This is a long one --- covering lots of bases here ...
I arrived at the con on Friday around 10am after getting a large breakfast. We immediately checked in and moved our stuff into the hotel so we could hunker down into some gaming ASAP. The first game up was a Bolt Action scenario based around the same bocage scenario I have posted previously, with some minor tweaks to the army lists (a continued work in progress).
The German PanzerSchreck teams could not miss ... they disabled several US tanks which really slowed down the US advance. We may still have some army list tweaking to do ... but it was hard to say given the abnormally good dice rolls we saw throughout the game. By turn 8 the US was near the final bocage line, but the remaining US armour was to far back to support and the game was called as a German victory. Pictures below ...
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| 12:45 - getting ready to start the game at 1pm ... several more players arrived and filled out our ranks. |
Saturday morning was the culmination of the effort I put into my Pegasus Bridge project. I started setting up at 9am and I hoped to run through the game two times (5 players each time). We had both experienced players and some completely new to the rules, but each game was 2-2.5 hours ... so we played through the complete scenario two times in 5 hours ... setup and cleanup made the whole engagement 6 hours ... not too shabby!
In both games the British managed to pull out the victory. Both games were blood baths and a heck of a lot of fun for those who played. I used the night fighting rules for Bolt Action (Flare). Each turn I rolled a D6 to see if a flare went up - on a 4+ there is a flare for that turn and visibility is normal. If there is no flare, visibility is limited to 2D6 + some +/-6" increments for various conditions. One of the +6" conditions for night fighting is if you're firing you get a "muzzle flashes" marker. I used the Warlord Games firepower lights to represent muzzle flashes ... which looked really cool (you'll see some of them in the picture below). I'll be doing a separate post to cover the finalized scenario and special rules that we landed on this week ... but for now just enjoy the pictures.
We played several board games throughout the weekend - many of which were new to me which was awesome! Dan supported the Kickstarter for "Heroes Wanted" - which we all enjoyed (my only problem with it was that I believe the "Quirk" rules have no real bearing on the game and should be optional ... easy enough to house rule).
Les brought several interesting games we played ... "Vinci" - which is the basis for the popular Small World games from Days of Wonder (the map is of Europe and races are rather combinations of skills/trades and such).
"Star Realms" was another which was so awesome I had to buy it right there at the con and play it several times throughout the weekend (deck building game, quick, very deadly).
"A Study In Emerald" was fun (a game about the H.P. Lovecraft universe ... with the setting being after the Old Ones have taken over and the revolution is one to restore the pre-Old One way of life - players being either loyal to the Old Ones or resisting against them).
John Lantz bought "Legendary: Encounters" which is the cooperative deck building game set in the Aliens universe (yes, covering all the movies)! Lots of great quotes can be rolled out for this game - which was a very fun and challenging play experience.
John also brought "Modern Naval Battles: Global Warfare" along to try out. I played the Canadian fleet (yes, they have one and it is a separate fleet you can run). We played a six player game which was I think too much for the system. My Canadians did well but could match the overwhelming force put against them by some of the other fleets.
I had brought "Takenoko" along ... which is a fun and fast paced game of a Panda that east bamboo and poops points while the gardener attempts to keep growing the bamboo ... a great light game that gamers and the family both can enjoy.
I was able to get a screaming deal on the Wave 2 ships for Sails of Glory at the Friday Flea Market (thanks Dan!!) ... I got 9 ships, which are pictures below ...
Throughout the weekend (mostly on Friday afternoon though ... but some from Saturday and Sunday) I took pictures of various games in progress, the miniatures room ... the hallway immediately outside of the miniatures room ...
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| DropZone Commander games getting ready to kick off. |
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| A DropZone Commander game in progress. |
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| This is a chariot racing game that I see run each year. |
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| A neat post-apocalyptic skirmish game that looked really neat and had several players. |
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| A game of 15mm WW2 getting ready - using the Fireball Forward rules. |
That's what I have for now. I got a ton of gaming in and now it's on to the next convention and the next big project ... which there'll be more about that soon ... until then, happy gaming everyone!