Re: After Con Report - ECC VII

[Nicholas Caldwell <nicholascaldwell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote this for my local gaming group called "TNGG" which stands for "Thursday Night Gaming Group."  The group has a lot of FT players and has been around for 8+ years or thereabouts.

Nick

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I've said it before, but I'll say it again -- if you like Full Thrust at all you owe it to yourself to go to GZG con and play it for 3 straight days.  You won't find a nicer group of people (present company excepted, of course) whose primary goal is to have fun with the game, not argue rules.  

Jon Tuffley has a wicked sense of humor.  Some comments from the FMA Sheep game are not repeatable (but were laugh out loud funny).  Truly a nice and humble guy who sincerely cares about his game and is thankful to everyone for buying it.  He would fit in seamlessly with TNGG.  

Friday night -- played in the 3rd Annual Pod Racing (From Star Wars Ep 1) game.  This uses FT movement with an Emergency Manuever mechanic to race.  Won an award for dismal die rolling as my pod crashed and burned after mis-timing a particularly long jump.  I did see the new land speed record set -- 124" velocity.  I couldn't plan manuevers going that fast, which is why I crashed and burned.

Sat morning -- Suart Murray's Cinegrunt Victorian Science-Fiction game.  I played the sneaky Americans who sailed a submarine onto Carter Island to steal giant rubies from the natives so that we could fight the Martians as the War of the Worlds raged around us.  We sneaked in beneath the Prussians and British who were fighting in the skies (Brits brought an Aphid aether flyer to the battle) and jungles, negotiated a trade with the natives (rubies for tobacco) and sneaked out again. Very American. We were the only group to achieve our objectives.  

Sat afternoon -- Dean Gundenburg's (of the Starship Combat News http://www.star-ranger.com/Home.htm) Sci-Fi crossover FT game.  I played Imperials from Star Wars and managed to destroy a B5 Omega Destroyer and Hyperion Cruiser as well as a Battlestar (not the Galactica).  Great photo from the game -- the B5 Omega being attacked by Tie Fighters which were in turn attacked by Vipers from the Battlestar.  The Evil Side won this won handily.

Oh, and this featured several GREAT FT rules tryouts that are on the beta list for FT3.

Sat Evening -- the afore-mentioned FMA Sheep game.  FMA being the name for the skirmish rules.  The less said about this one the better.  I deny that the event ever happened, that anyone was flocked and that any Elder Gods were attacked by nuclear weapons.  Yes, nuclear weapons.  In a skirmish game.  It wasn't pretty.

Sun morning -- awesome B5 game run by Aaron Newman.  I played the Narns, who were trying to steal a Centauri warship.  Narns are not good thieves.  Going in, we knew we were going to fail -- it was just a matter of how spectacularly we were going to fail.  Climax of the game -- I had stolen the ship, but the Centauri were about to recapture it.  I asked if  I could blow it up with my one remaining boarding party.  "Only if you roll a 1".  "1".  The Centauri asked if they could stop the self-destruct countdown.  "Fight his remaining boarding party with your five.  However many survive can attempt to disarm the countdown with a 6."  My 1 party killed 4 of 5 of the Centauri players and the Centauri failed the roll.  ***BOOM***  The Centauri player and I won an additional participation award for best cinematic moment during the game.

Vendors:  Nice range of vendors this year.  DLD Productions was there -- their stuff looks awesome in person.   The website doesn't do it justice.  I bought 2 of their sensor drones for FT as well as the generic battleship and transport ships.

GZG brought the new FT ships they just released (NSL corvette, New Isreali, Islamic Federation).  Really like the Islamic ships with their crescent shape.  

Wargames Express was there with their decals.  I recently started using decals quite a bit for starships and 6mm aircraft, so I picked up their Skull and Crossbones and Warning (Biohazard and Nuclear) decal sheets.  

Sunday morning a guy showed up selling resin Star Wars miniatures.  I bought the Blockade Runner and Nebulon B frigates.  These were in scale to the Star Destroyers he was selling -- which means they are tiny!  As they should be -- in scale with GZG corevettes and frigates while the Star Destroyer was in scale with GZG dreadnoughts.  I know what he's doing is illegal but they sure looked nice!

Oh, and my Babylon 5 Wars Olympia Corvette took second place behind Aaron Newman's "Newman" class starship by 1 vote in the painting competition.  Aaron beat me last year by 1 vote to win his name on Brigade's new dreadnought starship.  I told him I'd beat him next year.  :-)