Buck's Blog

Chris Palmer loaned me his collection of Star Wars miniatures from several years ago.  I don’t know if the figures are still sold, but I wanted to give the game a try.  Last night my son and I put the figures on the table and gave it a try.  We played two games.  The forces were the same.

We each took 100 points.  My son had Luke (rebel, not Jedi), Leah, Han, Chewbacca, and Lando.  I had 12 generic Stormtroopers, one Stormtrooper scout, and two Stormtrooper officers.  The Rebels won both games.

The game is VERY simple once you get used to how cover is computed.  It is a little odd that there is no penalty for long-range or moving fire, but at the ranges in the game, everything would probably be at close range anyway.

Though we had the same number of points, it seemed pretty hard for the Stormtroopers to get the upper hand.  In the first couple of turns, I got many more activations than the Rebels because of superior numbers, but one hit on a Stormtrooper was a kill, so the numerical advantage faded quickly.  There is a group fire rule that I didn’t take advantage of in our first scenario.  In the second one, I used it aggressively (note the firing line in the picture above).

Though I inflicted 110 points of damage, I was only able to kill one Rebel, Leah, before all the Stormtroopers were killed.  I think perhaps the points are not quite right.

My son said he thought the game was much more fun than he expected.

We plan to play it again.  I am sorry that I didn’t invest in any of this when it was available.  If and when my copy of Imperial Assault ever arrives, these figures might make good additions — or perhaps a GASLIGHT game.  Hmmmm.

This past weekend we played two games using my under-development G.A.M.E.R. system.  Those games gave me a chance to try out some ideas I’ve been kicking around regarding moving fire.  As the game is currently written, figures may either move or fire when they activate, but there is no moving fire.  I have been struggling with the best way to represent the increased firepower afforded to US squads by the M-1 Garand vs. every other army’s bolt-action rifles.

When I was a cadet at West Point, one of the history instructors showed us a film he made as part of his master’s thesis.  It involved him dressing up a full US and German squad with their organic weapons (including BARs and MG-42).  He then took them onto a known distance range and had them engage targets for a fixed period of time.  As I recall he even used the same guys for both squads to control for the possibility of better marksmen in one group or the other.  The result of this experiment was that a US squad had significantly more firepower than a German squad.  Since the BAR is not really comparable to the MG-42, you have to assign the credit to the M-1 Garand.  That has stuck with me for many years.

In Bolt Action, soldiers with Garands are allowed to conduct moving fire, but not soldiers with bolt action rifles.  I have tried to account for the differences in firepower in GAMER by enabling some weapons to fire more than one shot during an activation.  For instance, a submachine gun can fire 3 times at close range, twice at medium range, and just once at long range.  This reflects both the rate of fire and the poor likelihood of hitting multiple times with a submachine gun at long range.

This mechanism of multiple shots still didn’t address the moving fire issue.  While I like the shoot OR move mechanism for cleanness, simplicity, and speed, I understand why players of modern periods want moving fire.  The experiment at JJ CON was only partially successful, because I took away multiple shots from the Garand but allowed moving fire with a full move.

After that experiment, here is what I think I am going to do.  First, I realized that the penalty for moving fire (one column shift) was not punitive enough.  I have been thinking about making it a two-column shift for some time as a result of vehicle play tests.  A figure with a weapon that can fire more than once at the range to the target may instead conduct moving fire.  The number of shots will be reduced by one.  Movement distance will be reduced by two inches.  Moving fire is always conducted as move, then fire at the end point of the move.  Moving fire can be interrupted during the movement, not the firing, by a reaction roll.  I think this will give the right feel.

In 1981 my buddy JJ had a sleepover wargaming birthday party when he turned 16.  A bunch of us got together this past weekend to celebrate with 50th birthday with a weekend of gaming.  We managed to fit in 7 miniatures games and a couple of card games in two days of non-stop gaming.

(In the picture from 1981, most of the faces are hidden, but I will identify the faces you can see.  Most of the faces won’t be familiar to the group, and many of the faces are hidden.  Standing at the left is Mike Janes.  He was quite a bit older than us but often hosted games at his house, and he took us to our first gaming convention.  I have been trying to link up with Mike, but he has no Web presence.  Standing (and waving) in the center is me.  Seated below me is Matt Stone.  We have all lost touch with Matt.  To the left of Matt, seated, is Mark Lauzon.  Standing at the top right, with just half his face visible and the other half behind the Elton John glasses, is JJ.  Other folks who are probably in the picture but I cannot identify are John Bice, David Dziadziola, Jeff Dziadziola, and Steve Jarosz.)

From left to right, Nick, Dave, Jimmy, Rick, Mark, JJ (the birthday boy), Duncan, Eric, and David (aka Ook).  I took the picture.

We began the weekend, according to time-honored tradition, with a large Beer and Pretzels Ironclads game.  The Rebs got spanked by the Yanks, having lost most of our larger ships.

Our second game was a 2-1/2 lap chariot race using the rules Roman Circus.  Nick won the game easily, having come from behind.

While I was setting up the next game, most of the guys played Red Dragon Inn.

I ran a WWII GAMER scenario, which involved the heavily outnumbered Germans attempting to delay the advancing Americans.  The Americans had to get at least 10 figures off the table by the end of the 15th turn.

Retrograde missions are hard, but the Germans eeked out a victory, because the Americans only got five figures off the table by the end of turn 15.  Another five figures were close — but no cigar.

We set up Duncan’s game for the next morning and then went to bed.  Early Saturday morning we played a reprise of Duncan’s War of 1812 GAMER scenario from Christmas.  The Americans raided a British encampment.  Initially the Brits were outnumbered two to now, but Duncan and I each had a squad of reinforcements that arrived in time to turn the tide of the battle.  It was declared a clear British victory.

The game was quite fun.  Playing a second game with the same rules (GAMER) was good, because it was easier for many of the folks who only game once a year (or even less frequently) during JJ CON.

After Duncan’s War of 1812 game, Eric ran his Orc’s Drift fantasy game using GASLIGHT.  It was a tense, hard-fought battle, but in the end the good guys were able to withstand the assaults of the misunderstood bad guys.

We cleaned up Orc’s Drift and played another chariot race.

I was set to win the second chariot race, but my last movement roll was dismal and I barely made it across the finish line.  Dave came from second place to win.

Our final miniatures game of the weekend was a thrown-together X-Wing scenario.

The rebels were attacking to knock out the three laser turrets on the surface of an Imperial station.  This was the first time I had used the laser turrets, and I think they worked well.

The rebels knocked out one turret and damaged the other two, but they did not achieve their objective of knocking out all three.

After we cleaned up, it was about 10:30, so we elected to start a “short” game of Nuclear War (by Flying Buffalo).  The game dragged on until after 1:30 in the morning, so none of us got much sleep.

All in all, it was a good weekend of gaming, laughing, and fun.

For the sixth year in a row, the HAWKs rang out the new year at Casa Surdu with an evening of gaming.  Though many of the regulars were unable to attend, we still had a large crowd — 12 gamers plus a couple of kibitzers.  The plan was to play three games.  The first was the traditional Santa Claus game using GASLIGHT.  The second was a large X-Wing game with almost everything I have.  And the final game for 2014 was Red Dragon Inn.

The first game was set in my pulp town of Granville, Illinois.  We used To Be Continued… by GASLIGHT as the rules.  In this scenario Santa has been shot down by Venusians and crashed near the Sinclair gas station.  (You don’t see the sleigh in this shot, because I took it before Chris arrived with the sleigh.)  The objective of the good guys was to gather up as many packages as possible and get them to Duke Morrison’s waiting airplane, the Anything but a Twenty, for subsequent distribution to deserving boys and girls.  The various groups of gangsters who inhabit the town were trying to gather the presents for themselves.  In addition, the Venusians (see the gold space ships in the park not far from Duke’s plane), were trying to capture the sleigh and/or reindeer so that they could study the technology.  There was also a small group of Nazi Fifth Columnists in the town who were interested in capturing Santa’s giant mechanical nutcracker and clockwork Santas.

The packages were scattered around town, and the gangsters were likewise distributed in buildings.  Duke Morrison, “Boats” Morgan, “Wrench” Web and their soldiers and sailors started near the Anything But a Twenty.  The Venusians began near their ships.  Santa and a few of his units landed near the Sinclair station.  Nearby were professor Serafini Nannini and his lab assistants, who moved to investigate the crash, as well a group of friendly snowmen and snowball fighting kids who had a vested interest in helping Santa.

Many of Santa’s other allies, like teddy bear infantry, toy soldiers, additional kids with snowballs, Moonraiser’s Marauders, and additional snowmen arrived in the first few turns, their arrival location being randomized.

The HAWKs tradition is for my son to be Santa.  The other unfortunate tradition is that Santa always has gotten killed.  When my son was younger, that was disheartening for him.  This year he didn’t want to play Santa, but we made him anyway.  Spoiler alert: Santa lived.

The game began with Santa righting his crashed sled and calling four remaining reindeer to his assistance.  Four reindeer weren’t enough to lift the heavily-laden sleigh, but they were enough to pull it slowly.  In addition the clockwork Santas and giant nutcracker were enlisted to push the sleigh as well.

Hermie and Rudloph jumped into a nearby roadster and, after a slight mishap which involved getting their car stuck in a hedge — it turns out that Hermie is a poor driver, they began collecting packages.  The nearby friendly snowmen collected packages and brought them to Santa while a group of kids with snowballs repulsed a group of gangsters and pursued a second one.

At the other end of the town, another group of snowball wielding kids and a group of penguins battled with angry snowmen and gangsters to secure an egress route for Santa.

Angry snowmen and gangsters tried to set up a roadblock to stop Santa’s sleigh while other gangsters (on the street to the left of the one in this picture) set up a bucket brigade to haul packages from a building to a “borrowed” bus.

Moonraiser’s Marauders (from the Island of Misfit Toys) attacked Bonnie’s gangsters, but took the worst end of the subsequent melee.  This gave Bonnie, Harry the Horse, and the Limey’s gangs an opportunity to try to cut off Santa’s movement toward Duke’s plane.

Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble, hitched their red and yellow panel van to Santa’s sleigh and began towing it up the road.  This freed up the reindeer to fly to the rooftops of Granville business to retrieve presents that fell during Santa’s crash landing.  At the same time, Duke Morrison was battling Venusians and other bad guys.  Tanks as having a bad dice night, rolling many 20’s.  It was probably inevitable that Duke would be incapacitated before the end of the game.

Many of the gangsters began trying to ram into either the panel van or the sleigh itself to stop it.  At the same time, the Nazi “she wolves” boarded the sleigh and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Santa.  At this point, I was worried that Santa was going to die again this year, but he passed all his Save rolls and cleared the sleigh of enemy boarders.  The Venusians came alongside in a “borrowed” vehicle and began shooting at Santa.  Still Santa Saved, while toy soldiers and teddy bears defended the sleigh.  After four hours of play, we determined that there was nothing the bad buys had left in their bag of tricks to stop Santa from linking up with Duke Morrison’s men.

The final count on presents was 24 to the good guys and 14 to the bad guys.  Santa lived.  It was a convincing good guy victory.

I tore down Granville (a significant task) while everyone partook on breaded chicken over pasta with garlic bread.  The chicken recipe came from my aunt and was prepared much earlier in the day.  My wife heated it up while we finished the GASLIGHT game.   This gave me time to put away all the buildings and figures.

The second game we played was X-Wing.  I wanted to put all — or nearly all — of my X-Wing ships on the table.  Each player had three fighters or perhaps a smaller number of larger ships.  Bill brought the Deep Space Nine station from the Star Trek version of the rules to use as a communications satellite.  This became the objective.  The rebels swooped in to knock it out, but were surprised to find that it was fully operational and guarded by several squadrons of Tie Fighters.  Does that sound like the plot of Empire Strikes Back?

Some of the rag tag group of rebel ships were piloted by experts.  Some of the ships were older relics piloted by novices.  The Empire had a couple of aces, but also a couple of academy rookies.  The rebels also had the Mellinium Falcon piloted by Han Solo and a small cruiser.

I don’t know if Princess Leah was on board, but this ship was impressive on the table — even though it was armed with just a single weapon.

The Tie Fighters ganged up on the Falcon, eventually turn it into an impressive fireball.  While the Falcon was keeping many of the imperial fighters busy the other rebel battle group ground their way toward the communications station.  Despite heavy losses, they reached the station and were surprised by the heavy armament.  Several rebel fighters exploded as they approached.

The communications satellite was an easy target.  Despite the many shields, the rebels eventually punched through and began inflicting damage.  Then the cruiser came into range and began to fire.  A turn or two later, the communications satellite too exploded.  A good night for the rebels!

X-Wing ended about 1130.  While my wife passed around champaign in anticipation of the ball dropping in Times Square, we set up what we thought was going to be a quick game of Red Dragon Inn.  The game ended close to 2:00 AM with Bruce finally besting my daughter.

I’ve never understood the fascination with New Year’s Eve, but these marathon gaming sessions, while somewhat exhausting to host, are a nice way to finish out the year and start the new year.  What’s not to like about good food and fun games with buddies?!  I played my 42nd and 43rd miniatures games for the year — falling short of my 50-game goal.

One of many HAWKs traditions is the Christmastime game at Duncan’s house sometime during the holidays.  Often the game is set in the War of 1812 and often in the winter.  This year Duncan hosted an American raid on a British encampment in Canada in the winter.  The American objective was to capture supplies, loot, and plunder.  The British objective was to hang onto their gear.

In the past, Duncan has used a variety of different rule sets, including GASLIGHT, for these games.  This year Duncan wanted to try using my G.A.M.E.R. rules that are under development.  In general, though there are questions about a set of rules that are still under development, the system worked well enough.

Each player had two six-man groups and a leader to control.  Dave’s troops had high morale (“guts”) but terrible accuracy (“shooting skill”).  He rushed forward toward the enemy and then missed with nearly all his shots and Don laughed at him and taunted him.

There was a furious melee in the woods just behind the plantation house, where Noah is seen in the photo moving his troops.  After the melee, which lasted a few turns, Eric was victorious, and Noah was out of the game.  Don taunted Noah too.

On my side of the table, Bruce occupied the brown building in the picture and then proceeded to decimate Jim’s and my forces.  We thought Bruce’s forces were snipers armed with Gatling guns.  On the first or second turn, Rob incapacitated my officer.  The officer had moved to the edge of the woods in the center right of the picture to locate the enemy.  He found them, but didn’t live long enough to let the troops know.  By the end of the game Rob and I had ground each other to a pulp, but he managed to capture two cows.  Don taunted me as well.

The game was a lot of fun.  Lots of folks brought cookies and snacks, so the holiday season pig out continued unabated as we battled.

Thanks to Duncan for hosting!

This past Thursday, a group of the HAWKs took time off work, retirement, and/or daily activities to travel to western Maryland to a professional development event for the 114th Signal Battalion.  This is the eighth such event that we have helped run.  Each year gets more and more sophisticated.  This year Sam Fuson orchestrated an event for 54 officers, NCOs, and civilian staff.  We couldn’t think of a historical battle for which we had enough troops that would get 54 players into the action, so we hit on the idea of running the same battle six times.  We still didn’t have enough troops, so we decided to run the same battle in six historical periods and make the technology differences and how those impacted tactics part of the learning objectives.  I was pushing for Lake Trasimene (Romans vs. Carthaginians), but Sam suggested Quatre Bras.  While the tactical situation is quite interesting, I was a little worried about some players sitting around for a couple of hours waiting for their troops to come onto the table.  We set up a greatly accelerated arrival schedule for both sides.  (Above is the stylized map we used for this event.)

We felt it was important to disguise the battle.  We didn’t tell anyone this was based on Quatre Bras.  We called it “Four Corners.”  We did this, because one of the learning objectives was tactical problem solving.  We felt that if the players knew the battle, they might research it and come into the game with pre-conceived notions and plans.  Even for the Napoleonic version (game mastered by Dave Wood, USMA 1984, using Fate of Battle: Look, Sarge, No Charts: Napoleonic Wars), we substituted Austrians for the British to help disguise the battle.

Eric Schlegel ran “Four Corners” with Union troops substituted for the French and the Confederate troops substituted for the British.  As Eric pointed out, with the accelerated reinforcement schedule, this was a very hard scenario for the attackers (the French in the original battle).  For the Civil War version, we used A Union So Tested: Look, Sarge, No Charts: American Civil War.

Duncan Adams ran Four Corners as an early WWI battle with the French as the attackers and the Germans as the defenders.  For this battle, Duncan used his mashup of Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII and A Union So Tested.

Kurt Schlegel setting up his 73 Arab-Israeli War version of the scenario using Look, Sarge, No Charts:  WWII.  The large patch of woods on the table was converted to an orchard that didn’t slow movement as much as it did on the other tables.  He also replaced the stream with the ditch you can see running down the middle of the table.  The French at Quatre Bras were replaced by Syrians, with Israelis substituting for the British.

I floated from table to table, taking notes, providing some hints to the players, making sure that all the games were run consistently.  As usual, the players generally caught onto the rules with little difficulty.  Very few of the players had ever played war-games before — except for those who participated in these yearly events.  There were a few who still needed hand holding by the end of the game, but by and large, they managed to become self supporting after a few turns.

Chris Palmer ran Four Corners as a battle during the War of the Roses using Bear Yourselves Valiantly: Look, Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancient, and Mediaeval.

Eric Schlegel and Ed Duffy ran the Civil War version of Four Corners with A Union So Tested.

In each scenario, there were five victory points.  Victory went to the side that controlled 3 or more points by the end of the game.  These victory points were represented by flags on the table that Sam made for all the tables.  Initially four flags were in possession of the defender.  One was placed in Quatre Bras, one was placed in the small woods near Quatre Bras just west of the north-south road.  The third was placed on the small hill along the east-west road, just east of Quatre Bras.  The fourth was placed on the large hill south of Quatre Bras.  The fifth victory point was based on casualties; the side that lost the fewest bases during the battle was awarded the fifth point.  Initially the four on-table flags were those of the defenders’ countries.  When captured by the attackers, the flags were changed to that of the attackers’ countries.  This provided a visual indication of how the battle was developing.

This was a pretty easy fight or the defenders, so the defenders’ commanders had pretty simple schemes of maneuver.  Still, only about half of them planned for a reserve.  Most just shoved reinforcements into the fight near where they arrived.

It was interesting to see how each of the attackers had somewhat different schemes of maneuver.  In some cases their main effort was to push up the center where most of the victory points were placed on the map — but where the defender was strongest.  In other cases, they planned to push through the large woods to accrue the benefits of cover and concealment.  The slow movement through the woods — particularly in the earlier historical periods — made this a difficult maneuver to execute.  In the WWI game, which had the least mobile forces, the attacker wanted to try a double envelopment around both flanks!  Finally, some decided to move around their right where the enemy was weakest in an attempt to take Quatre Bras from behind.

One of the players shouted “Whoever designed this game should be shot!” half way through the event.  He was expressing frustration at the fact that he could see the whole battlefield but his units couldn’t spot the enemy and didn’t always do what he wanted.  I think by the end, he saw the realism of the game’s mechanics.

On the War of the Roses table, the attacking commander impressed us toward the end of the fight.  His left was crumbling, but he decided to focus on the objective, Quatre Bras, and have the remnants of his left flank conduct a delaying action without reinforcements.  He sent his reinforcements (mounted knights) up the center.  Unfortunately his knights got bogged down pushing up the large hill (friction inflicted on him by the game’s activation mechanics), so he didn’t have the success he deserved.  I’ve see a lot of long-time gamers make the mistakes of reinforcing failure or losing focus the objective.  It was neat to see a professional military officer do it right.

I just retired from the Army after 28.5 years plus four years as a cadet.  There are days when I miss the camaraderie of soldiers.  These annual events are fun for me to be around soldiers, their friendly trash talk and banter, and their general attitudes.

Sam Fuson and Geoff Graff ran the WWII version of the battle with Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII.  The Germans took the role of the French at Quatre Bras, and the French took the role of the British.

The final scorecard:  The attackers won 3:2 on the WWII and Arab-Israeli War tables.  The attackers lost on all the other tables.  I think the scenario, while still hard, was easier for attackers with modern maneuver capabilities.  Despite Israeli air support, the Syrians maneuvered through the orchard.  They captured the two flags on the hills south and east of town, had maneuvered north of Quatre Bras, and with more time might have taken the town from the Israelis.

From the standpoint of executing the event, we forgot that the VFW where we played has 8-foot long tables.  The standard gaming table is only six feet across to allow easy access to move troops in the center of the table.  We made the decision to use 8×10 tables and leave some “white space” on the sides.  This made it very hard to reach troops in the center of the table — where most of the action was occurring.  Next year, I think we should find a historical battle that we can play on a table five feet deep and 16 feet across.  This will allow each reach to the center of the table and provide lots of lateral maneuver room.

After the battles were over, I conducted an after action review where I tried to tease out some lessons.  We reviewed the principles of war (mass, objective, offensive, surprise, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, and simplicity) and how to apply them on the tabletop.  I pointed out good and bad examples of many of these principles that I saw during the battles.  I also tried to emphasize that the defender must still have a scheme of maneuver and cannot be just passive.  Next year, I think we should find a battle in which the attacker has the advantage and the defender has to be aggressive to win.

Feedback from the participants was good.  I think this was a very successful event.  The HAWKs, including three new participants (Duncan, Kurt, and Geoff) had a good time.  We must be doing something good, because they keep inviting us back!

I ran GAMER again at Fall In.  Interested readers can search on GAMER or G.A.M.E.R. in my blog to see entries that describe the development process for these rules.   In general, I was happy with the way the rules played.  We had one or two players who couldn’t seem to get the hang of the card-based combat mechanism, but most did.  The games flowed pretty quickly and smoothly.

Cory Ring of Cigar Box Battles sent me one of their wargaming terrain mat products.  These are beautiful terrain mats printed fleece.  Even with the roads printed on them (not all have roads), they are quite flexible.  Many, many people came by to look at the terrain.  One of the things that I like is that, being made of fleece, they drape over hills without annoying wrinkles.

Here is what it looked like after I added all the rest of the terrain bits.  I think the overall effect is quite good.  If I have any complaints, I think that this particular mat may be too woody.  I had to lay out some other felt bits to cover up some of the trees to provide fields of fire for small arms to make the WWII game more interesting.  They have many different designs, including snow, desert, stars, woodland (with roads), and woodland (without roads).  Lately they have begun making mats based on actual historical battles.  I THINK that this mat is one of two for the first day of Gettysburg.

I ran two iterations of GAMER on the same terrain.  One involved British commandos and French partisans trying to rescue a captured British general from a farm house.  The second was a meeting engagement between an American platoon and a German platoon.

The commandos advanced slowly toward the farmhouse.  The partisans took the slow route through the woods, but despite that, they made it into the farmhouse first.  They beelined upstairs and got involved in a swirling melee for three or four turns with the Germans on the second floor.  In the end, the British/French force got a narrow upper hand, and I judged that the general had been rescued.

I still have a number of details to work out, but I’ll get there.  They still aren’t as fast or fun as I had hoped, so I keep tinkering with them.  I am using the activation mechanism from Battles by GASLIGHT and the Look, Sarge family of rules, but I keep hoping to come up with something even better.

I’m having fun with the rules, and most of the people who have tried it ask me when they might be available for sale.  I’m pretty fed up with British magazines giving short shrift to all rules American (without actually playing even one game with the rules) and there being no US magazines in which to get reviews.  The TMP crowd is full of folks who generally don’t do anything themselves except criticize the efforts of other, better men (look up The Man in the Arena speech by Teddy Roosevelt).  I don’t have sock puppets.  The one time I asked members of the GASLIGHT Yahoo group to go to Board Game Geek and write about the rules, good or bad, only one person did so, and he spent a page going into gory detail about how much he disliked the new Compendium.  So, I don’t think I am going to go through the pain of writing these up for commercial publication.  I have written over a dozen sets of rules for publication, but only GASLIGHT has been even remotely successful, despite the fact that I think many of them were quite innovative in their day.  I am really proud of the Look, Sarge family of rules, but they really haven’t gotten any popular or critical note.  I have gotten tired of beating my head against a wall.  Right now, I’m just having fun solving one development problem at a time with no deadlines.  They’re shaping up nicely, but they are a long way from good yet.

As usual, the HAWKs ran a rich selection of both historical and non-historical games at Fall In.  In this post, I will show a number of pictures of our games without any narrative.

Dave turned out to be the HAWKS “iron marshal” at Fall In this year.  He ran FIVE full games at Fall In.  All Saturday he had a table set up at which he ran BOTH at Fate of Battle (Napoleonic Wars) and Bear Yourselves Valiantly (Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval) AT THE SAME TIME.  He was ably assisted by David Schlegel and Geoff Graff for much of the day.