{"id":5920,"date":"2016-11-09T17:36:38","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T17:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=5920"},"modified":"2016-11-09T17:36:38","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T17:36:38","slug":"fall-in-2016-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/2016\/11\/09\/fall-in-2016-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Fall In 2016 Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

I intended to arrive in the mid-afternoon on Thursday, but then we scheduled an interview for a potential hire late Thursday afternoon. \u00a0I still thought I might make it in time to run a Fate of Battle game for the HAWKs Thursday evening, but events conspired against me. \u00a0When I arrived, I was still angry and needed to calm down before gaming. \u00a0Instead of minis we tried a new card game I bought, called Smash Up<\/em>. \u00a0We may have been doing some things wrong, but I think we were starting to get the hang of it toward the end. \u00a0Greg brought some Scotch that his had donated to the HAWKs, called Monkey Shoulder, and that helped smooth over the rough edges of our knowledge of the game rules.<\/p>\n

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Greg and I had the full breakfast at the Continental before heading over the host. \u00a0Friday morning I found that the new Host ownership had an odd way of managing the key to the Paradise room, but eventually we go the door unlocked. \u00a0Eric and I were running the same scenario, Heilsburg, 1809, on the same table. \u00a0My game was first, Friday morning, using Fate of Battle, <\/em>and Eric’s was later using modified Regimental Fire and Fury<\/em>. \u00a0Eric set up all the terrain for both games, which made my prep for the game much easier. \u00a0I was surprised that the game was full and that everyone who signed up showed up for a 0900 game on Friday. \u00a0The game went quite well. \u00a0All the players were engaged early and had a good time. \u00a0The Russian cavalry under the command of someone new to Fate of Battle<\/em> ground forward against the French cavalry commanded by a guy named Jeff who plays a lot of LSNC. \u00a0Initially the Russian left, commanded by HAWKs room regular, Donald, chose to advance, but when two of three Russian brigades retreated, the French went on the attack. \u00a0The Retreating Russians recovered and returned to the fight in time to stop the French attack. \u00a0Though the Russians were beginning to drive the French out of the town, the arrival of the “fresh” Russian infantry made the outcome an inevitable Russian victory.<\/p>\n

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I spent some time in the flea market and dealer hall on Friday afternoon. \u00a0The big find for me was a batch of 1:50(ish) scale WWII tanks. \u00a0Greg also found a loose figure in a bin that will be painted as Peggy Carter before my next pulp-era game. \u00a0I had asked Battlefield Terrain Concepts to bring additional hedgerow, and I purchased more of that. \u00a0Otherwise, I spent a bunch of time kibitzing and wandering around.<\/p>\n

I set up my Poland 1939 armored train game for Friday night and helped Greg set up his Star Wars game — both using Combat Patrol<\/em>. \u00a0 I was surprised that my Friday morning game filled, and I was just as surprised that my Saturday night game had not a single player attend. \u00a0Was it in the PEL? \u00a0I think it was.<\/p>\n

Anyway, that gave me a chance to play in Kurt’s A Union So Tested<\/em> game. \u00a0I didn’t know the scenario, so I volunteered to let the new player command the Union force that I thought would see most of the action. \u00a0Then three of us entered the table on the Union flank. \u00a0This was as much of a surprise to me as it was to the Union commanders. \u00a0The game played really well, with the Yanks doing a good job of slowing the Reb advance toward the key crossroads. \u00a0The Yanks held a forward salient too long, which didn’t allow them to lengthen their left flank, so I was pushing around it when time ran out, and Kurt called the game a Union victory.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>After a little kibitzing and setting up for Saturday morning, Greg, Dave, and I headed back to the Continental to watch a few episodes of Tom Baker Doctor Who<\/em> with Leela before hitting the sack.<\/p>\n

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Saturday morning, Dave and I went for a 3.5 mile run, and then the three of us had breakfast at the Continental again. \u00a0My Saturday morning Polish armored train game was overly full, so some of the standby HAWKs weren’t able to play. \u00a0The German objective was to capture the train to move it off the road, not to destroy it. \u00a0There is notionally a large German formation coming down the road, and the force in the scenario was the advance guard sent to clear the route.\u00a0 We had a good mix of experienced Combat Patrol<\/em> players and newbies. \u00a0Duncan took the one German squad on the table that didn’t have a vehicle, and for several turns he was the only visible enemy to many of the Polish defenders, so he received a lot of “love.” \u00a0On the German right, their two Pz. 38(t)s and two vehicle-mounted infantry squads tried to push around the Poles, but found the Polish defenders tough to dislodge. \u00a0The Poles did a pretty good job using their mortar to inflict some damage on the Germans. \u00a0Fortunately for the German tanks, the Poles had positioned their anti-tank gun on the other side of the table. \u00a0This is where the Germans tried to slip two halftracks full of infantry around the Polish right. \u00a0The anti-tank gun knocked out one of the halftracks, but the other slipped past. \u00a0The squad in the disabled halftrack dismounted and got involved in a long, unproductive firefight with a Polish squad in some nearby woods. \u00a0Half of this German squad failed morale and ran off the table. \u00a0The halftrack that got around the Polish defenses got to the train. \u00a0The artillery in the turret turned to knock out the halftrack, so one of Kurt’s tanks fired at it — getting the word result possible. \u00a0Recall that the Germans needed to be able to move the train off the road, but Kurt hit the undercarriage of the train car straddling the road, penetrated, and brewed up the car. \u00a0This would have made it hard to move the train later. \u00a0The Germans got infantry into the cab of the train, so I called the game a German victory.\u00a0 I was gratified at how many of the folks who had never played Combat Patrol<\/em> seemed to pick it up easily and were largely self-sufficient after a couple of turns.<\/p>\n

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Again, I had a few hours to wander the flea market and dealer hall, but there wasn’t a lot of time between my Polish game and when we planned to being setting up our Saturday evening game, so mostly I sat around and kibitzed.<\/p>\n

Dave, Chris, and I ran the battle of Lvov Saturday evening. \u00a0This is a large game that we’ve run several times, including for the 114th Signal Battalion for one of their Senior Leader Development events. \u00a0The scenario is somewhat what-if in nature, as it involves the Russians and Germans conducting a coordinated attack on the town of Zboiska on the outskirts of Lvov. \u00a0While the Germans and Russians were both nearby, there was no simultaneous attack historically. \u00a0In addition to defending Zboiska, the Poles were also ordered to capture a nearby ridgeline and knock out the artillery that was shelling Lvov. \u00a0Duncan and a father-son team launched three infantry battalions up Graff-break Ridge. \u00a0They took very heavy casualties, almost two and a half battalions. \u00a0Duncan let the newbies get decimated while he advanced put he ridge against an beat-up defender, but he was still unable to knock out the guns before the game ended. \u00a0(By the way, the players were having such a good time that we played an extra hour!) \u00a0Dave and a newbie to LSNC played the Germans and crashed into Duncan’s cavalry screen, wiping out four of five companies by the end of the game. \u00a0Dave’s panzergrenadiers got bogged down trying to root Duncan out of his second line of defense, but the newbie, a guy named Hutch, got some of his infantry into the town. \u00a0On the other end of the table, Mike and Chris were the Russians trying to bypass Kurt and roll over Donald to seize the town. \u00a0Donald’s light Polish tank battalion was no match for Mike’s wall of steel. \u00a0While Mike killed every single Polish vehicle on the table, Chris pushed a few stands of infantry into Zobiska. \u00a0The victory conditions were based on the number of full (undamaged) bases in the town as well as the status of the ridgeline. \u00a0In the end, the Poles received two victory points, but the Russians and Germans didn’t receive any. \u00a0So after a hard-fought defense, the Poles eeked out a victory. \u00a0I think\u00a0this might have been the most interesting iteration of Lvov we have run. \u00a0I was a little disappointed that we only had four non-HAWKs for a 12-player game, but all the non-HAWKs seemed to have an excellent time, and I think the HAWKs had fun as well. \u00a0It certainly made being a GM pretty easy.<\/p>\n

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I had bid $60 for a batch of painted WWII Americans in the Toys for Tots auction. \u00a0As I have picked up WWII figures here and there I find that I am short of plain riflemen and have too many submachine guns.\u00a0 I thought this was a silent auction and that I had won the bid, but when I went to go claim the figures and pay I was dismayed that my winning silent bid was merely the starting bid for another traditional auction. \u00a0I guess I don’t understand the purpose of the silent auction. \u00a0I was disappointed at the way it played out. \u00a0There was a guy in the crowd who seemed to snipe at most winning bids with an extra five dollars. \u00a0I guess it’s for a good cause, but I won’t be doing the auction again.<\/p>\n

Sunday morning Dave and I went for another run before breakfast at the Continental. \u00a0I normally run a chariot race game on Sunday mornings, but I hadn’t planned to run a Sunday game this year.\u00a0 I hit the flea market again. \u00a0I rarely find anything of interest on Sunday, but this time was different. \u00a0In the flea market I found two of the Litko buildings I use in Granville, my pulp-era town. \u00a0They were already assembled and nicely painted for less than the unassembled kits. \u00a0Did I need two more buildings? \u00a0No, but what the heck?! \u00a0I wandered around the dealer hall, picking up some stuff from terrain bits Scenic Express and chatting with folks in the aisles. \u00a0By the time I returned to the HAWKs room, all three HAWKs-run games were well underway, so I just spent time talking to Mike and watching the three games.<\/p>\n

After Eric and Dave cleaned up the HAWKs stragglers went to Brooklyn pizza for a nice lunch before the long drive home. \u00a0All in all, this was a good con for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I intended to arrive in the mid-afternoon on Thursday, but then we scheduled an interview for a potential hire late Thursday afternoon. \u00a0I still thought I might make it in time to run a Fate of Battle game for the HAWKs Thursday evening, but events conspired against me. \u00a0When I arrived, I was still angry … Continue reading Fall In 2016 Report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bucksurdu.com\/bucksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}