The Lazy Blogger

Day two: Thursday at Origins

2010-07-08T22:18:00.000-04:00

Day two started off optimistically with our group looking forward to a game of Battlestations (http://www.battlestations.info/faq.html) or should I say what we THOUGHT was a game of Battlestations.

When we arrived at the table we kept our tickets out of sight in an effort to avoid sitting down into a situation similar to what we experienced on day one with ghoulies and gangsters. After making a quick pass and only seeing one person at the table we had a discussion on what to do. Talking to who we thought to be the lone gamer at the table we took a chance and sat down......wrong move.

Instead of playing what we thought would be a fun to play pulp starship combat game turned into a vector based starship combat game that didn't want to be Star Fleet Battles or Full Thrust. Unfortunately the game designers didn't seem to know what they actually wanted this game to be and instead came up with a game that was more complicated then it needed to be and less fun then it should have been.

The guys running the game turned out to be the designers and seemed to be using the con game as a play-test.

We found out during the game they had originally called their game Battle stations, but the board game Battle stations had come out before their game and they decided to rename it All Hands Battle stations.

Disappointed as we were we decided to stick it out and try the game. We should have walked.

The designers put very little effort into the presentation of this game and used a game board made up of two blank pieces of black foam core. The star ships were represented by folded paper squares with ship silhouettes on four sides.

Game play seemed predictable with both sides moving straight at each other and slugging it out. Elements taken from other games are obvious (vector movement, phase movement) and some of the mechanics seemed unecessary. For instance each ship had 13 different passive / active sensor options depending on energy allocation, but energy allocation didn't seem to really effect any aspect of ship operation. We were able to fire all weapons systems, power shields and use any sensor system we wanted with no trade off decisions needed.

We ended this game with a sense of having wasted our time and felt bad we had talked two of our friends to drop a couple of generic tickets each to join us. At the end of our time block we ready for something fast paced and fun and hoped Space Hulk would fill the bill.

I'd being talk up Space Hulk to my buddies prior to the con. It's been a long time since I played it, but I remember a fun, easy to play bug hunt kind of game on a derelict space ship. Once again we did not get what we had hoped for.

When we arrived at the Warhammer area we found a number of Terminatiors and Genestealers set up at a pretty cool looking board. When the GM's arrived they promtlly moved the figures off the cool board and onto the table you see on the left. The table was setup in about 5 minutes with no apparent forethought to the game we were about to play.

We soon found out the guy running the game was a stand in for the actual GM who had called off sick. Later in the game we found out the GM was using 40k as the basis for the rules rather then the Space Hulk rules. All the cool stuff from the Space Hulk game had been removed (blip counters, limited command actions and over watch rules) and a really stupid rule was inserted: Genestealers were allowed to attack through walls. This rule, along with no over watch capability robbed the Space Marines the ability to set up a defensive perimeter or guard long hallways. This allowed the marines to be quickly surrounded and denied them the use of their long range firepower.

Three squads of Terminators were eliminated to a man in a matter of about four or five turns.

Needless to say we again left the table unsatisfied. I spent the next half hour apologizing for such a lame game and promised to buy a copy (somehow) and show them what a great game Space Hulk really is.

At this point we walked out of the minis room and took a break wandering the exhibit hall.

The exhibit hall proved to be far more enjoyable then the gaming of the late morning and early afternoon. There seemed to be more dealers in attendance this year and there were some good deals to be had.

During my wanderings I picked up a large number of defective Star Fleet minis (mostly Klingon and Star Fleet ships). I also bought a copy of the Star Fleet Battle Manuel (the game I should have played all morning).

After a bit of shopping and a food break we knew the evening event would be the fun to play, winner of a game we were looking for: WWII naval: The Battle Of Midway, played with a nifty double blind set up. I knew this would be a good game from the start because I'd played it before (see the Battlefields post) and the GM is a friend. He set the game up and told me to sign up for it ahead of time as a couple friends of ours had not been able to play at Battlefields.

Once again everyone playing had a great time. Movement was secret and took place on some fancy, Battleship like hex boards with units being placed on the table when enemy units came into contact with one another. Combat was straight forward and easy using the Axis and Allies naval rules.

Once again history repeated itself and the Japanese Navy was was unable to spot the American carries quickly enough to mount an attack. The American's however spotted the entire Jap navy on the first turn.

Unable to shake the American patrol planes wave after wave of dive bombers and torpedo planes attacked.

Two Jap carriers were sunk and The Enterprise was eventually spotted, but there was to little left for the Japanese to mount an effective strike.

At the end of the game session the Japanese had lost two carriers and number of other ships. The Americans had only lost a few aircraft. Clearly yet another American victory.

This game was a good time, its the kind of game that people walking by stop and watch. There were a number of people that stopped by to watch and provide input and even one guy that was having so much fun watching he was pressed into service as a GM's helper. If this game had run more then one session it would have easily been sold out for every session, truly a con favorite and a much need break from our earlier game let downs.

We then went for more Marzen.

Origins 2010

2010-07-03T15:51:00.000-04:00

Well we got back from Origins early last Sunday evening, but as the blog title suggests i'm lazy....hence the write up a week later.

We all agreed this year was by far our best year of gaming yet. We started gaming early Wednesday afternoon and played something everyday but Sunday. We hooked up with members of our growing entourage:

I'm the guy second from the left wearing glasses. The guy to my left are right are my travelling buddies.

We've met people from far and wide and seem to be growing our group every year. The two guys on the right are from Wisconsin and Texas.

And we've met friends from near our home and had to travel all the way to Columbus to meet them. In the picture on the right we met one guy from Indiana and two guys from Michigan. The guys from Michigan live within 15 minutes and one hour from us.

Connecting with these guys at the con is by far the biggest highlight of the event. They're a great bunch of gamers and game masters and a hell of a lot a fun to hang out with when the gaming is done for the night.

One of the things I noticed this year was the attendance on the first two days of the con seemed to be more heavily attended then past years. Friday and Saturday did not seem to be as busy as years past, especially as the day went on, but one of my friends told me the miniatures was in a lager hall then previous years and the larger room made it look like there were fewer people. Maybe but I'm not totally sold on it.

Click on the photo to see an enlarged view

This year I was tasked with registering the three of us and signing us up for all of our events, I guess my buddies wanted someone to blame if it went horribly wrong. After much frustration with the lack of pre-con registration information I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to quickly and easily create three accounts and register all three attendees for events when the time to pre-reg did com. I was again pleasantly surprised by how quickly we were able to obtain our badges and tickets once we got to the con, we were off to the games in about 15 minutes.

There wasn't much to choose from on Wednesday so I took a chance and picked an event based on title and description. Unfortunately it ended up being a case of blatant false advertising. I signed up for what sounded like it might be a fun, tongue and cheek kind of game with gangsters and ghouls, relying on the players knowledge of movie trivia to provide the cheese....it ended up being a Mage Knight game ptting players against each other while they tried to complete tasks based on moves. For instance I chose "The Godfather" as my movie (from about a dozen choices) and one of my missions was to kill the heads of all the other "families" (player groups). We were to then play a game of Mage Knight to complete the goals.

The idea was half baked and the GM's didn't seem to have thought the entire game through when they showed up.

Rather then walk away we held in and played the event out as best we could, but we would have prefered playing something else. I chose not to photograph the game and we moved on.

Later that night we played a Full Thrust Star Wars game put on by one of our entourage. I chose this game again due to the reduced offerings on Wednesday, but we've played Full Thrust with this guy more then a few times and have walked away happy every time.

The scenario this year was pretty straight forward for our table: New Republic forces had to destroy and Interdictor class Star Destroyer in order to hyper jump over to the next table and assist the Mon Calmari super ship in it's battle against a super Star Destroyer.

Unfortunately for our New Republic forces we found ourselves quickly engaged in a very messy dogfight and after several turns we found ourselves without fighter or bomber support and getting savaged by close range fire from powerful Imperial star ships.

Several of our capital ships were quickly lost (mostly from my command) with very little damage being done to the Imperial ships.

As the battle progressed we traded fire and I continued to drive toward the Interdictor in an attempt to complete the objective.

After losing most of my command in the drive I was able to move several cruisers into range and put some hits on the Interdictor. I very unlucky threshold roll by the Interdictors captain saw all four gravity generators damaged at the same time, unfortunately it was the last turn of the game and the only ship the New Republic would have been able to jump to the other battle was one of my very small destroyers that had somehow manged to avoid being hit by anything (mostly by hiding near larger, capital sized targets).

Fortunatlly for the other tables New Republic forces their super star ship captain was much more skilled and had much better die rolling and ended up not needing our help at all.

The GM's 18 year old son was running the game on our table and did a fantastic job. He knew the rules inside out and had no trouble explaining the rules to everyone playing, including the two younger kids on the Imperial side (probably 14 and 12 years old). Everyone had a great time no matter which side they were on.

The end of the game brought the end of gaming for us for the day and we adjourned to the Gordon Biersch Brewery for a few beers before retiring for the evening. If you ever find yourself in one these breweries make sure you get the Marzen, it's a fine tasting beer that goes down well with anything.

Full Thrust: An Easy To Play Starship Combat Game

2010-03-31T00:17:00.000-04:00

After having a great time with WWII I spent the afternoon playing one of my favorite games Full Thrust:

http://www.groundzerogames.net/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

and

http://www.star-ranger.com/FullThrust.htm

I must confess this was not my first choice for the afternoon. Another friend of mine was running a Darkest Africa game titled Gold Digger Jones and it looked like a blast. Unfortunately I waited to long to put my name on the list and it filled up in about 30 seconds. All is not lost however as he wants to run it one more time before Origins as a final play test. I cannot wait.

So as a consolation prize I signed up for the only game left. Surprisingly I was the first person to sign up and found out they were about to cancel the event for lack of interest. Luckily my friend from the Midway game signed up and a couple of people standing around decided if there were people signing up, they would too.

The scenario was loosely based on an episode titled Sacrifice of Angles from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_of_Angels

In the game a Federation fleet attempting to retake DS9 is pitted against Cardassian and Dominion ships defending the station and attempting to deactivate a minefield guarding the worm hole.

The game ran smoothly even though several people had to be taught the rules prior to starting.

The initial setup had the Cardassians on one side setup to defend DS9 with Dominion Allies using the planet Bajor as cover from the advancing Federation Fleet.

Early in the battle we noticed The Defiant and an escorting ship break off from the main Federation fleet and set course to make a high speed run behind Bajor. She appeared to be trying to exit the far table edge and stood out as a victory objective. Unfortunately for the Federation players we recognized the episode from the back story provided by the GM and decided to destroy the Defiant at all costs. The task was completed in one turn, by one volley of fire from the Dominion Battleship.

This cause much consternation among the Federation players, but the GM, not wanting his well planned scenario to be destroyed by a fan boy, changed the victory conditions and gave the Federation an opportunity to rescue Capitan Sisko as he floated away from his rapidly expanding command ship.

Due to gross navigational errors the Federation rescue ship zoomed passed and around a helpless Captain Sisko and decided it was just easier to turn all their guns on the Cardassians.

Needing only to hold the station for 10 turns the Cardassians held fast against heavy Federation fire (and bad die rolling) and waited for Dominion assistance.

After losing a Keldon Battleship and taking minor damage to several other ships the Federation fleet had moved close enough the Cardassians attempt to move past and around them.

More heavy fire (and bad die rolling) was suffered as the Cardassinas attempted their maneuver. At about the same time a Klingon relief force de-cloaked and joined the attack in support of the Federation.

The Cardassian fleet was completely destroyed a short time later, with several Dominion ships also lost. A brief boarding action was fought on DS9 and the Federation securing the station and maintaining the minefield outside the worm hole.

The only ship to escape was the Dominion battleship. It was just to slow to assist the Cardassians after waiting so long to engage the Defiant. The presence of a Shape-shifter on board dictated the battleship retreat after losing the station.

Everyone had fun with this game. It was well thought out and fairly balanced.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the stats used for the ships and the formula the GM used when designing them. I like the Star Trek universe for Full Thrust games, but have had trouble coming up with logically designed ship stats, these were the first I really like and hope to use them for future games.

The rest of my Full Thrust pics from Battlefields can be seen here: http://s862.photobucket.com/albums/ab190/screech0031/Battlefields%202010/

Battle Fields 2010

2010-03-30T11:56:00.005-04:00

Last weekend the Pro or Con guys <http://proorcon.net/index.htm> put on their spring con, Battlefields, at the U of M Dearborn. The con ran Friday night and Saturday all day, but I was only able to make the Saturday event. Friends who were only able to make the Friday night slot reported having a great time with some kind of Samurai battle.

I don't know the numbers, but the con looked very well attended and most, if not all the tables were filled with gamers. Event sign up was fast and furious. The Midway battle event I played in was actually filled up when I checked the signup sheets, fortunately I know the GM and fit me in.

The offerings were mostly historical (Napoleonic, WWII ground, air and naval combat, Samurai, ACW and many other periods) with a nice sprinkling of fantasy / sci-fi games were also offered (Warmachine, Full Thrust and Victorian era explorer). There were probably more fantasy / sci-fi games going on then I realized, but I was having so much fun with the games I was in I didn't wander very much. A few local vendors were present and there was a nicely attended paint and take event going on.

The early slot for me was The Battle of Midway. It was a very interesting game with double blind movement and combat based Axis and Allies. I previously wrote about this game a month or so ago when I was invited to play test it on one of our infrequent game nights.

I have to say my friend, the gm for this event, is an overachiever. He's the kind of gm you wish you were, but know your to lazy to live up to. When we play tested this game at his house we made all kinds of smart A@$ suggestions to "improve" his game. Stuff like laminating maps, putting magnets on the hidden map counters, building rotatable, hidden movement cases and finally improving game mechanics. Well true to his nature he took our suggestions in stride and then made every one of them happen.

The picture above is The GM and his hidden movement panels after assembly. Below are the panels prior to assembly. The cases were built to carry the maps, magnetic counters and rotating stands. They went together in about two seconds with simple latches and no tools. They were so well thought out the only thing we could say was no handles? and why aren't they stained? To which we were told the wood WAS tongue oiled and he didn't have time to put on the handles, but he does have them.

Heres a couple of pictures of the map in use:

When ships were sighted the models were placed on the table.

The most fun part of this game was not the combat, but the hidden movement. No individual player had control of any particular ship or group. All players made decisions about overall fleet movements and the pieces were moved on the the hidden map. It was actually more exciting to find out if you sent your search planes to the right part of the ocean then to actually play out the combat. After combat was completed the challenge became maintaining contact for follow up attacks.

The game took the four hours to play out and the Japanese fleet was again defeated, but faired better then the historical result: only two heavy carriers were lost and the support fleet was able to start shelling the island.

Everyone had a great time. In fact there were a few guys that wandered by and took so much interest in the game the hung around just to see what would happen next.

I have to say during our play test we made several game mechanic suggestions for future games. The GM did a very good job taking our suggestions and using them or improving on them in ways that really improved the flow of game play. This game is so easy to play it is easily suitable for younger kids under parental supervision and yet easily holds an adult players interest.

At the end of the day the only suggestions for improvement we could make were to provide push rods to move the pieces around the main game map and build a catwalk around the game table so the players can look down on the map!

All this is a great con game. If your going to Origins I'd make sure I got a ticket for this one.

Here are the rest of the pictures from Battlefields. I'll be adding a post on the Full Thrust game later tonight.

http://s862.photobucket.com/albums/ab190/screech0031/Battlefields%202010/?

More pictures for Warhammer Dark Ages and WWII naval

2010-03-07T12:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to the rest of the pictures for the Warhmmer Dark Ages and WWII naval game:

http://s862.photobucket.com/home/screech0031/index

Warhammer Dark Ages and WWII Naval

2010-03-07T01:28:00.000-05:00

I got to play some Warhammer Dark Ages for the first time recently and really enjoyed it.

If you've ever played Warhammer Fantasy Battles before this game will be very familer, it's essentially WFB without magic and monsters.

I've played very few historical games in the past and I can't really compare any historical systems with the Warhammer system.

I'm sure fans of historical gaming may point out that the Warhammer system is not historically accurate. Fortunately I'm not to concerned about historical accuracy. I'm more then happy to sacrifice accuracy and realism for smoother game play and thats pretty much what I found in this game. Game play was easy to learn lots of die rolling to keep you guessing.

Different troop types had different strengths and weaknesses that came into play throughout the battle. Cavalry was hard hitting in a charge, the Vikings had berserker's and blood thirsty troops that could cause tremendous damage if they could get into melee combat. These strengths were balanced out in different ways. One of my Viking units was equipped with two hand weapons and could then double their attacks once in melee combat. These were balanced out by a weak unit of slingers that practically wiped them out as they crossed the battlefield.

The scenario we played was set up as Vikings against Normans, with heroes bearing names like Harold, William and Sven the Beer Belly (I think).

Over all I enjoyed this game. I don't see myself picking up the rules, but I would definitely play this game with frineds or at a con.

If you own this game and figures you could easily use them as an Empire, Britonian or Norse army with a few additions such as wizards, monstrous hosts etc.

After the Dark Ages game we played a WWII naval game created by our host.

His game is based on Axis and Allies and set up for double blind movement to introduce an element of uncertainty. Each side had a hex map representing the main, full sized battle area and counters representing ships and aircraft.

As combatants detect each other their models are placed on the main battle map where battles are played out.

We had a lot of fun trying this game out and our host graciously listened to our suggestions for possible improvements in game play.

The double blind movement scheme was the most interesting aspect of this game. It forced players to really consider how best to their limited search resources in order to find the enemy. Once the enemy was found players would have to figure out how to conduct an attack while at the same time protect their own ships for enemies seen and unseen.

The game mechanics were easy to learn and only thing this game really needed was some polish to work out minor details; I see this game becoming con favorite.

Thats all for now,

Screech

2010-01-24T14:52:00.009-05:00

Well I managed to get some time to play a quick game of Dungeons and Dragons Minis last night.

It was a simple one room map with some blood stone in the center. The objective was easy: kill they other guy's war band.

The war bands were basically Orc vs. Drow with a few extra figures mixed in to even up the sides.

At first the battle looked like it was going to be all Orcs, but a big turning point came when Troglodyte Champion was able to pull several enemies around him and then deal out some serious damage to each in the same turn.

In the end the Drow won the day with most of the band surviving. They did lose their most powerful commander however.

This was the first battle we played using some dungeon floor tiles I constructed using the Hirst Arts Molds (mold #203 cracked floor) and can be found at: http://www.hirstarts.com/

The tiles were very easy first project for me.

Casting the tiles using the wet water method shown on the website was easy and gave great results.

Once cast I glued four tiles to a piece of Masonite.

I made sure the Masonite square was slightly smaller then two of the floor tiles placed side by side. This ensures the floor tiles will sit right up against the other tiles and eliminates gaps.

Once all the tiles were glued to Masonite I simply primed the tiles black and dry brushed on a coat of gray. I played around with adding a black wash to some of the tiles, but I didn't like they way they turned out and stopped after only a few. The different shades of gray actually worked out in my favor as once the tiles are placed side by side they have an irregular appearance.

I decided not to make walls on the complete floors tiles for a few reasons: first it makes construction much simpler by not adding complication of walls. Second it makes it easier to use large figures that may have large weapons, arms or appendages sticking out from the figure. And lastly I believe not having walls makes the tiles more flexible when it comes to laying the dungeon out on the table; tiles can be used for rooms as well as hallways.

I liked using the tiles so much I'm planning on casting more. I'm thinking it'd be fun to set up an entire dungeon floor plan and do a dungeon crawl using the minis rules for simplicity and speed of play.

To same some time on future casting I'm going to experiment with adding dye to the water so the tiles end up cast in a black rather then cream color. Hopefully it will eliminate an entire step and save me from having to paint the floor tiles with multiple coats of paint (the plaster drinks it up).

I'm also planning on making some complete rooms using the cracked floor tile mold as well as some special rooms using floor tile mold #201.

If anyone has any suggestions or tips for modeling more tiles or rooms please leave me a comment, I'm always looking for new and different ideas.

Screech

2009-09-14T22:53:00.014-04:00

Well it's been a few weeks since my last game night. The event was attended by my regular gaming pals as well as some good guys we met a few years ago at Origins.

Our first even was a Full thrust game I put on. I must say I had the intention of running a good game, but things went south when I realized I had forgotten some of the rules.....and as the game progressed the lesson to be learned for the next game came into focus: Scenario Balancing.

It turns out with Full thrust picking fleets based on the hull class size printed in the book is a bad idea. Ships that seemed balanced ended up having LOTS of firepower and ships that seemed very well equipped died very quickly in the cold of space....

Also I found it's a good idea to chose a ship model that roughly appears to have the strength of the ship on the stat sheet....big ships should have big models......

One last thing I learned is that as much as I like a hex less battlefield, the hexes just make the game easier to play....next time I'll have a hexed star map to aid in keeping the game going smoothly.

Thorough it all my friends were gracious and made light hearted jokes about either being severely out numbered or over dominating and they had a good time...at least that's the story they stuck with.....

I promise a better game next time.....

The figures used were a mix of repainted Micro Machines, plastic Star Blazer models, lead minis from the the original Traveller game and a smattering of old GZG minis.

The space station is a few styrofoam balls glued to a plastic candy container I've had in my bits box for at least 20 years. The very large freighter is a plastic model I picked up somewhere along the way. Neither the station or freighter had any bearing on the game, they were just window dressing.

The game was a simple meeting engagement. It ended up being very lop-sided in force structure and the force with the large, blue battleship was heavily out gunned. All major ships of that force were destroyed and a number of smaller ships were also blown away. The side with the big green battle ship on the other hand lost very few (if any) ships and never really had to even get close to deal out some serious damage.

Next time I'll spend a little more time looking at the point values of the ships on both sides.

Our second game was the fun WWI air combat game Blue Max. It was the saving grace of the night as my buddy brought all the stuff we needed to play and even remembered the rules!

The airplane models are plastic and pre-built and painted (I forget the line) and attached to the stand by flexible tubing (there is a nub on the model's underside). The stands are extendable mirrors, with the mirrors removed and screwed onto a wooden hex base.

Whole thing looks great and works very well. I'm thinking that I'm going to base my Check Your Six minis this way, but instead of tubing I'm going to put a magnet at the top of the stand.

I have to apologize for the poor pictures. I had a hard drive malfunction about two weeks after the game. As fate would have it my backup system failed me because of my tinkering and I lost every picture of the game and about 2000 photos I took at an air show a week later.....I may be able to recover them, but it's iffy at best.

Fortunately I uploaded these few pics to my Face book account and so have something to post.

Live and learn.

Take care.

Screech

2009-08-04T18:04:00.012-04:00

Well I've finally gotten around to posting the second half of my Origins trip, apparently I'm holding true to the title of my blog.....

Friday started a little rough for me as I had drank a lot the night before....but my insane friend talked me into going for a jog at 6:30am as a way

of shaking off the effects of previous nights festivities.....It worked, but it hurt until about noon......

On Friday I skipped a second run at the Warhammer Siege game we played on Thursday and set some time aside for some shopping, but first I stopped by the auction and entered several items I've had laying around for some time including ASL supplement I'd never opened cause I don't own ASL and never played the game, A mint in box Air War (by SPI) game I bought cause I wanted a second copy for "collector value" down the road and a copy of Luftwaffe my buddy wanted to part with.

After parting with those items it was off to the exhibition hall.

I don't know if I'm getting older or what, but I had a bunch of money in my pocket and permission from my wife to spend it, but all I did was wander around looking at stuff.

There were alot of vendors with some very nice stuff for sale. I really liked the Battlestar Galactica minis that were new at the Iron Wind Metals booth and there were a lot of nice minis at the Reaper booth. There were also lots of other interesting looking supplements, play aids, modules and OOP stuff, but I just didn't see anything that was a must have for me. I didn't even buy my yearly set of con dice from Chessix. The previous night must have done more damage then I realized.....

After lunch we did a little light gaming: an introduction game of Battletech.

I've been playing Battletech since the late 80's when it was Battledroids so this game really didn't hold to much excitement for me, but a couple of my buddies have played once or twice or not at all so it was an easy intor for them. I'm sure they really enjoyed it that much, but I think they would have more fun with a full blown game. The intro was really stripped down to the point where the stuff that makes Battletech the game i

t is was missing. I'll have to setup a game for them at my place and call in some old Battletech pals.....

Looking back I guess I didn't do much on Friday. We wandered around a bit, had some dinner then went wandering the nearby Columbus Community Festival. There was a huge turn out for the fest and based on what I saw everyone was having a good time drinking, getting high, being naked and listening to some music. It really wasn't my taste, but it seemed like everyone was having fun. Then it was off to the bar for us, we just couldn't bring ourselves to drink Bud Lite when there was so much micro brew around....

We had another great night of partying and managed to bring out friends that had previously been out with us and some friends we met at the con (who we found lived only about 10 minutes away from our home town and put on a local con: Battlefields by the Pro or Con gaming club). We closed the bar and the hotel lounge and then dropped very hard onto the bed that night.

Saturday morning came far to early and it hurt.

My self loathing friend dragged himself out of bed again and went running at 7am...I was not so fortunate. Lying in bed it seemed a good idea, but then I sat up....the room spun and decided "No" and laid back down.

I didn't get up again until noon on Saturday.

After a late lunch of wonderfully greasy fried food I found my friends and wandered the exhibit hall again. We hung out with some of our con buddies, catching up and talking about gaming.

Later that afternoon we played a great game called Check Your 6. Our new friends put on the game and it was a blast.

Check Your 6 (CY6) is a World War 2 air combat game that is very easy to play. We had at least four guys playing that had never played before and had the basic rules figured out in about 10 minutes. There are not to many charts and the stands the aircraft are mounted on have neat little dials that give you speed and altitude info at a glance.

The scenario was simple: Eagle against the Sun, shoot the other guy down.

The Americans had two different aircraft types: F4u Corsairs and F6F Hellcats. The Japanese had a mixed bat of Zeros, Oscars and Tony's...I was the only one with the Tony's.

I got a lucky break early on and got behind a Corsair.

I made short work of the Corsair, blowing it out of the sky in one turn.

From that point on I was fighting defensively. Even with simple game mechanics the game did a very good job of representing the differing ways the aircraft fought. My Tony's were great in a turning fight, but had trouble regaining speed after a climb. The Americans on the other hand fought very well in the vertical; climbing with easy and having enough energy left over to press an attack. I was pleasantly surprised to see that having a basic knowledge of fighter tactics was easily translated in game terms.

As the game went on I had more and more trouble maneuvering into firing position. Every time I thought I might be able to turn on a Corsair they would climb away, leaving me without the energy I needed to press the attack.

After several turns of hard maneuvering one of my planes was hit in the wing, damaging the aileron and restricting my turning ability.

My aircraft and a surviving Oscar formed up for a run on one the remaining Corsairs in our area,

which was joined by a number of Corsairs and Hellcats coming to assist after having shot down their opposition.

Sensing a bad situation I dove my damaged aircraft into the cloud deck and out of the fight. A few turns later we found ourselves surrounded and called the game.

All in all we had a great time with this game. The total engagement lasted about two hours of real time and about 12 or 14 turns of game time. There was a lot of maneuvering for position and some interesting combat.

I enjoyed this game so much I went right to the exhibition hall and bought the game. Actually one of my con buddies basically dragged me up to the Skirmish Campaigns booth, pulled my wallet out of my pocket and paid the cashier for the rule book and a boxed set of pre-painted aircraft. OK so he really didn't reach into my pocket or take money out of my wallet, but it was about as close to that as you can get.....

This game has a lot of play value and can be very inexpensive compared to some other games. 1/300th aircraft models are pretty cheap and available in wide variety. Putting them together and painting them reminds me of my airplane model building days of youth and I'm looking forward to collecting them.

After that it was dinner and hanging out in the minis hall while my buddies went back to the community fest. I was physically recovered from the previous night, but to traumatized to go back into the sun and crowd a second time.

A couple of hours just sitting around and talking to a con friend from Wisconsin was the break I needed when I received the call to the brewery. I went easier Saturday night, ended up having a great night out and had a much easier time getting up Sunday morning.

Sunday came to early and held one more surprise for us.

Apparently someone (based on my training and experience an insider) stole the auction companies computer during the night. This loss caused mass confusion and frustration both for auction workers and sellers wanting to get paid.

Fortunately I knew my items weren't going to make me rich and talked the company into just sending me a check instead of waiting in line to get paid cash. A few days after getting home I had the feeling I wasn't ever going to see my money, which was OK considering I knew it was a small sale, but was surprised to find a check for the full amount in my mailbox just yesterday (August 4th). I gotta give credit to Toad and Troll here (http://www.trollandtoad.com/), they came though in a tough situation.

We wandered the exhibition hall for a short time and then decided it was time to go home. Even though we reached that decision, we realized we had had such a good time that waiting a year to come back was going to be tough.

We had a great time and look forward to next years con. In the mean time the home town friends we met put on a local con we didn't know about called Battlefields. The con is held in Dearborn Michigan and is only about a 15 minute drive from home. It should be a nice winter time break and we look forward to attending.

Since Origins I haven't had any time to game, but I've been working on some terrain and will be posting that story next (hopefully soon....)

Take care,

Screech

2009-07-13T23:20:00.003-04:00

Origins 2009

Well it's been about two weeks since I got back from Origins and I'm just now getting around to posting. Well at least the blog title fits.

The short story is I drove down with a couple of friends and we stayed at the Hyatt. It's connected directly to the convention center and this proved to be an extraordinary example of foresight as the days went on…..

Early on we were able to reconnect with friends we've met and gamed with in previous years and some we've been able to game with even after the con was over. This alone was worth showing up early for.

Events started early on Wednesday morning, but there was very little to choose from as most people were showing up/setting up that day. We did sign up for a Mage knight game that evening and had a reasonably good time.

I've never played this game before, but I have played Heroclix a few times; the guys I was with have played Heroclix many, many times. After a few turns it became clear that the rules system did not fit the number of figures involved in the game…there were just too many pieces with too many different powers.

The scenario was simple: the Giants were unhappy they were not invited into the castle for cupcakes. They decided they were coming in anyway. On the inside of the castle a confusing array of forces (mostly undead, some kind of demons and some crazy looking creatures) decided the Giants were not welcome.

The game moved slowly and really bogged down when the giants forced their way through the castle walls.

Eventually time ran out and we decided the giants would probably take the cupcakes as we'd only managed to kill one giant before the walls came down.

We had fun playing, but came to the conclusion the game would have been far more fun using Warhammer Fantasy rules (regiment level) instead of the Mage Knight (individual / skirmish level) system.

That being said we liked the guys we were playing against and they ended up going out for dinner and beers with us after the game was over.

The convention / arena district in downtown Columbus has proven over the years to be as much fun as the convention. There were a number of restaurants and micro breweries to choose from. This year we spent most of our non gaming time in the arena district…at one of two places for the most part: Gordon Biersch Brewery and Barley's Brewing Company. Both places are within walking distance of the convention center and both have great beer. Personally I preferred the food at Barley's, but the food was good at both locations. I didn't take any pictures at either location because I prefer not to document the scene of the crimes.....

Thursday brought much more gaming and due to my buddies inability to come to grips with me being a night person and his over consumption of caffeine, it started early and lasted all day, with few breaks…..

We started out with a huge Warhammer Fantasy siege game.

This game was put on by the Old World Warriors and it was the second time we've signed up for it. These guys have great terrain and figures and they always do everything they can to make sure the game runs smoothly.

In this battle the forces of chaos are attempting to enter the castle and destroy the humans inside.

This year brought two new siege engines, one we dubbed "the chaos bong"

And second earned the nicknamed "Dynamo Hum"

This game lasted six hours. We ran out of time, but the human gunnery was poor at best and the forces of chaos were coming over the walls at the end….it would not have gone well for the humans….

We had a lot of fun with this game…so much so that my two buddies played it again on Friday. I was supposed to be there, but I wanted to do some shopping.

After a very short bathroom break we got into a WWI game titled "Verdun".

We were really looking forward to this one. This was another game put on by the Old World Warriors and last year everyone playing it was having a blast. We were unable to get tickets that time, but this year we got tickets and found ourselves up against a group of pre-teens that were talking some serious smack.

We made it our mission to school them.

The teeny boppers were the French and set up in two trench lines, supported by several machine guns and bunkers.

The most fun part of this game was the artillery phase. Instead of plotting targets and rolling to hit and for scatter we were given a number cotton balls which we then threw at the battlefield. Any figure being struck by a cotton ball was killed. If a certain number of cotton balls hit a bunker it would collapse and the troops inside would have to make a roll to see if they got out in time…..it was a blast (pun intended).

Our force had to rush across an open battlefield, cut through a line of barbed wire half way across the field and then assault the first trench line. All while facing machine gun, rifle and artillery fire from the defending French.

Realistic so far…..

Our preparatory bombardment proved to be very effective and destroyed a bunker and a number of infantry. Our artillery remained effective throughout the game, mainly due to the dart throwing experience of one our comrades….. Effective use of the available terrain also played a major part in saving countless German lives. The continued smack talk and apparent lack of respect for the referee caused us to find loop holes….so we placed out troops on the edges of the craters and not in them. This allowed the cotton balls to settle in the craters, out of contact with our troops.

Our troops easily cut the barbed wire and made the first trench line with very few casualties. In the words of the referee "I've never seen this many Germans make it to the first trench".

When we arrived at the first trench line we had most of our elite storm troopers and all of our flame throwers intact.

The French MG's were silenced and the defending troops swept away in short order. The Germans then began moving into the communication trenches for an assault on the second trench line. At this point the French had very little left and were unable to bring effective fire onto the Germans.

In the end time ran out (it was a two hour game) and we gave the Teeney's…errrr French a draw with the proviso that if the game had run longer it would have been an overwhelming German victory due to the number of troops left for the assault.

All in all a great game, I have to give the kids credit for playing a historical game, but it was clear they needed more respect for their opponents and the referee.

After a break for dinner and a few beers we came back for a light hearted, homemade Wild West shoot'em up called Vaquero.

We decided the game was going to take place in a little town called Rock Ridge and we spend the game quoting our favorite lines from Blazing Saddles…at least the ones we could repeat in public….and just about any other spaghetti western we could remember.

We had a great time with this game. Everyone playing got into spaghetti western satire tone we set when we first showed up; basically it was two hours of laughter with a small amount of game play intermingled.

The referee offered to send me a PDF of the rules he's put together and when I hear from him, I'll ask him if he minds me posting them.

We ended the night connecting with friends from Texas we'd met a previous year. I was told later by people not connected with that nights festivities that loud noises were coming from the lounge and the entire hotel had heard us....YES…..SUCSESS!!!!!

So ended Thursday.

2009-05-28T15:17:00.001-04:00

More Warhammer Fantasy

Since the forces of the Empire took such a beating last battle I felt a rematch was in order, but I wanted to have some kind of continuance from the first battle.

For this scenario the orcs would be escorting a Chaos Sorcerer and his body guard across the battlefield and through a specific landmark.

The Chaos Scorcer was required to pass between the two stone pillars and off the table edge. The Empires job was to simply stop them.

Now I know what you're thinking. The Chaos Scorcer and his champion are going to cut those fools from the Empire down like spring grass….but there was a catch, the Scorecer was not allowed to use any magic at all. His magic will be needed in the next game and so he'd have to hold back until we play that one (hopefully before the end of the summer).

So the stage was set and the armies squared off. Both were evenly matched points wise at about 3000 or so (2^nd edition army list). No magic over 2^nd level spells is allowed and no magic items were given to either side.

This may seem boring to guys who play a lot of Warhammer, but I've found that spells over 2^nd level tend to be really powerful at take away the fun part of moving figures around the table. Also I like using the 2^nd edition rules set for several reasons: 1) I own them 2) I learned to play with them a long time ago 3) I like that all the rules are contained in a mere two books and 4) they better emphasize units and unit combat over massive heroes. And since I don't get to play very often I'm going to stick with what I know.

As the armies came together the Empire cavalry attempted to move from their right to the center. Unfortunately the goblins did a disturbingly good job of crushing them with a stone thrower:

An orc wizard cast a mystic mist in front of the light cavalry and slowed any attempt at a charge into the far weaker goblin line of archers. As the goblins continued to cause causalities out of all proportion to their actual strength, the distinct sound of wild parting could be heard coming from the hill the goblins were holding:

The orc center moved relentlessly forward and the Empire made a desperate attempt to move its heavier infantry units to intercept:

Unfortunately they were too slow and stopped without slowing the orc right:

The orc right made contact with the Empire left and began pushing the pike guards back:

A shining light of hope from two units of Dwarvish allies stopped a flanking charge by orc wolf riders and an infantry charge:

At 0345am the game was called on account of excessive drunkenness and sleep deprivation.

The situation for the Empire looks grim, but not completely hopeless as Princess Lenor makes a desperate charge toward the Chaos Sorcerer……

Hopefully I'll be able to get a couple of the guys back over here to finish the game. I was able to leave the table set up and unchanged for two weeks so far.

Will the Empire be able to hold out?

Will Princess Lenor be able to stop the Chaos Sorcerer?

Will the orcish die rolling demon be able to continue his hot streak after two weeks of no die rolls?

Stay tuned.

Screech

2009-04-12T22:27:00.001-04:00

This is what lichen is supposed to look like:

This is what it looks like when you think your smart and you add a little water to keep it from getting crunchy and then store it in a dark box and cool room for five months:

Here's a better shot of the science project that awaited me after I watered my crispy lichen and put it in a plastic bag for a few months:

If anyone has some suggestions on how to keep lichen (reindeer moss) from getting all dried out and crispy I'd like to hear from you. My attempt left me with about four bags of wasted material.

New Basement Carpet

2009-02-24T18:49:00.001-05:00

Its been some time since I've had anything to post about. School has been taking up a large portion of my free time and I've been trying to study for a promotional test whenever I get time. Hopefully I'll have some time in May to do some more gaming.

In the mean time, my wife and I have manged to get the basement carpeted and here are some before and after pictures.

These first two are pics of the main gaming area. I have four, 4'x4' tables I made and clamp together to make one large 8'x8' table or one 4'x16' or some other combonation.

Before:

After:

These next two are of the desks we made for our computers and my workbench on the right.

And this is the area I set aside for my wife and her scrapbooking:

We couldn't decide on what color carpet we wanted so we used the dog:

The installers came in and installed the carpet in about three hours and did a fine job. It looks great and gives the basement a more finished look. The floor is warmer and softer and we noticed its quieter then the bare concrete. We'll have to get some plastic floor mats for our office chairs, but we really like it. It's just more comfortable in the basement.

I'll be getting the tables back up soon (hopefully) and look forward to doing some more gaming (again hopefully).

Take care,

Screech

2008-11-30T22:24:00.000-05:00

A couple of friends and I played a game of Warhammer Fantasy (2nd edition) last Saturday night.

Its been a long time since we played and I threw the scenario together at the last minute (I was still pulling figures out of their boxes when the guys showed up), but it lasted well into the night and we had a good game.

Unfortunately for me I forgot to take pictures as we went and the battle was already joined when I remembered.

The scenario was pretty basic: The orcs are on the move and The Empire has sent a force to meet them. Unfortunately the elvish scouting party sent to act as a delaying force was severally outnumbered and unable to warn the Empire soon enough.

The scenario started with the orcs deployed and chasing the elves down a road running across the battlefield. The Empire forces moving up to aid the elves are caught to soon on the road and forced to deploy from a road travel march.

The battle went pretty badly for the Empire. The elves bow fire was fairly ineffective and the unit was caught and pinned down by a fast moving unit of ogres (go figure). The elves day just got worse from there. Robbed of the use of their bows they were forced into a slugging match that slowly bled off their strength. A short time later a unit of elite orc fighters joined the orgers and slow beat the elves into a pulp, the commander held out the longest and took many orcs with him, but time was not on his side.

Farther up the road things weren't going well for the forces of the Empire. Forced to deploy from a road march faster units took up positions on the front that would later be their downfall. A fast moving, light calvary unit was decimated by bow fire as it charged a unit of orc archers and finished off a short time later.

A heavy calvary unit began what looked like a valiant charge into the center of the orc line, but was surprised by goblin ball and chain fanatics and completely destroyed.

At the rear of the Empire line the Riekscannon attempted to guard the flanks, but were easily over run by a fast moving unit of goblin wolf riders.

And things went from bad to worse for the Empire.

Orc units pinned the remains of the Empire forces in the center and began moving in from the left and right. Orc wolf rides attacked a crossbow on the left firing from a tree line and forced them back to a position they were unable to offer supporting fire. Orgers detached from the Elvin slaughter charged over a hill and attacked a second crossbow unit supporting on the right.

An Empire Reiksguard unit moving up the road failed to deploy soon enough and was charged by orc spear men.

At this point everything the Empire had was fully engaged and the army commander was engaged in battle in an effort to keep his remaining troops from running from the Field. The orc commander had several fresh and unengaged units moving up and a largely untouched goblin archer unit providing supporting fire.

A look at the clock showed 0230 and at that point it was realized the Empire was in a hopeless position. The orcs superior numbers and surprisingly effective leadership ruled the day. It was determined by all commanders that very little would be escaping the battlefield alive. The Empire villages down the road will be facing some very confident orcs and goblins in the near future and will have very little warning.

All and all a very good night of gaming. Like I said it had been a long time since I last played and we did a lot of thumbing through rule books to make sure we were doing things right, but we had a good time. It was a nice change for the Full Thrust we had been playing the last few time we had gotten together and we're hoping to do some more in the near future.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some gaming on vacation around the holidays.

Take care,

Screech.

Tim’s Formula De

2008-11-19T15:36:00.000-05:00

Here are some pics of some Formula One race cars for the game Formula De.

These figs belong to a buddy of mine and have been in my basement, unpainted (go figure) for some time. Ral Partha (now Iron Wind Metals) is the manufacturer and for what they used for they are pretty nice.

The painting seemed easy at first, glued to styrene sheet, prime black, dry brush white and then add color.

For a more skilled painter these small figs would probably be very easy and fast to paint....for me it was a little different. My huge hands had trouble moving the brush around to paint only small details and they didn't come out as I really wanted, but I think they'll do.

For those of you that have never played Formula De your missing out. Its an easy to play board game of Formula One racing. There may be other types of racing mods out there for this game, but I'm not aware of them.

The board looks like a race track and you use different color dice to determine how many squares you move as well as what gear your in.

I've been told the game is out of print, but may be coming out in a new edition (not sure when).

They guy I painted these figs for is an old Car Wars fan and was one of the creative forces for the CADC. He and the other creative force behind the CADC came up with a Car Wars type mod for Formula De. I've played it once and I have to say it preserves the essence of both games nicely. Its easy and fast to play like Formula De and it has all the destruction of Car Wars.

I don't normally like to publish the names of my family and friends so you'll have to check back to see if they check in and ID themselves.

Take care,

Screech

New Blog Title

2008-10-29T14:32:00.000-04:00

A few months ago a friend at work was dogging me about my blog and told me I was the laziest blogger he'd ever seen.

I had to agree with him and right then I realized "The Lazy Blogger" was the perfect title for my blog....it sets the right tone for others to form reasonable expectations.....

I've been busy with school the last few months (read: I'm lazy) and haven't done much worth blogging about.....Now that my major assignment for the class is over I should have something worth writing about. Until then here are some pics of a game of modified Mechwarrior I was part of in September.

This is a Union class dropship. The guy putting on the game scratch built this thing and it looked great, it even had magnetic patches to allow for different unit or house markings for different games.

The figures we were using are the vinyl mechs from WizKids Mechwarrior game. Overall they look good. They are much larger then the metal mechs I'm used to, but theres less work required and you don't have to worry about breaking them through normal use.

I really liked the buildings he used for the urban terrain. They look good and durable. The were made using wood blocks (2x4's) screwed together and tooled to make nice and straight sides. Paper facades were then glued onto the blocks and the tops painted. Simple and effective. He got the facades from GermsWorld: http://www.germy.co.uk/6mmbuildings.htm

I've played a lot of Battletech in the past and love the game. I've tried WizKids clicky Mechwarrior once as a demo at Gencon and didn't care for it at all, but I was pleasantly surprised by this version.

The host modified the rules so all units could move every turn (my big complaint with the original game) and he modified some of the combat rules to simplify play. This allowed the game to move along with very little discussion of rules and made it easy to learn; two guys playing never played Mechwarrior before and only played Battletech once or twice in the past and were up and running in about 15 minutes.

Overall the game was fun, moved along nicely and came to a reasonable conclusion in four hours. We were able to play a second game, eat dinner and drive home (an hour drive) by 1am.

A good night of honest gaming. I'm looking forward to more in the future.

Well that's all for now.

I'm planning on having some figures painted up soon and a few terrain pieces completed in the next couple of weeks (laziness not withstanding).

Take care,

Screech

12 Ships painted up, ready for clear coat.

2008-08-20T00:06:00.000-04:00

Well it took me longer then the two weeks I was hoping for and I didn't get them all done, but here are the first 12 ships.

I primed them black because I wanted the panel lines to show up really well. I then dry brushed the whole ship silver, sorta like it just came out of the factory. I then dry brushed white to improve the color I was going to add. The main color was then dry brushed on and some highlights were added to some of the ships. I added a few dots of different colors here and there and finally painted the canopies gold, kind of like a stealth fighter look.

The flight stands are standard plastic flight stands, glued to a steel washer. The washer does a great job of lowering the center of gravity. Add to that the light weight of the plastic fig and it very hard to knock these things over with a table bump.

Overall I'm happy with the results.

I could have spent more time on them, but my buddy kept reminding me these are going to be playing pieces and I shouldn't go overboard.

He's got some metal minis for the same game ordered and I've painted a few of the metal ships in the past. The metal minis seem to look a little better, but I think that's fairly true when comparing metal and plastic minis.

All that's left are a couple of coats of clear coat and shot of dull coat and they'll be defending the space lanes by Thursday.

I think he's chomping at the bit to use them in a game and I think they'll do just fine.

2008-08-04T15:29:00.000-04:00

I recently attended Origins Game Convention in Columbus Ohio with friends.

We had a great time and did a lot of gaming with some really great people.

Most of our gaming was star ship combat games; modified Star Wars Full Thrust, Federation Commander, Silent Death and Full Thrust.

My buddy fell in love with Silent Death (he's an old ICE fan) and bought some ship figs even though he should not legally be allowed to paint anything.....

As a gesture of friendship (cause he usually provides the beer) I've offered to paint the ships up for him, despite the tons of unpainted lead I have collecting dust in my basement.

So far I've based and primed the figures and I'll be painting them four at a time (flight lead and wing man, two ships for each side).

In the interest speed I've decided to prime black and dry brush white (to allow for lighter highlights). Them I'm going to dry brush on a coat or two to color and finish with a few small details.

I'm hoping this project will be over in about two weeks (quick for me), but we shall see.

Over all the figures look pretty good.

They are plastic, but there seems to be a fair amount of detail and not a lot of flash. I must confess I didn't go to great pains to remove all the flash, just the major stuff.

I'll post more pics of the ships as I complete them.