Indy's ECC VI After Con Report (ACR) (nice and long)

Indy's After Con Report

An unusually arduous drive from Baltimore to Lancaster got me there
with barely an hour and change to spare before the con officially
began. I unloaded and distributed prizes (one of my functions for the
con is getting the prizes for the various events; the 25mm Slammers
that were distributed this weekend were very well received) and joined
in Stuart Murray's famous Friday Night Cinegrunt game. In the past,
Stuart's games have attained Legendary Fun status due to the scenarios
he's run and the characters he's had in the scenarios for the players
to play. Jon Davis particularly gets into them. ;-)

This year Stuart ran a Boar War/Zulu era British/Pathanes action
called "The Taxman Cometh." I got to run two units: the 10th Bengals
(serious cavalry lancer dudes, but no "characters") and The Great White
Hunter and attached group of wannabe hunters, dog Blinkey, employer
("nefarious" character played by Laserlight), and an entourage of
African porters. The 10th Bengals were to do regular cavalry work with
the rest of the British forces. The Great White Hunter's "orders" were
to track, kill, and take back a rather vicious tiger. Our general
disposition: if it moves, shoot it; if it doesn't move, shoot it and
mount it. Alas, the only thing near us were sheep. All of us got a
chance to play the Pathanes as well (as GM Stuart was the director; we
played all the roles for the show). It was fun, AND it allowed everyone
to participate and be involved, instead of waiting for their corner of
the world to get its turn to do something (very effective, this method
of GMing).

The game progressed with the multiple and various characters (played
by such notorious notables as Adrian Johnson, Laserlight, and David
Raynes; Aaron Teske's "character" really didn't do much) interacting
with glee with the Panthanes (who would appear now and again, take
hostages, mules, kill a few Brits, and in general disappear again when
the British regulars turned on them; the 10th Bengals managed to
slaughter the Panthanes that it went up against - charging lancers are
cool!). The Great White Hunter and group, alone in their corner of the
board, wandered a little aimlessly, following sheep (the whole "sheep"
thing became a theme for some games this weekend).  By the end of the
game we had found the tiger, tried to kill it, nicked it in the
shoulder (getting its attention), and then were slaughtered by it,
despite Stuart's best efforts to give me every break he could (he
even allowed Blinkey to try and take out the tiger, giving Blinkey
a d12 vs the tiger's d6, and I STILL couldn't roll high!). In that
corner of the world, the tiger won. Oh, and at the same time
Laserlight's "nefarious" character and the African porters made haste
for the village. When they arrived unmolested it was learned that
the nefarious character was running a gun smuggling operation for
the Pathanes and he succeeded in his goal this game (delivered guns).
Sneaky, sneaky.

Adrian was playing a British officer (the character's name I am
totally spacing on now) who was being pursued by Amelia, daughter of
someone else and was being played by Laserlight. Adrian was also
playing the American newsteam who were teleporting all over the board
to catch as much of the action between the British and the Panthanes.
Amelia was captured by one Panthane raid, forcing Adrian's British
character to do his utmost to rescue her. In the end he succeeded, and
said his character dropped to his knees to propose to this love who had
been chasing him for so long. Stuart pointedly replied, "That makes me
sick. I'll make you propose. And I'll MAKE you propose." Adrian looked
at him in shock and horror as Stuart's words sunk in. Several people
readied cameras and Adrian slowly got down on his knees and played out
the role. It was hard to know who was more embarrassed, Laserlight or
Adrian. 

Saturday came all too early, even for a morning person such as I (then
again, staying up half the night didn't help). My day was planned as
such: play in Jon Davis' FT game, spend the afternoon doing set-up for
my evening Dirtside scenario, dealing with miscellaneous con items
during the day, dealing with the miniatures painting contest, and then
running my DS scenario. And pretty much that's how it went.

Jon's scenario involved an NSL task force escorting some resupply
freighters to a besieged world, blocked by ESU forces. The combat was
fierce, and difficult for the NSL, as many of their ships had only
Thrust-2, and the ESU came in from two sides. In the end the ESU won by
killing two freighters and by the NSL attempting to save the freighters
instead of killing ESU ships en mass (ie, our set up was not the best).
I had opted for the battleship group, forgetting that it had thrust-2
and a….p-torp. Oops. Jim Bell and Aaron Teske groaned when we learned
this. Oh well, the ships had been chosen! And the two times I got to
fire The Weapon, a "1" and a "2" were rolled. I stayed true to form.
In any event, despite being on the losing side, it was a fun scenario.

The afternoon I spent considerable time setting up the terrain,
encouraging the players to review their sealed orders that they chose
earlier in the morning ("We'll look at them at five minutes to seven,
thanks!" - then just before the game started they looked at the packets
and said "Holy crap! There's a lot of stuff here!" I warned them...),
and dealing with a drunk who came in halfway through the day to inquire
about who to contact because he had all these ideas for making better
terrain than what we were using (although when I told him that some of
the terrain I had picked up at a dollar store in Baltimore, he wanted
their contact information because he didn't think there were any dollar
general stores in the Lancaster area, and he wanted to contact them
about making terrain for us). 

Finally the afternoon sessions were over and it was time to tally up
the votes for the miniatures painting contest while everyone else went
off to dinner. Once everyone was back, the awards ceremony was held. 

DSII - 3rd place: Mark Kochte (Brigade/Jeremy's bug tank squadron)
       2nd place: Nick Caldwell (battlemech)
       1st place: John Crimmins (two battlemechs)

SG15 - 2nd place: Stuart Murray (British Colour Guard)
       1st place: Mark Kochte (GZG NSL squad)

SG25 - 3rd place: John Crimmins (not sure what those were)
       2nd place: Adrian Johnson (mercenary squad)
       1st place: Adrian Johnson (another infantry squad I'm forgetting
the type)

FT - 1st place: Nick Caldwell (a Minbari ship)
     2nd place: Aaron Newman (the First Ones ships)
     1st place: Aaron Newman (Minbari ships)

B5 ships made a clean sweep of the FT category.

The DSII entries that came in 2nd and 3rd actually had tied, but
playing impartial observer (even if it was my unit involved), I felt
Nick's battlemech was a superior paint job over my bugs. Thus Nick
took second.

The 15mm Stargrunt category was a surprise, as Stuart is a far, far,
FAR better painter than yours truly (Stuart is to painting minis as a
7th dan blackbelt is to martial arts, and while I learned a LOT from
Stuart's seminar last year, I'm just a lowly brown belt kinda guy). But
it was close, and my entry won by a mere one vote. In acknowledgement
to Stuart's mastery, I let him choice which of the prizes in the 15mm
category he'd like. He snagged the Baldur tank, happily exclaiming he
now had a full platoon of them.  Several other people had mentioned
possibly submitting their 15s for the category, but opted not to in
the end. Well, they should have - they might have come in at a fair
standing, and there was a third place prize…

In agreement with (and thanks to) Tony of Brigade, the first place
finisher for the Full Thrust entries would have the new Brigade SDN
ship named after him. Congratulations to Aaron Newman for his very
VERY nice Minbari ship squadron!

Quick side note about our vendors. Bill Spring from B.R.Snasis
was once again in attendance, and Carl Scheu came as Starmats Plus,
selling star mats and minis galore. I bought a set of GROPOS tanks
from Carl as well as some unknown DSII toy tanks and VTOLs. From
Bill I picked up a *lot* of GHQ WWII German and Soviet tanks in
preparation for my proposed battle of Kursk scenario for ECC VII.
As usual, I spent too much. But in the long run...

The evening sessions then began. My scenario was called "Battle for
Gramicci Pass", a fairly large Dirtside scenario using sealed orders.
Ahead of time I had set the board up and taken a "satellite" photograph
for the players to have ahead of time. Each side also had chosen one
set of sealed orders (there were 9 for each side). Some orders were
complimentary, some had nothing to do with each other. It was all the
luck of the draw. In any event, the scenario pitted a UNSC force
against an ESU force on an outrim colony planet (that was being beset
by the ESU looking for new systems to absorb; the UNSC Colonial Armed
Forces were called in to help defend the colony planet - I guess we all
can't get along, even on one planet). The ESU orders were to identify
any/all Size Class 4 or 5 vehicles that the UNSC might be fielding, as
their intel suggested that the UNSC had some new large tank units in
play. The ESU had to get an infantry squad next to a UNSC size 4 or 5
tank for two turns (doing nothing else but gathering intelligence),
then depart with the knowledge gained. The UNSC's task was to locate
two tactical nuclear ballistic missiles that the ESU were supposedly
secretly moving into the Pass (this time around they weren't). The
scenario devolved quickly into a meeting engagement as the ESU was
unable to get infantry near any of the damaged/destroyed size class 4
tanks the UNSC had along, and the UNSC could not locate any missiles.
In the mean time, however, carnage was done to both sides, and both
sides nearly met their withdrawal conditions before the game was called
at 1am, 4 turns and 4-1/2 hours after it started. It was fun to ref;
it seemed fun for the players as well. Due to the number of unchosen
"sealed orders", I plan on running this scenario for at least a few
more upcoming ECCs.

During the evening session Rick Rutherford (another master painter)
held a painting seminar, very similar to Stuart's seminar last year.
Nick Caldwell's wife had accompanied him for the weekend, but not
being a gamer, either observed or did other things. However, for the
painting seminar, she tried her hand at that, never having painted
before. In the end Nick showed me several of the minis she had painted
up. You know, it is disgusting when a complete novice and newbie comes
along and cranks out painted minis that look almost as good as Stuart's
or Rick's. I was ready to sell my minis right then and there (hopefully
she won't enter the painting contest next year - on the other hand,
hope she does!)

After packing things up, Saturday night ended later than even Friday
night, and Sunday morning came even earlier than Saturday morning had.
Today I was running "The Battle for Kaua`i" - an AquaThrust scenario
mixing Full Thrust and enhanced rules from the AquaZone website. The
scenario was inspired by a visit to the Hawai`ian Islands I had the
opportunity to have late last summer, and the premise was that the
government of Hawai`i had opted to cede from the NAC immediately after
the FCT. Given all the "breakaway NAC groups" that people have come up
with over the years, and considering how the Hawai`ian people view the
Mainlanders, this breakaway group, the Hawai`ian Free State, was not at
all inconceivable (though I don't necessarily agree they would join the
OUDF, either, but that's neither here nor there). This particular
scenario, based in the waters just off of the island of Kaua`i, pitted
a fleet of NAC submarines against a collection of Hawai`ian "defector"
submarines. There were two undersea city-colonies near the Hawai`ian
side of the board (there was a restriction that any weapon fire or
torpedo that damaged either city, the side that fired the weapon or
torpedo would automatically lose; also, any unguided torpedoes that
came within 12 mu of a city would automatically target the city in lieu
of anything else, keeping these areas potentially free of much combat).
As the Hawai`ians were part of the NAC, some subs were the same on both
sides. The NAC, however, was fielding a new sub (which proved less than
very effective), and the Hawai`ians were also fielding a new submarine
(but never really got the chance to use the weapons she mounted due to
the tactics the NAC performed in keeping one of the undersea cities in
the Hawai`ian line of fire; ). 

There were 7 hidden mines in the playing field: 2 secretly noted by
the Hawai`ian players, 2 noted by the NAC, and 3 that the GM (me!) had
secretedly noted earlier. The NAC started spread out on their side,
moving relatively fast, while the Hawai`ians stayed bunched up in one
corner, moving slow. The NAC opted to swing around the far side of the
field and come in at the Hawai`ians from the direction of the city near
the other corner by the Hawai`ians. Unfortunately for the NAC, they
found two of the GM-hidden mines (narrowly missing the third) and both
of the Hawai`ian hidden mines. While single no ship was destroyed by
the mines, a couple were seriously damaged by running through two of
the mines, enough that later torpedo exchanges savaged them more and
contributed to their eventual death (one from torpedo fire, one from
loss of engine control and slamming into an undersea cliff).

As the NAC closed with the Hawai`ians, torpedoes erupted in the water.
The rules need tweaking, especially the sensor and lock-on rules, but
everyone managed to work through them and counter-measures began to be
fired off from targeted subs. While only a few subs died, a number were
damaged, or would eventually be damaged if more torpedo exchanges were
made as most counter-measures were fired off early on. But the weekend
was drawing to an end, so the game was called after nearly 10 turns.
While it seemed that each side was still relatively evenly matched, it
was a victory for the Hawai`ians as they had only lost a sub or two (at
least one small one) while the NAC had lost three or four large ones.
Most subs were either out of torpedoes or had only a couple left to
fire. The Hawai`ians also had more direct-fire weaponry than the NAC
did in this case (the "new" NAC subs had absolutely no direct fire
weaponry available to them). As prizes for the participants, I gave
them each either fossilized Miocene-era shark teeth (to the Hawai`ian
winners) or fossilized manta ray teeth, all of which I found at a place
called Brownie's Beach in Maryland.

After that, those of us who remained cleaned up the room and left for
home. With one last look around the now bare room, memories of the
weekend flooding through me, I shut off the lights and stepped out
the door into a brisk wind. Next year won't come soon enough.

Indy