[GZG ECC XV AAR]

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TEAM: Doug Schavo, Kevin Fox, Thomas Barclay
INSERTION: US BORDER BREACHED 1230 HRS 24 FEB 2012, ALL PRESENT AND
ACCOUNTED FOR
EXTRACTION: CANADIAN BORDER BREACHED 1815 HRS 26 FEB 2012, ALL PRESENT
AND
ACCOUNTED FOR

1900 24 FEB 2012
Battle of Cormorant Moon (GM: J. Davis) [FT in a minor star trek
retheming]
(TomB, Doug, Kevin, Aaron N, Barosi the Younger, Johnson the Younger,
Barosi the Elder, Tom McCarthy and allegedly John Lerchey)

6 Fed CAs fight 6 Klingon D7s around Cormorant Moon (with the last bar
in
the known universe). Feds attempt a strategy to bring defeat in detail
to
the Klingons and instead bring it home for themselves. Officially the
Klingons won, but one Federation Captain had plotted orders each turn to
sleep with one or more of his senior officers (and once, all of the
engineering department after great damage control), so the general
conclusion was he probably won. Or thought he did. Hope the medical
doctor
survived....

Fun game, interesting lightweight retheming, and poor Federation
tactical
execution. I couldn't convince my other commanders to go in reverse at
speed 16 firing proximity photon torpedos. I read somewhere this
strategy
was the key to victory..... [obscure SFB reference... bonus points for
anyone who can name the Admiral who came up with the term paper....]

Another good Davis' game! I did point out the federation painters were
engaging in deception as all cruisers had hull number NCC 1701....
(vanity,
thy name is James T. Kirk....)

2300 24 FEB 2012

Two games of Panic Station semi-cooperative card game. One was one by
the
bugs, one by the humans and their android porters. A game with some
treachery as a host appears from among the good guys then quietly tries
to
infest his fellow players.

0900 25 FEB 2012
Battle for Aldensport (GM: J Davis) [Strike Legion 6mm TOG vs. Renegade
Legion]
(TomB, Doug, Mark Kinsey, Stuart, TomM, the French Guy)

The lawful forces of the TOG attempted to liberate the port of
Aldensport
from the unkempt and highly unsanitary barbarians of the Renegade
Legion.
Grav tanks slugged it out having forgotten that infantry are the correct
force to employ in urban terrain. Had more in common with attack
helicopter
engagements than tank warfare given the vertical envelopments and popup
attacks. Was quite a bit of fun. Renegades bribed the GM and the GM
claimed
they won by 1 vehicle. The TOG Inspector General has promised a full
inquiry and the Grand Inquisitor has promised swift executions.

Jon ran a good game, it was very close, and it had some interesting
mechanics (though I think EW's offense/defense swing is too potent). Not
a
bad ruleset, I'll probably pick up a copy. Scenairo was fun to play as
per
normal in a Davis' game.

1400 25 FEB 2012 (GM: Brian Phillips) [Stargrunt/FMA Dune themed game]
(TomB, Kevin, Mark Kinsey (aka wussy Atreides who needs his Fedakeen to
fight for him), and Martin Connell (Gurney 'Tea, Spice Melange, Hot'
Halleck )
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vhH1nIjgK8M/TZHI8M9T3jI/AAAAAAAABi8/kRqfX6UHdZ
c/s1600/Dune.png

Some mood clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYUolurihOQ  (It's the slow bad that gets
through)

The forces loyal to Imperial Duke Baron Harkonnen, led by the heirs
Feyd-Rautha and Raban and assisted by the Emperor's own Sardaukar
attempt
to protect Imperial interests and Harkonnen property from vandals,
terrorists, insurgents, and Kyle MacLachlan.

The scumba...errr...Fremen and their foaming-at-the-spice Fedakeen
nutters
decide to blow up the Emperor's harvester, perhaps hoping some Sardaukar
will happen by in an ornithopter (aka air vehicle capable of impressive
speeds faster than a belly crawl, armoured with thick paper plating, and
capable of firing no weapons of its own or of its occupants at anyone
while
easily drawing fire from any nutter on the board). There are rumours of
huge worms but everyone knows about fishing stories.

The game sees the Harkonnens try to fight to defend the Imperial
property
from the ne'er-do-wells. Feyd-Rautha leeds a hapless squad of valiant
regulars (actually half a squad) into a blocking attack on an elite
squad
(at least they claimed so) of Fedakeen commandos led by the Kwizbotch
Habberdash, the new-age deity of crystals, vegas showgirls, and men's
tailoring. Proving their 'worth', the Fedakeen take most of the game to
beat up a roughly equal number of troops two grades inferior and
Feyd-Rautha gets Atreides pretty heavily wounded despite his shield.

Imagine the fight went like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoPKajvq3gE

Just instead imagine it happens in a mountain pass.
Oh, and also imagine that the Escapehatch Has-a-rash did no fighting and
had his Fedakeen tie up Feyd-Rautha and gang beat him, since apparently
the
"dustbowl messiah" fights like a hobbit.

Anyway, in the long run, the ecologically concerned Fremen blow up the
spice harvester's propulsion, lighting all the spice on fire. The truth
is
that they're just a bunch of sand-crawlin' spice addicts looking for a
fix.
We could have just thrown out 1 pound packets of spice and they'd have
left
us alone while they got their 'blue eye' thing going. They didn't need
'wierdo modules' and 'glass knives', they needed a 12-step program and
an
INTERVENTION!

So, Raban got shrapnelled, but he wasn't given credit for his shield (we
all missed that) so maybe he should have lived. Or maybe his shield
mysteriously malfunctioned. Feyd-Rautha would have moved up with him
dead.... if it wasn't for the Fedakeen gang-beating thing.

Gurney left the fight wanting to call for Doctor Crusher and wishing
this
was all a holodeck fantasy. Paul Atreides went back and told his people
of
his great fighting prowess in defeating the (tied up and helpless)
Feyd-Rautha while his Fedakeen all quietly got a raise to keep the
secret
that he can't fight.

Then of course, the 'not-phallic-at-all' roundworm showed up with some
sort
of hunger for eating Imperial property and elected to consume the
harvester.

The Sardauker simply landed (for fear their ornithopter might get wet
and
collapse into a mache pile) and got a few shots off. I think the Emperor
got a 'Friend Plan' discount on training for his minions at Imperial
Clone
Trooper Academy.

If Mark hadn't been hiding in the corner of the board, this is how a
fight
might have looked between the Kwizzler Haddock and the Sardaukar....
(imagine Leto is Paul and the Fedakeen are Sardauker)....

Okay, now that I'm done being funny and abusing Mark and Martin (who
seriously were good sports and played excellently given their
objectives):

Brian's Fremen (scratchbuilt from Eldar) and his Harkonens (mostly
Imperial
Guard) were great and the models for the worm (dryer hose based) and the
spice harvester (bowl with tracks) and the ornithopter (two tailed
dragonfly?) [PS descriptions don't come close to how good they are....]
were amazing. All of us agreed he did a great job.

Also, Brian ran the game well, was flexible when we pointed out some odd
inconsistencies here and there, and was amenable to suggestions. I think
we
all highly enjoyed his game and thank him for the effort.

Hope to see Brian again at the next con! Those minis need to be shown
off!

1730 25 FEB 2012 (GM: Me) [Full Thrust rethemed to Stargate SG-1
universe]
HIGH VALUE TARGET
(Jerry, Vince, Dave and Scott)

Thanks to JP, TomM, Doug and Kevin for helping me playtest and get this
much righter for the Convention.

This scenario had Lucians and Tauri landing boarding parties on an enemy
station to control 8 locales while the fleets battled outside the
station.
The ships used mixed tech. Tauri had 5 row hulls, regenerating
shields(armour that healed), class 1 and 2 K-guns, and classed P-Torps
(aka
Asgard Beams) and Tauri Missile Arrays (my own system: 360 arc, 30"
range,
launch declared in fighter and missile attack allocation, no placed
marker,
2 missiles per mass, each missile does 1 point) and Asgard Beam
Transporters and F-302s (heavy interceptors). The Lucian (Goa'uld
design)
Ha'taks had lots of Beam 2s, Ring Transporters, Death Gliders (turkey
reg
fighters), and a good fleet tactician.

At the end of each round of ship action, we fought a round of combat in
the
various locales of the station on a seperate side gameboard using SG2
chits
to represent the boarding parties (100 total combat strength in total in
the scenario).

Cinematic movement. Various rules mods (fighters only useful against
unscreened ships, etc).

Tactically, the Tauri fleet split around either side of the station,
with
each wing having an Achilles BB, a Daedelus BC, and an Ares DD.

There looked like there would be 2 Ha'tak cruisers on each side of the
station, but Vince pulled a fast one with a hard turn and got all 4 onto
one side. This was very, very bad for the Tauri - half their fleet
lacked a
target for 2 rounds and the other half got hit by twice as many enemies.

Fighters screened ships until about the second last round. This was wise
for the Lucians (so as not to need to convert beam 2s to beam 1s for
point
defense) and not so useful to the humans (no missiles or fighters to
stop).
The Tauri probably should have started the fighter clash earlier. Even
if
it had ended up the draw it looked like it was going to (as per
design!),
it would have stripped a lot of defense from the Ha'taks versus the
Missile
Arrays and then the Ha'tak commanders would have had to take the damage
or
allocate B2s that would not then be shooting at the station or the
Tauri.

That said, the good tactical moves on behalf of the Lucians were aided
by
RIDICULOUSLY above average die rolling. I think Vince agreed he'd rolled
only one less-than-average roll for damage all night and when it should
have been averaging 19 or so for a full 24 beam-die engagement, his
shots
were something like 27, 25, 23, 28 and 21. The other Ha'tak commander
was
good (score 15 on a roll that should have been 9) but not as awesome as
Vince.

That combination made the space battle a bit of a route for the Tauri as
the Ha'taks savaged them. By the end, two fleets that should have been
somewhat close in CPV ended up with the Ha'taks having 1 threshold and
working on another and a human BB and DD gone and one BC savaged (a
total
of about 9 thresholds).

To speed thresholds, I used a threshold chart for each class. Roll 1D6
and
I read off a list of systems taken out for threshold level N (1, 2,
etc).
This made thresholds for the classes I'd finished the charts for very
fast.
I will probably do this all the time in FT from now on.

In the end, the Lucians held 2 sectors in the station, the Tauri 3
including the center and the other 2 were contested. It was a touch and
go
fight in most of the sectors. However, the Tauri fleet battle was bad
enough it pretty much turned a minor victory in the ship fight for the
Tauri into a decisive victory for the Tauri.

Vince flew well and his dice (both Ha'tak commanders but Vince far
moreso)
were ludicrous. The Tauri could not match those sorts of out of average
rolls so that helped seal their defeat.

I had fun, I hope the players did!

0900 26 FEB 2012 Showdown at Tuffley's Gulch (GM: Me) [FMA with some
wild
west touches]
(Kevin, Aaron, and Jerry)

Boss Kochte's rancheros from the K-Bar Ranch were headed into town (with
the Boss riding them hard) to get the younger useless heir out of jail
where the "My Town, My Law" Sherrif "Stewart MacMurray" was holding them
for 'shooting, drinking, and spitting on the sidewalk'.

Kevin took the beleagured lawmen and scattered them around town. Aaron
and
Jerry took the K-Bar boys and Boss Kochte and came sauntering (well,
mostly
Run Like Hell-ing) into town. There was some gunplay in the streets, a
few
wounds, some bleeding, a head and neck blast from a shotgun, and then a
huge gunfight cum melee with at least 7 participants in the Sherrif's
front
room (and the deputy got shot in the aorta while he lay on the floor
waiting to reload).

The end result was the weight of numbers (even crappy green ones) on the
K-Bar boys spelled the doom of the blue-red-orange mix of smaller
numbers
of lawmen.

This game had some issues. I lifted the pistol ranges from FMAS but the
town's main road was about 12" wide (long range is 12"....). Either the
map
should have been much tighter or I should have scaled up all weapon
ranges.
A good number of Kevin's guys only had pistols. That I'll clean up
before
the next game.

Also, allowed moving and shooting and it was... abused. I don't blame
everyone, but it didn't end up doing what I thought it should. Have to
keep
thinking about how to fix this one. No solution I've liked yet that
wasn't
abusable.

The wounding rules, in an attempt to not be likely to kill half the
shooters by turn 2, were a bit easy on the gunshot victims if they had
any
kind of cover. Aaron made a valid point that tying the wound severity to
attacker die total compared to situation die meant that guys in cover
were
brutal to score more than a light wound on. Will get that cleaned up
before
my next game.

Still, I hope the guys had some fun. It was fun to watch Aaron play Boss
Kochte (whom I described as Ed Asner - hard ass ranch boss with an ego)
as
I did a bit of NPC improv for his sun in the jail (as Boss Kochte called
to
the none-too-bright-and-all-too-likely-to-misbehave Jerry-Jon Kochte the
heir). "Where's mah boy? Get my boy out of there!" "Pa, the Sherrif's
looking at me funny! And the food is awful!" etc.

I think with a few flaws tidyed up, I'll have a good enough set of
Western
FMA-ish rules to use more generally.

--------

FINALLY: My great thanks to the vendors, sponsors, and Jon, Indy, etc.
who
helped make this fun weekend a reality. Guys, it was fun and as usual I
look forward to doing it again. Those who missed missed a good game or
five. (Damond... Mr. Han.... others)

Tom B

PS - Mark Kinsey's lecture on 'interesting Southern phrases' was
educational. "Not enough to raise a bump over" or "No point in hanging
my
hat out of reach" were my favourites. The argument among the Canadians
about the plural of "Y'all" (which Kevin informs me is "all y'all") was
also amusing.