Author: bucksurdu

I ran five games at Fall In and helped Dave run another game, so I didn’t have as much time to wander around and take pictures as I usually try to do.    Below are some pictures of games that I and other HAWKs ran.

I ran a 10mm Fate of Battle game of the battle at Reichenbach in May 1813.  This was a scenario I found on the Web.  I was looking for a good six-player game.  I wasn’t sure I would get too many players at 0900 on Friday, but the game was full.  The French outnumbered the Russians 2:1 in infantry but had parity in cavalry.  While both sides had about the same number of batteries, the Russian guns were bigger and had greater ranges.  The scenario went very well, I think, and all the players had an exciting time — even the guy whose cavalry broke and ran as a result of the Russian guns on the central ridge.

Jim ran his ever popular six-player Saga game in which the opposing sides are trying to gather loot from a small village.  I didn’t hear who won, but all the players were engaged and having fun.  A couple even showed up for another Saga game on Sunday morning.

Zeb ran a 28mm Winter War game using my old Beer and Pretzels Skirmish rules.  I’ve been busy with other projects, so I haven’t put BAPS on the table in quite some time.  It was nice to see this oldie but goodie in action again.  I heard that the Russian tank was knocked out early.  Zeb used the Winter War Kickstarter figures from Baker Company a few years ago.  Apparently he is one of the few people who actually received his figures.  I haven’t gotten mine, which is the only Kickstarter that has stiffed me.

The HAWKs ran a series of “urban” scenarios with different rules and set in different time periods all weekend.  All of the terrain came from Don’s collection.  Most of the buildings were Miniature Building Authority with a few Crescent Root ones.

Eric ran a Napoleonic game with his Continental System rules.

Dave ran a 28mm ancients game using Fate of Battle.  The scenario was a Roman Civil War battle with the potential for auxiliaries to change sides during the game.

Duncan and I set up the same scenario to be run twice, once with Command Decision and once with Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII.  The scenario was written for Command Decision, so I had to interpret the order of battle.  It was interesting to see how Command Decision and Look, Sarge approach the same issues from different perspectives but achieve similar results.  The scenario, The Ride of the Wielkopolska Brigade, had German armor trying to hold a town against Polish cavalry.  All this German infantry was on the other side of the table and didn’t arrive until late in the game.  This made it very difficult for Duncan’s tanks and AT guns to hold out against determined cavalry action.

Chris ran his Bear Yourselves Valiantly Lizardman Island game

Chris and I helped Dave run a double blind game of Creighton Abrams rushing to relieve Bastogne.  He used Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII.  The spotting rules for LSNC really lend themselves to double blind games.  After the convention, I received an Email from one of the players thanking Dave for such an exciting and suspenseful experience.  I really enjoy double blind games, but they take twice as much terrain and several game masters to pull them off.

Tank ran his impressive-looking ancient game using Bear Yourselves Valiantly.

One of the urban games featured goblins and other bad guys attacking Santa’s workshop.  This one attracted young gamers as well as a few moms.

There were many other great games in the HAWKs room that I neglected to photograph.  Greg won an award for his Dr. Who game on the urban table.  Mike and Patrick Byrne ran a couple of Force on Force modern games.  Geoff ran his ever-popular Lego pirates game.  Dave ran a 25mm fantasy game. Eric ran his fantasy Blood and Swash game Sunday morning while I was running my Roman Circus chariot race game.  I had a pretty good convention.  All of my games were full, and the players seemed to have a good time.

 

I have a number of partially completed items on the painting table, but nothing new to show.  I did have a thought yesterday that I felt I would share with both readers of this blog.  🙂

I got a recent Pulp update from Beasts of War (http://www.beastsofwar.com).  Actually the update was Pulp, Punk, Horror, and Weird — dominated by the latter three and light on the first.  As I was perusing the Email update, I wondered, “When did it all get so dark?”  New releases of rules and figures seem to be focusing on the dark side of Pulp — daemons, vampires, daemons, zombies, more daemons, etc.  The stuff hitting the market these days makes Lovecraft look like Charles Schultz.

I guess I like my pulp lighter than the current tastes:  Duke Morrison and his buddies, “Wrench” Web,” “Boats” Morgan, Professor Nannini, Sergeant Preston, and others working to foil the insensate evil of the nameless “Eastern Menace,” Nazi Zeppelin troopers, etc.  I like bigger than life, barrel-chested, steely eyed killers of men and small fur-bearing animals locked in struggles to rescue beautiful ingenues, recapture stolen scientific marvels, or mystical devices.  I don’t much care for daemons, devils, and zombies cluttering up my pulp action; although, I do play the occasional zombie game.  My pulp is the Maltese Falcon, the Saturday morning serials, Flash Gordon, The Thin Man, Lives of the Bengal Lancers, the Real Glory, the Drums, The Four Feathers, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alan Quartermaine, just about anything John Wayne ever did, etc.  These are lighthearted adventures with clear heroes and villains.

Similarly, Victorian science fiction seems to be getting hijacked by the darker steam punk cum post apocalyptic craze.  Who wants VSF troopers in gas masks?  Apparently many.  I prefer bold, perhaps xenophobic, arrogant, and proselytizing, adventurers venturing into unknown worlds where they battle native tribes, prehistoric creatures, alien beings, and other European powers battle for control of resources in The Great Game.  I know none of that is politically correct these days, but as much as we want to pretend the colonial period never happened, it did.  And in most cases colonization of Africa was done by honorable men — by the standards of their day — attempting noble deeds as they saw them.

So clearly gaming can be what anyone wants it to be:  dark or light, ultra high resolution or highly abstract, fast or slow.  For me, though, I like my games to be a little lighter than the current trend in the hobby seems to be — at least judging by newly released games, rules, and figures.  Clearly I remain out of step with the rest of the hobby.

How do you like your pulp?

Yesterday, the HAWKs hosted our Barrage gaming day in Northern Maryland.  We had a record turnout, a Flames of War Tournament, a L’Art De La Guerre tournament, and lots of fun.  Below are some pictures from the day’s gaming.

One of the highlights of Barrage was seeing an old buddy Ma’k Morin.  He brought his wife and daughter to Barrage.  It was the first time I had seen him in almost 20 years, even though we have kept in contact via Email and phone calls.  It was great to game with him again, and I think his family enjoyed it too.

Any readers of this blog will know that I have been working on a set of WWII skirmish rueles for over two years.  I ran another game this weekend to test out the rules.  I had intended to test out a new system for morale, but after just a few turns it was clear that the new system was no better than the old one, and the players didn’t like to have to do math (two additions and a subtraction), so I went back to the original system.

I had been toying with changing one aspect of the rules, and after Saturday’s game, I decide to pull the trigger on the change.  I have been keeping up with counting grenades and rifle grenades for units in the game.  One of the results when shooting is “out of ammunition.”  I am going to change this so that when an “out of ammunition” result is drawn on the cards that:

• For small arms, the weapon is out of ammunition, jammed, or something.  This can be reloaded, “cleared,” or whatever with one action in a subsequent turn.
• For anti-tank guns or tank guns, the weapon is out of ammunition, jammed, or something.  This can be reloaded, “cleared,” or whatever with one action in a subsequent turn.
• For shoulder-fired anti-tank weapons, hand grenades, rifle grenades, flame throwers, etc. the squad has run out of that munition or weapon.  This cannot be corrected during a game.  The squad has no more hand grenades, for instance.
• For single-shot weapons, like panzerfausts, the round was a dud or misfired.  Since this is a one-shot weapon, it cannot be fired again during the game.

That required a change to the unit record sheet.

Now the game master just puts a check in the “yes” box if the squad begins the game with that type of weapon and checks the “no” box otherwise.

A couple weeks ago, I posted a quick discussion about how MG Gavin was so impressed with the panzerfaust that the 82nd collected up truckloads of them in Sicily.  Soon after a drop, when the heavy equipment arrived, these trucks of panzerfausts would follow the troops.  He even had the instructions for their use translated into English.  For my 28mm WWII project I wanted to equip US paras with panzerfausts, but when I posted to TMP to see if anyone made the figures, the answer was “no.”

At Historicon last weekend I got a bag of Berlin or Bust 28mm paras with rifles from Old Glory.  A couple weeks ago I ordered panzerfausts from The Assault Group.  This morning, I started hacking at the figures to remove the rifles and insert the panzerfausts.

These aren’t award-winning quality conversations, but I am pretty happy with the results.  I can’t wait to spring these on some unsuspecting German players in an upcoming scenario.

In this post, I am including a mix of games hosted on Saturday by the HAWKs at Historicon 2015.  They are in no particular order.  Enjoy!