[GZG] GZG ECC X: Indy's AAR (parts 1 & 2)

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Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThe entire write-up
came out to be 4Kb too large for the list, so breaking
it up into two parts.

Well, it's now a few days since GZG ECC happened. And it was quite a fun
time, to be sure. :-)  There were the usual, and not-usual, pre-con
issues
that Jon, Jerry, and I had to deal with, but in the end we managed to
make
it happen. We rock. :-D

PS: yes, this is long, but a lot happened. If you make it to Sunday
(part
2), you might be rewarded. :-)

This year, our 10th, we commissioned Joel Frock to construct, and Jon
Tuffley to produce, our GZG ECC commemorative starship - the Delafield
(named after Adam Delafield (rip), the original gzg-l host/maintainer).
It
turned out pretty well. And as I am in charge of collecting prizes for
the
various events and painting contest at the convention, I was able to get
my
hands on some Delafields first, with barely a week to go before the con.
I
struggled to get some painted up to show off in my FT game and put in
the
painting contest (so those who didn't get to see them in the FT game
would
have an opportunity to see them undisturbed; I had no illusions,
however, of
winning anything in the contest with them ;-) ).

I don't know exactly how many people showed up. 40-some, I believe (a
number
of people didn't make it due to the weather from earlier in the week;
see
below). We had several vendors in residence (one of them only briefly,
though), and plenty of games to go around. I ran two, and because I
don't
get to interact with many of the people at the con on a yearly basis,
played
three. I was pretty zonked by the time I got home Sunday evening.

A few days prior to ECC (Tuesday afternoon/evening) there was a
significant
ice/snow storm that blew through the region, from as far south as DC,
all
the way up to Maine. By Friday most of the main roads were cleared. But
downtown Lancaster...ummm...well, apparently they have never heard of
"salt". At least the city road crews. The streets were sheets of ice
with
parallel ruts and rises along tire tracks, forcing you to slide into the
left lane or right, into parked cars on one side of you or the other,
and
pitted with ice potholes inches deep. I've taken my little 4-door Honda
'92
sedan over and through some sporting terrain in my time, off-road,
through
woods, over rocks, but the streets of Lancaster were...well, let's just
say
the drive in was...entertaining. Even at 10 mph (seriously).

Friday night I ran my two-part alternate timeline Castle Wolfenstein
scenario. Part one was a Full Thrust scenario called "Old Foes, New
Horizons". In this alternate timeline, during WWII, Nazi Germany somehow
acquired high-tech weapons that turned the war around so much for them
that
the *US* sued for peace! The NAC still formed, the FSE and ESU and IJN
all
still formed (the UNSC also existed, but was a puppet of the NSL/IJN),
but
in this universe, the NSL was now the Nazi Stratocratic League. And they
(along with their IJN allies) were kicking @$$ all over the universe. By
2179 they had been at war with almost every other power and were
crushing
most of them. The NAC was on its last legs. The ESU had the strength to
hold
out, but only as long as the NAC and FSE still existed. Somewhere along
the
way the NAC realized what had happened back in 1944 and learned at the
same
time that the NSL were experimenting with time travel technology. They
formed a plan to send their own ship or ships back in time in an attempt
to
thwart the NSL's experiment and possible arming of Nazi Germany during
WWII.
To this end (and unbeknownst to the NSL) they designed several new
ships:
the "new" NAC destroyer, the "new" NAC battleship, and the Delafield
(which
I made as 170 mass BDNs). These were armed with advanced drives (which
would
start breaking down if the ships moved over 12 mu/turn), K3 guns, and in
the
case of the Delafields, also a brace of AMTs. At the same time the NSL
had
developed the Graser and created a few ships carrying G2s and G3s.
Thusly
armed...

The NAC had three fleets comprised of battleships, heavy cruisers,
escort
cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and the Delafields (three), two
"new"
NAC BBs, and a single "new" NAC DD. They also had two frieghters. The
freighters and one pre-designated Delafield were carrying the troops and
equipment meant to go back to 1944 and deal with the NSL units there.
The
NAC's objective - get at least ONE of these ships off the far side of
the
map.

The NSL knew nothing of the special nature or mission of the freighters
and
the designated Delafield. They DID know that the NAC were going to try
and
send a force back in time, and their job was to stop them. To that end
they
had an SDN, several BDNs, heavy cruisers, escort cruisers, light
cruisers,
and a couple destroyers. The graser-armed ships were two heavy cruisers
(one
G2 each) and a BDN (two G3s).

The battle was engaged almost immediately. The NAC started in the
middle,
the SDN fleet at one end of the table in front of the NAC, the BDN force
directly behind the NAC (anvil-hammer), and the new-tech ships arrived
on
turn 2 off the NAC ships' starboard aft.

Nutshell account of the battle: the NSL die rolling was sub-par. The NAC
die-rolling was blazing. The NSL *did* evaporate the two freighters in
the
space of two turns. But the Delafields were only scratched and lightly
damaged by the end of the game. The "new" BBs and DD were hit reasonably
hard, but not destroyed. The NSL had many ships gutted by the end.
Thusly
surviving, the NAC would successfully get the designated Delafield off
the
board, and to its destination in order to attempt time travel...

After the game stayed up for a while socializing with those still alive,
but
fading fast, I went to the room and crashed. This year at the hotel, due
to
it being closed for renovations, we had the whole place to ourselves. It
was
quite nice, actually...

----------------------------------------------

Bright and early the next morning up and joined Jon Davis, his two sons,
Jerry Han, and a small group of others for breakfast at Zimmerman's.
Then I
sauntered down to the local Farmer's Market to pick up donuts for those
who
had not yet stirred. Two dozen donuts vanished pretty fast. ;-)

That morning I played in John Lerchey's DS3 playtest game. Originally
there
were to be, I think, 6 players, but due to the weather, several were
no-shows. That left me squaring off against David Hornung and Keith
(whose
last name I am spacing :-( ). They had the lower-tech Order of Man
religious
militant faction, and I was running the extremely honorable high-tech
Japanese mercenary unit Divine Wind (with a name like that, you can't
help
BUT be honorable! :-) ). My die rolls were not with me much of the game.
First I sent scouts onto the table. David and Keith had all their units
hidden. I blew EVERY spotting die roll I had to make. I even launched
surveillance drones. Blew their spotting die rolls, too. Badly. The ONLY
way
I was able to FIND anything was by drawing it's fire! I just had to
position
myself in such a manner that David and Keith wanted to blaze away. ;-) 
I
managed to spot some of their units, but not all. I never, ever saw the
arty
units, even though I had a drone I think right next to them (the drone -
and
by extension, the drone operator - was too Shaken to do anything, much
less
spotting. Having uncovered a few infantry positions, I opted to bring on
my
infantry to dig them out. The first platoon was thrown back by arty
fire.
The second platoon managed to make headway, and despite the arty fire
they
drew, they fought their way INTO the foxholes and evicted the current
Order
Of Man residents. The tanks started coming on at that point, and a new
player (Richard) joined my side. I gave him one of the platoon of tanks
and
we went in to clear out that avenue of escape. Well, much battling
ensued,
and as the smoke rose (not cleared), there were five dead Divine Wind
main
battle tanks (Richard only started out with five), and three or four out
of
eight dead Order Of Man tanks. My HQ tanks made short work of the OOM
survivors.

At this point we called the game. I like how the DS3 rules have been
evolving over time. I hope to get some more local playtesting in on them
this year.

Saturday afternoon. After a quick lunch, I entered Mike Hudak's Full
Thrust
Campaign game. I had Aaron Newman, Grant Ladue, and Jon Davis on my
team. We
split our ships up and decided which systems we were going to move into,
and
worked out a strategic battleplan for the next several strategic turns.
As
turn one unfolded, I found my medium-sized NAC battle fleet **squarely**
in
the middle of THREE ESU medium, heavy, and ultra-heavy fleets. Needless
to
say, I didn't last long. And while I managed to not take anything out
with
me, I put a hurting on a few ships, and managed to last more than three
turns total. :-)  But before turn four was over, I was out of viable
combat
ships (my frigates and scout ran on turn 1, leaving my two BBs and the
CE to
face off against an SDN, a BDN, two BBs, CAs, CEs, CLs, and DDs). It was
a
short, sharp game - but I got to roll lots of beam die, and actually hit
a
few times with pulse torps (three total, out of six or seven - but they
were
within the first two range bands!) (of course my actual damage roll was
less
than noticeable ;-D ).

Between the afternoon and evening sessions we had dinner, did the
results of
the painting contest (Jerry will post the results, but for some reason
people thought my Delafields were pretty nice, and I got a third place
finish in the FT category!), did general annoucements, did the group
photo
thing (had to this year!), and had cake (yummy yummy in my tummy tummy
:) ).

Saturday evening I was involved in Steve Barosi's and Martin Connell's
Victorian-Age battle on Mars: British army vs Martians who were stealing
human women for their own reproductive purposes. Being stiff
upper-lipped
gentlemen, we couldn't allow that!

The game was played using a combination of FT and SG2, and was all 15mm
scale. The ships were homemade aeronefs, while the figs were from a
variety
of companies. The battle was played off the floor, in three dimensions.
Steve and Martin had constructed PVC poles that the ships were attached
to
and could maneuver in six elevation levels in addition to moving forward
and
turning. There were also clouds, manta riders to harass the brave
British
fleet, automatons, and hang-glider assault squads. Our goal was to
rescue
the women from the Martians.

As we maneuvered and jockeyed for position, I sprayed fire for three or
four
turns at Martian 'Nefs. I missed with EACH and EVERY shot (they weren't
pulse torps, I don't understand! - oh, yeah, they were beam dice :-P ).
My
British marines had a better time of it shooting at Martian crew and
soldiers on other 'Nefs. The Martians' big boat (where most of the women
were being held) blasted one shot into my ship. 5d6 beam dice caused 11
pts
damage, forcing a threshold check. Now I began rolling 6s! A full 1/4 of
my
ship fell into disuse. :-/ The only thing I really had now were my two
elite
hang glider squads. One dropped onto the deck of the big ship and
engaged
into close assault with one of the two elite Martian squads. I managed
to
wipe out just over half of the Martians in that squad, but it cost me
each
and every man in my unit. :-(	I was rolling soooo well. :-P	It was
getting late, and the Martians were about to exit the field of battle
with
the women. Our 'Nefs were badly out of position (the Martians used
gravity
to drop in elevation and accelerate like mad!), so we had two hopes
left: my
remaining elite hang glider squad (who got shot at and took a couple
casualties) and one of the automatons. We dropped them onto the big
Martian
ship. My hang glider squad went in first. The six of them engaged the
last
three Martians. I lost two or three guys doing so, but finally killed
off
the Martians! In both of the close assaults I never failed a morale
check -
my boys rock! (then again, they knew they were doing this for the women
- no
way we were backing down! :-) ). The automaton then dropped on the other
squad. I couldn't bear to watch (having watched the other automaton get
tore
up by the soldiers on one of the Martian skiffs), but a few minutes
later,
the automaton was victorious! And we had rescued five of the eight women
from the Martians! (the other three, alas, were hiding on skiffs that
escaped; I was still blowing my observation rolls as badly this evening
as I
had been earlier in the day). The British won a minor victory due to not
rescuing the other three women.

After more socializing and whatnot, finally crashed off to bed.

(cont'd next msg)