[GZG] [ECC] Con Report/AARs (long)

I had a great time at the con, and want to thank the usual suspects  
(Indy, Jerry, Jon) for running it so smoothly, everyone I mooched  
minis off of to run my game (too numerous to name), and the GMs of  
all the scenarios, and Carl Scheu for being there with emergency game  
supplies when needed. Special thanks to Rick Rutherford for running  
the painting workshop, which my son Zev really appreciated.

Zev also had a great time, and I appreciate everyone's patience and  
tolerance with having a youngster around. He's gotten more self  
sufficient and interested in his own stuff over the last year (being  
able to read really helps!), but still ran into the occasional	
tiredness/boredness/frustratedness roadblocks. He tells me he had a  
great time, overall.

Saturday morning, I played in Jon's FT3 playtest game. I had a NAC  
force that pretty much flew into the teeth of the opposing FSE/ESU,  
experiencing time on target with two SML waves. The good news is that  
one wave of 6 SML's zeroed in on one of my CL's and exhausted itself  
by destroying each individual molecule of the CL with 450% overkill.  
My Battlecruiser fared better - only dying with around 100% overkill.  
Concentrated anti-missile fire could never have been enough against  
twelve salvoes (and I was just out of range of some allied ships with  
ADS systems. I thought the damage profile of the test missile system  
was a little high, but I think that was tweakable. I survived with a  
CL and a damaged CE, and the FSE/ESU got the upper had on the NAC/NSL  
in this game. But it was certainly enjoyable, and the new rules  
tested looked overall pretty good. During the morning session Zev,  
who had bought himself a box of B5 Minbari ships, went to the  
Painting workshop and Rick helped him get started painting his	
smaller ships. He was very pleased with the results so far.

Saturday afternoon was Joel Frock's Destroy All Fogres, and Zev and I  
each had a Fogre, as did Jon Davis and Stuart Murray. Jon had the  
weather-beaten, "experienced" Fogre - Think Roz from Monster's Inc.  
and Stewart had Darth Fogre - flat black and Eeeevil. Zev had the  
Smiley Fogre, and I had Captain Fogre the psychotic patriot. The  
personalities were really just gravy for the rampage as we leveled  
the city and each other. Destroying buildings was extremely  
satisfying, as were squishing cars, annihilating tanks, and gunning  
down troops. I was masterfully conned by Jon into a mistake that cost  
my my last secondaries (Stewart hat blown up my Primary rather	
earlier). Sadly, Zev ended the game with low score and his Fogre self- 
immolated in the wonderful mushroom cloud that Joel had built. This  
cloud saw quite a bit of action later in the con, as will be seen  
when more photos start appearing. Despite the self destruction, this  
was Zev's favorite event at the Con.

Zev and I ordered dinner from the hotel, which turned out to be a big  
mistake - the food was woefully late - like an hour - and half of it  
wasn't even what we ordered. Nevertheless we survived, and got back  
just in time for the Painting contest results. I had entered a tank  
group in the SG section and a New Israeli fleet (DN, BDH, BB, BC, CH,  
CE) - which *won* the fleet mini competition. !!. I was totally  
floored. I was dim enough not to bring my camera this time, but I  
believe images of the contest entries are coming soon.

Sat. eve was the game I ran - The Battle of Titan: Human vs. KV late  
in the Siege of Sol.. 8 players and over 16,000 CPV of ships -	
nothing smaller than a heavy cruiser. I had some terrain in there -  
Saturn's rings - but initial player setups pretty much allowed them  
to ignore it. We tried out several new/playtest things. We had the UN  
with Grasers, the New Israelies with Stealth, and a new initiative  
system designed to balance larger and smaller ships, which I think  
worked out pretty well. The sceario was designed with the KV having a  
firepower advantage, and thus the Humans were really destined to  
lose. However, the humans had _smoking_ hot dice in the first real  
combat round - turn 4 saw the bulk of both sides *just* inside 18 MU  
of each other - critical for both the KV K-Guns and the UN Grasers.  
Grant LaDue (I think!) was ESU and scored on the order of 25 points  
with around 20 beam dice - twice. Carl Scheu with a flotilla of NSL  
BC's also dished out better thatn 1 damage/beam die several times  
from his wall. This was utterly necessary for the humans not to be  
flayed alive, given the array of K5's and K6's they were facing,  
where 1 hit would almost always do at least 10 points of damage.
Time ran out after the humans and KV had passed through one another.  
The humans needed to disengage, since the surviving KV, though many  
were heavily damaged, were still too much for the humans to come  
around and face. The humans fared better than "historically", leaving  
the field with more intact ships, and heavily damaging more Kra'Vak  
than expected, so they were given a marginal victory. Titan Base  
would still fall, and the war would proceed insystem...

Zev and I crashed in our hotel room around midnight. Zev had tried to  
rest in one of the side rooms during my game, but the excitement was  
just a bit too much. We slept well, though, and Sunday Morning we  
teamed up with Laserlight for Full Sail. Thanks to Chris' masterful  
navigation, we ended up landing our representative on the island  
first (which was the main goal), allowing us to set the terms for  
negotiations. Rule #1 - never let the pirates set the terms. One  
extra bonus here was that my booty for the game was a GZG Glowworm  
mini. Sweeet.

In all, it was a great time! Next year, if I can go at all, it will  
be with my other son, Benjamin, who will have much, much less  
hesitation firing on his father if we play on opposite sides.

-N

---

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
	  -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of  
science, 1949

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