GenCon Review with a GZG Emphasis (part 4 of 4)

The Last Day

After combing the dealer's room one last time, I set up for my SG2 game,
"Ork Hill". The miniatures HQ ended up giving one of our tables to the
guys from Agents of Gaming (known for B5 Wars, but running another game
called Rebellion). This was cool, though, as we had booked enough tables
for Saturday thus we had a couple of tables extra by Sunday. Throughout
the con we earned some goodwill by allowing other companies to use our
spare tables. 

The turnout for Ork Hill was disappointing, but understandable. Sunday
is a horrible day for that kind of game. Next year we'll try to run it
on the Saturday. On the other hand, it turned out to be a bit of a
mailing list game. Tom McCarthy was the only player who signed up who
showed. Tom played the Space Marines and I recruited Mark Siefert and my
friend (Martin Sloan, one of my playtesters) to play the Orks. 

The game was played using old GW miniatures. I had 22 Space Marines
(original plastic boxed set) and 5 Squats against 52 Orks (the original
boxed set lead Orks, as well as a bunch from the old boxed set of
plastic Orks) and 1 Ork dreadnought (original 4-armed dreadnought). The
terrain consisted of woods and a river with a small hill in the middle.
On the hill were four of the old Kryomek buildings. A lot of people
walked up and watched part of the game, and I got a number of
complements on my figures and the board set up, so I was pretty happy
about it.

The scenario had the Orks trying to kill as many Imperials as possible,
while a Squat engineering team tried to destroy the 4 buildings on Ork
Hill. After that, the Imperials were to try and get as many men off the
board as possible. Tom made a crucial mistake early on, but the mistake
sort of resolved itself in time. He moved up a marine squad prematurely,
but the squad---facing overwhelming odds---managed to hold on heroically
for most of the game. In the end the buildings were destroyed, but the
Squats were mauled in the open by the Ork dreadnought while the majority
of the marines were pinned down. The game went to the Orks. Once again,
everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. With Tom's suggestions under my
belt, I intend to run this scenario again next year but with a bit
better balance for the marines. Considering the number of walk-ups just
watching the game, this could be a popular scenario.

Conclusion

Whew! Pretty long review. As always, I really enjoyed myself, ate too
little, slept too little, and talked too much. I met many of the mailing
list guys, including some that I hadn't met before. Although I didn't
get a photograph of the mailing list gang, I took a number of pictures
during the FT tournament and I think I have most of the mailing list
people on film at some point. I have some web space I haven't used yet,
so I intend to post the pictures to my own web site as soon as they're
developed. I'll let the list know the URL.

Special thanks should go to Jeff Guillion for once again doing a great
job of running the Geo-Hex/GZG events. Thanks should also go to Dean for
exceptional work on running the FT tournament.

The con was good and the people great. I'm really looking forward to
attending next year. I hope more of the mailing list can show up, too.
Next year we should have even more GZG events, a return of the FT Fleet
tournament, a possible build-your-own FT tournament, and the use of
FT2.5/FT3 rules. In SG2, I will run my Ork Hill game again. I'm also
working on a SG2 city fight scenario and/or a SG2 game using old 15mm
Traveller figures. I hope to see you there.

Allan Goodall	       agoodall@sympatico.ca

"We come into the world and take our chances
 Fate is just the weight of circumstances
 That's the way that Lady Luck dances
 Roll the bones." - N. Peart