GZG ECC XVIII - Indy's AAR

textfilter: chose text/plain from a multipart/alternative

Hey, gang,

So, GZG ECC XVII is a wrap. Below is my AAR.

Friday evening I ran my Star Trek "save the Federation heavy cruisers"
SMITE game. It went very very well. Had six players sign up (Steve
Barosi,
Tom Barclay, Mike Hudak, Ron Leonard, Carl Scheu, and his son, Thomas
Scheu), one who had played SMITE a couple times in the past few years
(but
only once each year, when I've run it at the convention; we'll call
Steve
'skilled' as opposed to 'veteran' for now :-) ), the rest newbies to the
game. As usual, took a little time to clue in on the two-phase movement
and
when ships can rotate facings, but once a couple turns went by they were
good to go. However, Steve Barosi managed to scrape the side of his
Klingon
D6 at high speed against an asteroid and.......well, after ripping the
port
engine nacelle off, and the resultant forces throwing the ship into an
uncontrollable spin which cartwheeled it across the surface of the
asteroid
before pieces scattered back out into space, there was no more ship. In
the
end, the game played very well, and the Feddies pulled out a tactical
win.
They absolutely pounded Carl's Klingon D7 to scrap with a combined force
of
destroyers and medium cruisers when the D7 decided to break from the
rest
of the pack and go it alone, planning on taking down one of the space
docks
by itself. It didn't make it, and the Fed heavy cruiser (*Enterprise*)
managed to come out swinging, except there were no targets to swing at.
The
rest of the Klingons went after the other space dock and the *Hood*,
forcing the *Hood* out with only 2/3 of the hull reactivated. When we
ended
the game the Hornet had smashed a couple of Klingon light and medium
cruisers, but there was a pristine, untouched (the only untouched
Klingon
ship in the game!) coming up on the *Hood*'s rear arc, and was going to
be
less than 4 inches away (point-blank range). The *Hood* at this point
had
lost a shield and was down to 5 hull boxes, so unless Ron rolled
absolutely
poorly, it was highly unlikely it was going to survive another turn.

Saturday morning I got in on a straight-up basic Full Thrust game run by
Ken Wang. Since I've been doing the SMITE stuff, been a long time since
I've played basic vanilla Full Thrust. I faced off against Mike Hudak,
Scott Howland, and his son Ethan Howland. It was a good game, where we
each
had battlecruisers with our choice of modular weapons loadouts, and went
head to head. Four players entered, and though I chose the p-torp
brandishing module, I somehow came out on top.	:-D  As Steve Barosi
said,
"Every dog has his day." Starting in four opposite corners of the board,
I
began going after Mike Hudak, who was on the long end of the field away
from me, then turned toward Ethan, who was coming at me. We had a few
fire
exchanges, and i got the better of him each time. 6 p-torp blasts
managed
to do something like 20 pts damage over the course of three turns, which
his ship couldn't take when combined with wicked beam die rolls. I swear
at
one point Aaron Teske was nearby counteracting my usual die rolls. After
Ethan's ship vaporized, I turned to the field center and closed with
both
Scott and Mike, who were doing their own fire exchanges. The three of us
met not far from each other, but Mike was a full range band closer than
Scott, so I let him have it. One salvo of p-torps and massed beams put
18
points on him. Combined with whatever Scott had been doing to Mike's
ship,
Mike's vessel exploded. Then Scott and I squared off. Fortunately, Mike
had
done some damage already to Scott, and it didn't take much for me to put
him down. But in return, he ended up savaging my ship. I lived, with 3-4
hull boxes remaining, and a couple of systems, but the main point was, I
survived.  :-D

Saturday afternoon I got involved in a StarGrunt game based on John
Carpenter's movie, "The Thing", run by Steve Barosi and Martin Connell.
Because I had to step away from the table to take care of some Con
business, I was put in charge (he who is not present gets the command
team)
of a merc unit that was hired to blast through the defending ScanFed
forces
to a research station on some arctic planet, and either nab the research
specimen the scientists were working on, or take one or more of the
scientists, and get out again. Things were going very very very well for
us
until about 2/3 of the way through the game, then the defenders actually
started hitting our (my) units. The scientists apparently botched the
experiments they were conducting and 'the worrm' escaped, chasing them
down. They all ran out into the arctic snow and ice fields. The
defending
ScanFed leader realized we were after the scientists as a secondary
objective and started hosing them down ("if we can't have them, they
can't
have them!"). Two of the 6 or 8  scientists ultimately survived, though
wounded. Meanwhile the worm took an unhealthy (for Mike Hudak's unit)
interest in one of the merc skimmer teams and proceeded to tear it apart
(then fed on the remains, growing into a much larger worm - yikes!).
When
it reappeared, it went after the nearby wounded scientist and ate her.
Meanwhile I had tried to cover the remaining three fleeing scientists
with
my APC, only to have it blown out from under me (Thanks, Stuart!). 2/3
of
my team got out, but a couple of them were then cut down by the
defenders
(who were cheering, as up to that point they hadn't caused any
casualties
to us). Jim Bell swung his skimmer unit around the research station,
grabbed the now one remaining scientist (wounded) and my command team
survivors and beat feet. We escaped with one scientist, but I'd call it
a
Pyrrhic Victory. Meanwhile, the 'worm' had grown and was feasting on the
goodness of juicy life that still clung outside and inside the research
outpost. No idea if the hapless ScanFeds were ever able to defeat the
Thing, or if they became dinner.

The painting contest event went well, although there were far far fewer
entries this year than in years past. Mostly this is because a number of
regulars weren't present. On the flip side, while the usual subset of
highly talented people won in most of the categories, it meant I got a
win
in on the FT category (for my Ares-class Federation medium cruisers,
which,
if you've seen them, was nothing fancy paint-job-wise) as well as in the
6mm category (for my three B25 strafer bombers representing the 498th,
499th, and 500th Bomb Squadrons of the 345th Bomb Group who operated in
the
Pacific theater during WWII). And newcomer Ethan Howland snagged a 3rd
place entry in the 25mm category!

Saturday evening I got into another Full Thrust game, this time a fleet
action game run by Jon Davis, where we were trying to defend a convoy
from
three different attacking task forces. We...failed, to both defend the
convoy, and to cause sufficient damage to make it too costly to the
attackers. Good game, though, but I have forgotten just how
UNmaneuverable
NSL ships are! Part of our tactical problems was in the set up, where
the
NSL SDN commander elected to place his forces in the back of the pack.
He
was unable to bring the full weight of his firepower to bear in any
significant manner. The other issue was all of the NSL players really
forgetting just HOW unmaneuverable our ships were, especially compared
to
the ESU, and turning to go at them head-on (so the ESU just took one
volley
of fire in the face and blew through our lines). And partly, at least
for
me, my die rolls were beginning to return to normal once again, and with
my
battleship and attendant destroyers and frigates, I was unable to blunt
the
oncoming battleship and cruisers of the ESU. (apparently the force
coming
head on into the convoy is usually savaged pretty hard; my die rolls
demonstrated that near misses do not do much to affect the integral
operating capability of a target ship). Frustrating as it was to
suddenly
find myself out of position and unable to do ANYthing to the ESU by turn
3,
it was a good game.

Sunday morning I decided to take it easy, so hung around and kibitzed
with
some folks for a bit, watched an X-Wing game being run by Tom Barclay
(not
your typical shoot-em-up game, either), a Rulerball game being run by
Mark
Kinsey, and took great interest in Jon Davis' Full Thrust variant to Car
Wars. Then I got myself on the road, did a few geocaches on the way
back,
and headed into Maryland to tackle some other errands before finally
getting home.

Great weekend, great games, and great people. The quotes from the Quote
Board will be posted to the ECC website, if not also posted here.

Next year, April 1-3, ECC XIX!! And a shout out to Jon Tuffley and Tony
Francis from GZG and Brigade for their prize support, as well as Mike
Renegar and Chris Lynch from Rebel Minis and Ravenstar Studios for their
prize support as well.

Mk