GZG-ECC IV summary

My experience:
1) Good drive down from Canada with Adrian and Jim. We ended up being
the
Canadian Contingent. 

2) Pod Racing: Fun. I'd like to have lived longer. From live to dead in
1
attack roll isn't too much fun. But we talked with Mike about ways to
deal
with this. He indicated no one in playtest had thought to unload
MULTIPLE
junk fragments in one shot (Mr. Davis died this way too). Super cool
board,
super cool game with a few tweaks. Thanks Mike. 

3) Carnage Con Queso: Fight for the cheese. Mr. Hudak, you're on my
list.
Not only did you try to shoot the crap out of my Gurkha force BEFORE
their
second activation, but you then dropped artillery on me... (I guess in
all
fairness, I got my own back by massacring your nuns at then end of the
day
when you charged the news crew and my guys in the Med Tent). I was happy
to
come 3rd and be awarded a minor nobility on Frommage III. Adrian, the
sneaky
News Weenie, became Queso King (obvious comments about the power of the
media and spin control come to mind). Neat game. I think Pat got utterly
blown out by Aaron's PA. Ouch. And I briefly debated attacking Joel's
crew,
but something about attacking a Jedi Master with a lightsaber seemed
kinda
risky. Superfun game, though I look forward to Adrian running it (as is
the
reward for being Queso King) next year.

4) Hotspot: My FIRST game of DS2. Wow. Lots of fun. And I got to put
Rebel
Scum to the Sword. What more could you want? The TOG Emperor will be
pleased. Lava and hostile Rebel Scum could not stop the TOGs righteous
advance. Though apparently Mr. Sarno and I should buy laser targeting
systems from Mr. Bell's supplier...... Nice game, Mr. Davis. Good fun.
Nice
defence layout to the "Rebel Scum" :) 

5) FMAS (Me and Los): An interesting playtest of some later generation
FMA
rules which will feed input into the playtest list. Some bizarre dice
action
resulted in the grenades mostly killing those with die shifts for cover
while not harming those in the open (D12 vs D6 or D8 (upshifted for
cover)
and the smaller dice won pretty consistently). My AAR has already made
the
list, but let us just say it was a good game despite some kind of
bizarre
die rolls. I'm not in favour of making grenades so dangerous you can't
advance against them... otherwise the game devolves to grenade chucking
matches. But they should probably be slightly more lethal. 

6) Formula De: CanAm race.... declared so after Canadians placed 1st,
2nd
and 3rd. Magic was doing well, but poor quality control in the engine
system
caused him to fail out of the game allowing Jim and Adrian to run away
with
the game. Imala is a neat track, glad you brought it guys! (and the
micromachines were Tres cool). This should be a yearly post-game event!

7) CanAmFT: Well, I was the fleet architect and director, so Mea Culpa.
We
brought a knife to a gunfight. We were not ready for fighters in that
number. I bet the yanks would have enjoyed a Komarov-E with 70 dice of
PDS.... (next time!). Hopefully next time we won't have all the fiddling
with dice that fall off and fighters that either regenerate or explode
spontaneously because numbers change... the planet was cool and I got to
make Titan's Turn as I slingshotted around it. Sadly, too many missiles
and
fighters arrived on my position, but it was fun. Next year, let's run
this
one on Saturday when I'm more awake too (we should have started faster
and
lower). Anyway, thanks to Jim and Adrian for helping out. I mostly just
joined in here to give the US team a game... I wanted to be playing in
Stuart's game (I'm a groundpounder at heart). And Adrian was very game
to
pickup the game on the spot. Good job to the US team. 

And I owe Mr. Riddle $5.00 US. He took Mr. Davis head (well, nuked him
anyway). He left before I could hand it to him. So, if he wants to email
me
his address, I'll send it to him. It was worth it. I didn't get to be in
the
game to shoot Jon, but a proxy death will do.....

Lastly, I'd like to thank Adrian for coming to his first ECC and Jim for
driving down. The trip back was just wonderful... (NOT). Worst so far.
But
we made it by 3 am Monday morning (4 am for Jim by the time he got home
I
imagine). 

I've got all the pictures onto a zip disk, but some need reduced in size
to
be web-useful. I'll do that tonight and post the URLs. Some good shots
to be
seen! :) 

Tomb.