at Tom's HouseJoel offered up another interesting scenario set in modern Africa using our AK-47/Heroscape skirmish rules. It was meant to be a small game, four players, lasting perhaps two hours or a little more. Each side had only 100 points of troops, roughly 50 per player. That translated into two small squads of 3-7 figures each. Allen and I were the rebels set to ambush the returning Minister of the Interior in his fancy schmancy new car. Tom and Keith were the local police force and the National Security troops, respectively, out to protect him as he drove down a dangerous stretch of road in the Congo.
I'll let Joel take it from here, with his tongue-in-cheek report:
PopoBawa and his sidekick Ruben vs. Local Police/National Security forces
"...My name is Friday Ibo and I carry a badge (....most of the time).
"I am a cop, this is one of the stories from the dirty streets of Tanga where I work. The National office put an alert out and our entire substation found ourselves working a lonely stretch of Lushoto/Tanga Parkway. With orders to stay on point, eight hours of hot dusty work only turned up...a stolen pickup truck. I decided to question Madame Fifi at the cat house. The other police of the station thought the roadside Lushoto Leisure Lounge, across the street look suspicious, so we split up. Time passed slowly, Madame Fifi claimed to know nothing, I vowed to get to the bottom of it. Headquarters called on the radio and told us to look alert, the Chief of Staff for the Dept. of Interiors was returning from an OPEC meeting.
"We moved to the roof and watched the truck escort and his new Roll Royce raise an ample dust cloud. That was when Mhamed spotted men with rifles and movement in the palm grove. I gave orders to open fire, then a burst of AK-47 fire came from the old brick factory across the blacktop, too. It was an ambush, and only PopoBawa would be so stupid (or drugged out) to try it. The parkway was a perfect crossfire hurricane as everyone went to full auto to kill the rebels. The heavy truck escorting the Chief of Staff swayed and bucked from bullets, but didn't slow down. We killed three or four rebels as the National forces sped under our position. The truck stopped next to the palm grove, security men jumped out, fired into the grove, and hastened back to the truck.
"The Rolls Royce had long ago turn off the parkway and
pull in behind the Lushoto Leisure Lounge. That was when I first saw the
red berets of the National Security forces as they slowly made their way
toward the old brick factory. Then the shot up truck crawled back onto the
blacktop and began moving down the road again....until a rebel pickup truck
pulled into a blocking point and more men opened fire. The men in the truck
and the pickup traded fire up until the time the RPG from the left (long
range shot) hit the truck on the extra jerry can on the side. Everyone in
the truck was lost, the few rebels left alive got away in that pickup truck.
It was much later that we learned the Chief of Staff was on the floor of
the truck, along with all the important contracts with ExxonMoble..."
The scenario was a blast, as Tom summed it up the next day on e-mail:
"Thanks to Joel for running and everyone else for playing this scenario. It was a hoot and I recommend it for convention play. It would easily be finished in a 3 hour time slot. Between the incredible good and bad luck that was going on in this game. The out of control truck (driver shot on first round as it sped down the road at 18") the fact that it slowed to a stop without crashing with the HMG gunner still firing at the rebels on both sides of the road, and with the troops hopping out of the back to dispatch one rebel before hopping back in to continue driving down the road to their doom only inches short of escaping off board, I have to say this was one of the most hilarious evenings I have spent in a long time.
Well done PoPo, but we still have the Rolls Royce!" -- Tom Graves
The usual gang going to Cold Wars had swelled to cover 5 hotel rooms, this year -- despite two regulars not attending. Shortly after arriving and unpacking, we all headed down to Diener's buffet and stuffed ourselves. I was able to make my usual two trips to the desert bar -- wohoo! We then adjourned to the Distlefink room for traditional Thursday night board games. Eric, Keith, Allen, Zeke, Steve and myself had a rousing game of History of the World. I came from third place to miss beating Eric by one lousy point! Huge fun, though, and much beer was consumed.
Friday morning, after a late breakfast at Lapps (Allen: "I'd like a Scrapple with a side of Scrapple, please..."), I geared up for my big shopping day in the Delaer Room. I had made my list, checked it more than twice, and promised myself to be disciplined. First stop was Renaissance Ink for this year's supply of magnetic DBA and HOTT bases, then I found some things I needed for my Colonial Italains from Wargames, Inc. (Maxim machine guns and crew and fez-wearing cavalry). I then trooped over to Old Glory and hemmed and hawed over whether to make my "Strandhogg" purchase (see my Projects page for my ruminations). I looked at the figs and decided what the heck?! I bought a pack of 30 Picts and 30 Vikings...so I guess I'll be doing 25mm Dark Age skirmishes after all! I also picked up some paint and then retreated back to the room...congratulating myself on zero impulse purchases.
That is, until Jason walked in and showed me the stuffed full bag of Museum Miniatures he'd picked up from the half price sail at Colonial Connection. 15mm Ancients foot for ten cents apiece! I screamed and ran from the room. Well...of course I didn't do that. But I did put my coat back on (oh...did I mention the ice storm that hit Lancaster on Friday? Where did THAT come from?!) and go with Jason for lunch at Lapps (peanut butter pie...mmmm). Afterwards, he dashed off to a game. I of course went to Colonial Connection and made my impulse purchase of the con -- loading up on 15mm goats, pigs, oxen, mules, slaves, captives, fruit bats (well, maybe not those), all the while eyeing their excellent line of wagons and carts. I held off on them for a whole 24 hours, before scurrying back on Saturday to buy a handful of those, some 15mm gladiators (just two stands for my Early Imperial Romans...I promise!) and a command figure or two. Oh, and on Saturday, I also went back to get my two packs of Splintered Light Miniatures 15mm Hobbits. Gorgeous, gorgeous figs...had to get them, you see, as though I DO already have a 15mm Hobbit army, I never did a Stronghold. And I used up all my Hobbits in the army. So, I NEEDED more. I'm glad to see you understand...
On Friday evening, I played in my friend Steve Verdoliva's "Battle of Prague" Seven Years War game. His 10mm Pendraken figures were beautiful, and the panorama of the battlefield inspiring. It was interesting that he was also using a variant of DBA for his rules. I liked the mechanics he used. It was neat contrasting and comparing them mentally with my own HOTT Lead SYW variant. My buddies Dave, Joe and Mike joined me on the Austrian side as the Prussians gave us a collective noogie. Then it was off to the DBA area for Midnight Madness. I was knocked out in the second round, but Jason held tough all the way to the semifinals. As we were packing up to leave, we heard that the two finalists decided to flip a coin rather than play the game. Jason was furious. I just thought it was weak. You know what you sign up for when you play in Midnight Madness. If you don't have the stamina or drive to start a new game at 2:30 in the morning, then don't enter. As a matter of fact, most of the DBA crowd was united in their booing of "Flipper 1" and "Flipper 2" for the rest of the weekend.
I slept in a bit Saturday, then played in an interesting 1/300 WW II Aerial game (sound familiar?) called "Check Your Six." It went well, the rules being a trifle more complex to explain than I'd like, but once you were taught them, the mechanics were simple and most everyone picked it up quickly. Us Finnish pilots took it on the chin from the much larger Russkie force, but I had a good time. Saturday evening was the DBA Team Cup, which is always a social event. The Great Lakes Area DBA Gamers had entered four teams into it, and though my team finished middle of the field probably, one of our teams played in the finals. We then sat around after it was over, polished off the last of the beers and had a great time chatting, telling stories, razzing each other -- a perfect end to the evening.
On Sunday, I skipped breakfast again (too much pizza the night before) and got ready for the Sunday DBA Theme tournaments. Most of us play in this as a final event before hitting the road around noon. My Malays won the Asia/Steppes theme, wreaking revenge upon Dave Kuijt for his defeat upon them the previous evening. A good way to end the convention on a winning note. Even better, a quick check of my wallet showed I was coming home with a lot more cash than I'd figured. In the end, I had been a disciplined spender. At any price, though, the times at Cold Wars with friends is a bargain to be treasured...!
I had a great time going down to Warband 2007 this year (after missing it in 2006). I played in Eric Luczaj's Wars of Aggression DBA Tournament in the early session, and Dave Zecchini's "Thingband" HOTT Tournament in the afternoon. Ralph Hoegermeyer did an excellent job, again, running Warband for HMGS Great Lakes. It was good to see everyone. Check out the links above to the tournaments, and even (gasp!) see pictures of ME playing...!
Our Sunday night group was shrunk to just three of us, so Joel thought it'd be the perfect time to try out his Ethiopian vs. Somali scenario using our AK-47/Heroscape modern skirmish system. Joel had worked up a map, given us forces, and let Allen and I plot the location of our troops, and the arrivals of reinforcements. Our scattered squads would then march to contact, and the battlefield would be selected from the topographical map Joel provided each of us with. A clever scenario idea, and one that would end up taking two gaming nights to play out.
As the Somali
Islamist militia, I was in an interdiction role against a more mechanized
Ethiopian and Somali Provisional Government force. The way it played out,
we had one small scale battle the first evening, and a much larger one on
the second. It also worked out that the others weren't able to attend either
night, so it was just Joel, Allen and I for both Sunday evenings. In the
first battle, my squad of Somali militia held off the enemy for long enough
for my Regular troops to get in position -- with a recoiless rifle in tow
-- and blast the enemy militia. Allen's reinforcements of Regular troops
were also mauled and retreated. Meanwhile, both our forces were marching
towards the engagement, and at the end of the evening of map moves combined
with battlefield action, Joel felt he had a good scenario generated for
next week.
On the second evening, Allen's Ethiopian backed force got revenge, and decimated my main militia force. My recoiless rifle proved key in chasing off his flanking force, allowing my Islamist militia to control one side of the field. Try as we might, though, we were unable to get enough troops to bear against the more mechanized and heavier armed enemy. Our mortar never found a good firing position, while his heavy machine gun armed vehicles chewed up all who got near them. When it came time to call the evening of fun, we had a couple RPG armed men stalking the enemy vehicles, but the chances of getting a shot off and making it score big -- plus taking the central hill which was the battlefield objective -- didn't seem good. Although Allen wanted to call it a bloody draw, I gave his forces the edge as hitting his vehicles before my RPG gunners were shot down seemed slimmer odds than him simply holding his ground.
A fun scenario, and one that proved the flexibility of the system we've developed.
Chris
& Pat Velas' Napoleonics
Nick Gillispie's Rorke's Drift game, above
Last year, I wasn't able to go. So, this was my first time making the drive east for Jeff Russ' Battle at the Cross Roads gaming convention. Jenny and Keith went along on the ride, and we had clear, sunny skies -- in marked contrast to the weather we had for HOTT Wax! The three of us played in John Loy and Tom Graves' DBA Tournament (click for report). However, there were a number of other interesting games. Nick Gillispie had driven up from Charleston, WV, to present his Rorke's Drift Zulu Wars game; Chris and Pat Velas staged another visually gorgeous Piquet spectacle, this one a Napoleonics game; John Pittenger had players clustered around his 1920s Gangster event; plus more! Unfortunately, the DBA Tournament's time slot ran through most of the other events, so that was all I ended up playing in.
HMGS Great Lakes fronted the money for the event, which is in its second year running. Convention Director and Everyman Jeff Russ is putting lots of effort into Cross Roads as a vehicle to build up the Cambridge gaming community. I haven't heard back from him on how thing are going on this front, but I can say he stages a nice event well worth attending!
So,
this wasn't a gaming night as much as a gaming weekend. It started on Friday
with the regular, twice monthly meeting of the Columbus
Area Boardgaming Society (CABS). Jenny and I attended and met friends
Terry, Dave, Rick, Joe, Jenny's sister Chris and others. At Terry's prompting,
we opened with a game of U.S. Ticket
to Ride. I thought I was doing fairly good, but Jenny whomped us all,
winning handily. Then we pulled out my copy of Tempus,
which I'd picked up at last Buckeye Game Fest. It was only our second time
playing it, but we enjoyed it -- Terry proving that the peaceful, building
cities strategy was a winner. Once again, I thought I was doing okay, but
bungled the last turn badly, dropping me from the running. We closed the
evening with a couple quick games of 10
Days in Europe, then adjourned to BW3's for beers.
The next morning was the first of the regular, scheduled bimonthly meetings at Frankie's Cafe in Grove City, OH. The first time there (back in December), we'd held an impromptu DBA Tournament that was a great success. Folks were interested, so Rich Hartley scheduled bimontly Saturdays there, and this would be the first. Turnout was light -- probably due to the last minute scheduling and the fact that no HMGS Great Lakes issue of The Herald had appeared beforehand to let those not subscribed to the yahoo mailing list know about it. John Scoville playtested his 2mm (yes, that's TWO millimeters) WW II game for us, with Jenny playing the entrenched Germans and myself marching on with two battalions of U.S. infantry with Shermans and tank destroyers attached. John had expected more players, so we both ended up with too many troops to move quickly. With each squad being its own tiny stand, there were LOTS of the little guys to move! Afterward, John and I agreed that perhaps one battalion per player would have been sufficient. John's rules worked fine, and we could tell getting a chance to play this out was helpful for him, and gave him ideas on how to reorganize his charts and such. We ran out of time before we could really hammer it out to a conclusion, but by the end, John's homecast resin U.S. and Germans were dying by the handful.
Meanwhile, Dave Welch and John Loy were practicing their De
Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) Ancients. They got in a few games using the
armies they plan to take to Cold Wars and participate with in the Team Cup
Challenge.
On Sunday evening, the regular Sunday evening gaming crew convened at my house to play some boardgames and watch the Super Bowl. Not that any of us are big fans of the NFL or teams in it, but it's been kind of a tradition for us. I'd checked out Around the World in 80 Days from the CABS library on Friday night to teach the guys. It's a light, fun, simple game -- perfect to play while keeping one eye on the TV. Allen and Joel jumped out to the trailblazer method, burning up days with quick moves from city to city. Tom and I were more careful, and progressed around the work slower, using fewer days. In the end, we tied -- but I won the tiebreaker as my playing piece reached London first.
Next, Joel brought out his copy of Medici, and I blazed out to an early lead. Everyone thought I had it sewed up, but Tom snuck in on the last round of trading and scored big. All the while, he demured, "I have no idea what I'm doing..." Ha! We should have known better. Tom is always a crafty player no matter that game...there's a reason our group has a stock phrase for our game nights: "Tom's winning!"
It took two tries, but Ohio's Winter weather finally cooperated enough for us to get this tournament off. We had 12 players show up at Wexford Hill Hobbies. Zeke did a great job of running the tourney -- which I was fortunate enough to win with my new Centaur army. Read my Battle Report here, and check out Zeke's Official Report and pictures. And if you want more, check out the photos on the GLADBAG site (Great Lakes Area DBA Gamers).