[GZG] ECC-X AAR

Back from Dogsled ECC. There was snow on the ground in Lancaster but the

streets has been screaped and I didn't have any trouble. Of course, I
came 
from Virginia Beach; I gather some of the other routes had delays of an 
extra hour or so, and our crowd seemed a bit less crowded than usual.

  Friday night was Aaron Newman's game in The Matrix, with Agents,
Hackers 
and Programs skulking around city streets, trying to locate their
targets 
and take them out without attracting hostile attention. That was the 
briefing that *I* got, anyway. Given the number of vehicle highjackings,

vehicle rammings, rocket explosions, and long bursts of wildly
uncontrolled 
fire, it's possible other people didn't get the same briefing.
  I had a group of rogue programs, including the boss, two assistants,
and 
two vampire soldiers. About halfway through the second turn--about the
time 
that my two soldiers died, one from an exploding tanker truck and the
other 
from a rocket launcher hit--I realized that subtle and clever play was
not 
going to be a winning strategy. I quicklly wrote off any hope of
achieving 
my victory conditions and tried to achieve an ignominious retreat. It
didn't 
work. Martin's Hacker leader took a sword to my leader, hacking me quite

easily. The only thing left for my two surviving assistants to do was to

grovel at the police and beg for protection.  Fortunately TomB was
playing 
the police and didn't shoot me out of hand, although that may have been 
because he didn't want to get blood on his doughnut.  The most amusing 
incident was the firefight held where both sides, and an innocent
bystander, 
were all in the same police car.

Friday night's late night gaming was Nuclear Dud. I don't think that was
the 
actual title but it should have been. The Canadians gleefully destroyed
each 
other, except for Doug who, through a series of mishaps, more or less 
managed to destroy himself. Mike Hudak and I, as the survivors, called
for a 
mutual non-aggression pact around 3:00 am.

Saturday morning was a Cine-FMA-Skirmish game, set in the Western town
of 
Plaindealing and run by the Incomparable Stuart Murray. Each player got
one 
main character, a sidekick and a group of followers--in my case, Rev 
Jedidiah Quesenberry, Deacon Jankins, and the Sunday School Teachers.
The 
main character, instead of merely being "Regular 1" or "Veteran 2" and
using 
that for everything, had separate characteristics for Shootin,
Wrasslin', 
Figurin' (for reaction tests, spotting, etc),  Orneryness (armor), and 
Health (number of wounds he could take). You could also pick a personal 
advantage (in my case, Persuasiveness) and a disadvantage (Foolishly
Brave).
The scenario called for the Townspeople, led by my preacher and TomB's 
sheriff, to try to keep the peace; the miners to protect the union
paychest 
and released the unjustly-jailed union leader; the evil boss and his
company 
men to steal the miners' paychest; and the hired desperadoes to kill,
steal 
and terrorize. The scenario was much too interesting to give a full
replay 
here, but some of the highlights were: the Sunday School teachers close 
assaults a gang of desperados an dragging them off to the church to
repent; 
thugs tossing dynamite, or in one case dropping dynamite with loud and
fatal 
results; the stagecoach careening wildly through the crowd, with people 
diving out of the way to escape; the Jilted Bride chasing after her 
Faithless Groom; and last but certainly not least, my telling the Man In

Black (With A Terrible Secret) that the company boss knew that the MIB's

name was Sue (how did he know? I'd told the boss, although I didn't
mention 
that to the MIB) and then telling the MIB that "I don't think he boss
hass 
told anyone else...yet...."--and the MIB went berserk and tried to kill
the 
company boss to keep his secret from getting out (he tried to kill me
first 
but the Lord was protecting me--I was hit three times but was too Ornery
to 
be hurt).
It was a fun and interesting game, with a really great idea on cinematic

game mechanics.

Saturday afternoon was Carnage con Queso, run by me. We didn't have as
many 
players as I would have liked and the player-on-player combat was
lacking, 
but Adrian, abetted by Doug Schavo, did manage to unseal the Temple of 
Shangri-Baa, which caused the image of an Elder God to appear--the image

being a photo of Jon Tuffley from a couple fo ECC's ago; Indy had
printed 
out the pic and offered it, and I'd applied it to the top of a mastaba 
(truncated step pyramid), which explains some of the quotes you'll see. 
The 
appearance of the Tuffley, plus some poking by players, led to the
Opening 
of the Gate, the manifestation of Hastur-lambkin, and hundreds of sheep 
attacking and devouring most of the characters. Adrian's squad wasn't 
devoured, exactly, because his girls had all jumped into the sacrificial

well in a vain but amusing attempt to placate Hastur-lambkin; he did
manage 
to get R2D2 and C3PO off the board, though. Ben Izenberg, age 6, nearly
won, 
but with a couple of last-second cards, Doug Schavo slipped past him and

took first place. Kudos to John Lerchey, who provided Sheep Warning
Decals 
as prizes (and I think also provided the Sunday morning bagels, yum!)

Saturday night was Isengard's Plan B, in which Saruman's skiled, 
professional troops  intecepted a rabble of whiny elves (they claim it
was a 
bard singing) in the forest of Mirkwood. We attempted to rescue the Two
Ring 
from the spiteful and ethnically-intolerant Galadriel. Elvish archery
was 
surprisingly ineffective, but their close combat abilities were
generally 
pretty good. Our right flank got off to a slow start as Uruk-Frock 
apparently chanted "Bud for the Bud God!", blowing four activation rolls

with four 1's; fortunately he got a Yuengling and his theology and die
rolls 
improved greatly. One orc regular on the far right took on five elvish 
veterans, and won (well, against four of them; he won the Orctorian
Order, 
posthumously), and Joel's troll lumbered into the elvish ruins and
managed, 
after a hard-fought melee, to take down the squad of elvish defenders.
The 
elvish dice generally alternated between bad and horrible, and the
orcish 
berserkers' abilitry to ignore suppresseion was generally agreed to be 
overpowered; however, despite these disadvantages, the battle was
undecided

Saturday late gaming was Carcassone (and watching Terminator from the
other 
side of the room), which lasted till about 3am.

I somehow maanged to regain functionality--"consciouslness" might be 
over-generous--in time to make it to Jerry's Full Sail game, set in 1810
off 
Portugal. Our valiant French raiders attempted to intercept the British 
convoy and capture Wellington's paychest. We managed the "intercept"
part 
quite nicely, but the "capture" part was beyond us. Two of my three
ships 
exploded, thanks largely to the shooting of Jon "Teske Field" Davis,
whose 
dinghy outshot my battleship. Aaro Newman's American squadron did a 
creditable job of trying to swipe the paychest for himself, but at the
end 
of the day, it looked like an English victory. Jerry is doing a god job 
making Full Sail into something which is reasonably realistic while
still 
being fun and quick. Good job!

Wonderful seeing the regulars again, and the Con Committee went to extra

work arranging special 10th Anniversary shirts, mugs, minis (everyone
got a 
Delafield battlecruiser, sculpted by Joel Frock), and presentations.
Great 
job, fun time, and I'm looking forward to next year. And sleep....zzzz 

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