2013 HAWKs New Years Eve Gaming Party

Early stages of "Montmirail"
Early stages of "Montmirail"

For five years now we’ve been hosting a New Years Eve gaming event.  As we’ve moved several times, this is the third venue.  This year’s event featured two full, four-hour convention games.  People began arriving about 1430, we had a break for dinner, we toasted the new year, and finished the second game by about 0100.

The battle commences
The battle commences
"Montmirail" continues
"Montmirail" continues

We started about 1530 with distortion of the Battle of Montmirail.  Montmirail is a Napoleonic battle from the upcoming 1814 campaign book, written primarily by Dave Wood.  In this case, as I am about to wade into the writing of the book for Bear Yourselves Valiantly:  Look, Sarge, No Charts:  Fantasy, Ancient, and Mediaeval, I substituted fantasy figures for the Napoleonic figures.  It wasn’t a faithful substitution.  I have each player roughly 1000 points of figures, which was more figures than would be on the table for the historical scenario.  In addition, the 1000-point armies tend to be a mix of troop types rather than being the infantry or cavalry divisions of the historical fight.  It is supposed to be a 10 turn game.  We only completed 7 turns, but I think that in a convention, with a smaller number of troops, we could fit all 10 turns into a four-hour convention slot.  We have one of the HAWKs who seems to like the rules but who doesn’t like fantasy, so I asked Tank Nickle (one of the BYV co-authors) to bring his Romans and Carthaginians, who acted as opposing commands of humans on that wing of the table.

"Montmirail" was a bloody affair
"Montmirail" was a bloody affair

Victory conditions involved ownership of four towns.  The “French” (consisting of dwarves, elves, and Carthaginians) held one of the four towns but needed to capture one of the other three to win the game.  The “Allies” (humans and goblins) held the other three.  This required the French to be on the offensive.  In the end, the dwarves, elves, and Carthaginians had not captured a second town.  With another few turns two of the three might have been contested, but about 1930 we called the game an Allied victory, tore it down, and set up the next fight.

Orc's Drift
Orc's Drift

Eric Schlegel then set up and ran a fantasy game using his modifications to GASLIGHT, which he calls Mage Light.  The scenario was the British colonial battle of Rorke’s Drift, but the forces were fantasy figures instead.  (This New Years Eve was certainly the night for fantasy transmogrifications of historical battles!)  We, the “bad guys,” with a host of goblins, koblods, gnolls, ghouls, skeletons, orcs, and other assorted units were defending our homeland against the evil rampage of the “good guys.”

Orc's drift as the battle unfolds
Orc's Drift as the battle unfolds

This too was a bloody affair.  A high point for me were when the hill giants defending the wall against the imperialist Ent, turned it into kindling.  The good guys had a cleric who kept resurrecting dead “good guys” and a wizard who kept putting up walls of fire, thorns, and other stuff to slow down our movement of troops within the walls of Orc’s Drift.

Ent and hill giants battle
An ent and some hill giants battle

The battle was going hot and heavy at midnight, so we stopped for 45 seconds to acknowledge the drop of the big ball and toast the new year before continuing the game.  By about 0100 Eric called the game a “bad guy” victory; although, both sides were reduced to fewer than a dozen or so figures.

Bill Sleeping
... It was a long day and night of gaming.

Fighting two, full-length battles worked well.  In past years we’ve run two somewhat shorter events and then had to start a third game around 2230 or 2300.  The HAWKs are no spring chickens, so STARTING a game that late has been somewhat difficult.  We’ve done things like Munchkin or Red Dragon Inn, but even then, it’s hard to start that third game.  I liked what we did this year better; although, it’s good to have those other games in reserve in case a game plays poorly, and we end it early.

We were missing a couple of “usual suspects.”  The Dean’s were unavailable; the Palmers were indisposed; and the Woods were unable to attend.  On top of that, the Priebe’s were busy getting married.  Still we had 12 players for the first game.  Even missing these folks, we had an excellent time.  It was a nice way to ring in the new year.