GZG ECC XV - Indy's AAR

Well, another GZG ECC - our 15th - has wrapped up. And while we were a
little low in attendance this year (due to a number of factors), those who
came had a great time.

This year Jon, Jerry and I discussed opening up the game options to not
only include GZG rules or GZG-inspired/GZG-related rules, but open things
up to other rules sets. This actually was a boon, as it brought in some
people/vendors that might not have otherwise normally have come. Our newest
vendor to attend was Osprey Publications, featuring Bruce and Ron. They had
a slew of books on display, they participated in some games, and they ran a
couple of games. And generally enjoyed themselves. I hope they will be
regular attendees in the future.

So Friday, after a very long, stressful week of 'last minute' events (I
still love my job, though), I left work early, stopped to do a quick
geocache, and ended up dealing with Maryland's Finest over it, being thus
subsequently delayed nearly an hour meeting up with Yerin (who recently
moved down to the Baltimore area from Pittsburgh). Once that issue was
resolved I got home where Yerin had been waiting. We loaded up her Jeep
with all my crap, and on the road we went! Both of us like to drive, but I
decided to not fight it and let her take the helm, as I had been up past
midnight the three previous nights prepping for the weekend's con. And just
as well as I fell asleep on her midway through Pennsylvania for about 40
minutes.

Eventually we got to Owego and checked in. Only to discover that they had
somehow lost Yerin's reservations. John Lerchey, Yerin's fiance, had not
yet arrived, so he hadn't already checked in. They had to deal with that,
and ended up getting a much nicer room over it all. :-)   Me, I got a
regular room overlooking the river (sweet). None of the rooms in the hotel
on the first floor had been restored after the great flood they had from
storms late last year. Apparently the water levels reached 5' in the hotel.
That they got the restaurant and convention rooms up and going again in
time for us is amazing.

Unlike the previous two years, there was barely any snow on the ground in
the region. Mostly just on the north sides of the hills. You could actually
see where the space lines were in the parking lot.  :-)

Once checked in I dashed down to the con room and unloaded my boxes of
stuff from Yerin's car - gaming stuff for the two games I would be running
over the weekend, the prize kitty (with many thanks to Jon Tuffley/GZG and
Tony Francis/Brigade over their prize donations!), and other general con
supplies (extra pencils, the quote board flip chart, markers for the quote
board, electronic pencil sharpener, etc). John and Yerin and John's son
Jonathan came down to check in then went off to get dinner, bringing me
back a sub from Arby's. (yay! food!).

I also brought a slew of photography equipment (a DSLR, two digicams, three
tripods, and a 6' long dolly), with the intent and plan of capturing some
time-lapse footage of the con for a video I wanted to make mixing various
still photos and time-lapse sequences to showcase our convention. The point
was partly to show those who weren't able to make it some of the con
participants and games, and partly for those who were curious about the
ECCs but had not yet attended, to give them a flavor of what it is like.
I'll be making the video over the next few weeks as time and schedule
permits, then post it to youtube and vimeo. I'll send the links out when
it's ready. I don't know if I'll try repeating this adventure in the
future, as a large number of people thought it would be funny to keep
'photo-bombing' the main time-lapse sequences I had going with the dolly
and DSLR (primarily by standing in front of it while the camera was
shooting). Once was funny. 15, 20, 30 times, not so much. And while their
image would only flick through (except for those who figured out that
standing before the camera longer meant more shots taken of them, and thus
the longer they would last in the video), it's just distracting enough to
draw attention from the actual con activities. That was about the only
downer for me this weekend. ANYway

Once I finished wolfing down the sub, I set up the camera and dolly system,
and distributed prizes to the various games being run for the evening, I
got in on Rich Meaden's Starmada game. I've been intrigued by this rules
set, wondering what the big draw to it was for so many folks, so signed up
to his game to give it a whirl. John and Yerin, and Bruce from Osprey, were
also in the game. The scenario was that there was a fleet of refugee ships
fleeing some unknown aliens, and a UNSC fleet moving in to interdict and
drive off the advancing alien force. The aliens were the GZG "mystery
ships", and the UNSC were GZG FSE ships. The refugees were in some very
nice last minute scratch-built ships (that would end up taking, iirc, 2nd
place in the painting contest). We divided up sides, John and I taking the
lavender alien ships (we were to take out the refugee ships), Yerin and
Bruce taking the blue FSE/UNSC fleet (to remove the alien threat). Rich
would run the refugee ships.

The funniest moment for me was that shortly before I was utterly destroyed
in the game I realized that the SSD table I had for my ships showed more
than one weapon (I had been reading it as one weapon with each bracketed
entry being different arcs I could fire out of, not each bracketed entry
being a full weapon into and of itself!). I managed to get off one full
bore volley of fire before Bruce and Yerin crushed me. What made it funny
was that the turn Bruce and Yerin opened up their ships, Bruce came to the
same realization about his ships! (this should show up in the Quote Board
when Jon gets it transcribed) And said almost the exact same thing I said
upon my enlightening. That was when they crushed my ships, leaving John to
carry the aliens forward into the fray. I don't know who won because they
were still going by midnight and I was fading fast! I retired for bed.

We all had a fun time, though in the end I think Full Thrust is not in
danger of being replaced for me. ;-)  If I do any more Starmada, I'll need
to get a better handle on the weapons system. But FT still rules the deep
skies for me.

Saturday morning came all too early, after now four nights consecutive of
up 'til 1am or later with early mornings following. I joined Jon Davis and
his son Greg for breakfast. We hiked up to the small diner at the end of
the strip of fast-food restaurants and other businesses as we had in the
past, looking forward to some good greasy spoon cookin'. Unfortunately, and
unbeknownst to us, there was a swim team of 8 college boys ahead of us
waiting for their breakfast. As well as other patrons, many waiting for
their own breakfasts. When we placed our order, the waitress told us it
would be a few minutes before we got our food due to the orders ahead of
us. No problem, we thought, as we sipped on our hot chocolates, coffees,
and orange juices.

30 minutes later the swim team had not yet gotten their breakfast (and
apparently there was only one cook in the small kitchen, cooking meals in
series, not parallel). And we had less than 15 minutes to get back to the
hotel and get the con doors open by 8am. We distressingly decided we had to
abort breakfast and hike it back. We did stop quickly at Subway for a
breakfast sandwich, but they didn't open until 8am. We stepped over to
Arby's, who were open and more than happy to exchange food for money. Good
choice in the end, the breakfast wraps were actually quite good.

Back in the con room, I spent time getting the time-lapse gear set up and
running, getting prizes distributed, and getting submissions to the
painting contest, all the while trying to keep my space marine squad alive
in a hulk of a station that seemed to have a never-ending supply of aliens
that would rip us a new one if we let them get close enough. Unfortunately,
the dice let them get close enough to two of my marines, and next I knew, I
was down to three from five. Kevin Fox, Martin Connell, and Ron Leonard's
squads all fared a bit better than mine did overall, with Kevin's heavy
machine-gun mowing down over a dozen aliens before he either ran out of
ammo or an alien got too close and sliced him up (I don't rightly
remember). In the end there was no way that neither Martin or I were going
to be able to fulfill our objectives (which were still on the far side of
the station, and we hadn't even gotten past the 1/4 point yet), Ron was
close to his objective (we each had different ones), and Kevin had
accomplished his (though he would probably still die at the jaws and claws
of the ravening alien horde before making it back out again - it was not a
mission to live through, but rather one to die with glory and honor).

After a quick lunch and camera/dolly reset it was time for me to run my
first scenario of the con: a 15mm Tomorrow's War game pitting a reduced NSL
platoon against a similar-sized FSE platoon. Each had different objectives
again (the NSL to do a sweep across the map, the FSE to take a hill at the
far end of the board). And unbeknownst to them, there were two claws of 9
Kra'Vak each hiding on the map (whose objective was to capture at least one
human from the NSL and FSE factions). And unbeknownst to ALL of them there
was a recently awoken alien horde inside the secret research base that,
while on the board, no one officially knew about. The aliens' objective:
eat all the other humanoid life-forms!

Rich Ogden and I think Doug Schavo (it's becoming a sleep-deprived blur at
this point) were running the FSE, Jon Davis and Ron Leonard the NSL. The
plucky Jonathan Lerchey took on control of the Kra'Vak, and David (who's
last name I am spacing) embraced his Aliens side with the horde.

The game went pretty well. The aliens ate (off-table) all the NSL research
scientists and security teams in the secret base, but utterly failed in
their main objective of eating any (much less all) of the humanoids on the
table. The Kra'Vak managed to take out in one volley of fire an entire FSE
fire team, taking them as captive (half their objective competed), while
the FSE were massively delayed taking the hill by alien incursions and
ambushes so never quite made it. The NSL's objectives changed at least
twice during the course of the mission (from sweep to 'capture (i.e., prove
to HQ) one of these supposed shiny black aliens', to rescue and safeguard
the research science team; they managed only to drag back a broken body of
one alien).

After this, I found very little time available to tally up the votes for
the painting contest. Doug Schavo and some of the rest of his Canadian
Contingent went off and found me a yummy BBQ for dinner, while I
desperately tried to tally votes and divvy up the prizes each would get.

Before the painting contest results were announced, Jon and I held our
usual mid-con "thank you for coming and here's what's in store for the
future" meeting with the con attendees (don't know too many other cons that
give this personal touch). After we gave our thanks and public recognition
of our vendors and prize supporters, I took on announcing the painting
contest winners.

Unlike in years past, where either Martin Connell or Steve Barosi would
sweep two or three categories, this year's first place winner for the FT
category also placed first in not only the Dirtside category, but the
SG-15mm and SG-25mm categories as well! Well done, Kevin Fox!  Martin and
Steve did have a single entry each that placed in 2nd or 3rd place, at the
very least. Other winners included Aaron Newman, Mark Kinsey, Rich Meaden,
David my aliens player, and Chris Barosi, Steve's son.

Finally, I had a bit of time to relax. After taking DOWN the camera and
dolly, I got in on Bruce and Ron's Ambush Alley/Force on Force game.
Because they had submitted their game entries late in the sign-up period
(and because our attendance was low), only Jon Davis and Yerin going to
play with me. The mission: the Marine contingent had to go down a Taliban
gauntlet to reach a crashed helicopter, rescue the pilots nearby (if any
survived and remained uncultured), and get back off the board again at our
entry point.

We had 16 turns to do this.

Jon immediately leapt at the opportunity to play the Taliban
(aye-yayayayayayayaiiiiii-boom!), so Yerin and I took the Marines/Afghan
Security force.

Jon's die rolls in this game were about the temperature of Afghanistan in
mid-summer: hot. Before turn 2 was done, we had lost one out of three
Humvees, almost an entire squad of Marines, and were basically pinned down
in the backfield. We were also stuck in the backfield trying to sort orders
out with HQ (one of the fog of war cards dictated this fate to our unit; we
were not allowed to move for an entire turn, so it would not be until turn
4 before we could try to advance).

8 turns later when we called the game we had lost all THREE Humvees, about
half of the Marines, the Afghan security force, annnnnd.our second and
most heavily armored reinforcement unit, an AMTRAC (a Taliban tank hunter
team blew it to smithereens with three RPGs!). We still had a Bradley, but
after watching the catastrophic explosion of the AMTRAC, it was not getting
any closer to the RPG users if it could help matters. But that meant we
weren't getting any closer to the downed pilots, either.

The Taliban had also sprung an ambush on one of the Marine squads from one
of the houses, but the Bradley launched a TOW missile that removed the roof
of that building. The Tallys there fled. The Tallys in the other building
that had been shooting at us for three turns running were finally all taken
down. I moved a reduced squad of guys into that building to take prisoners.

THEN the Taliban got themselves a frigging TANK! (sure, it was an old,
obsolete T-55, but it shore did look a lot like an M-1! :-D ). Finally the
Taliban, who failed a lot of reaction tests with rolls of '1' and got to
draw fog of war cards, drew a card that gave us a sniper!! Sa-weeeeeet!
Yerin gave me control of the sniper and I placed him on a hilltop not far
from the commander of the Taliban unit (he was being a royal pain with his
higher quality die rolling, let me tell you). I had the sniper (which was a
figure loaned to us by Tom Barclay, a figure from his Stargate campaign
that Chris DeBoe apparently runs) take a bead on the Tally leader, and with
a .50 cal pop, took down the Tally. Meanwhile, HQ finally took our calls
for assistance seriously (after we lost the AMTRAC, they got the message)
and sent in an A-10.

At this point we called the game. The A-10 whomped on the Tally leader's
platoon and the neighboring platoon on the butte, butreinforcements were
no doubt on the way. And we STILL hadn't gotten past the two buildings at
our end of the table! We decided that the sniper team would get the pilots
and try to bring them out (somehow), while the rest of us kept the
attentions of the remaining Taliban units. And for how well the Taliban did
during the game, Jon Davis was declared the 'winner'. :-)  His prize? An
Osprey Publications book onRPGs.

A fun game, but another late night.

Sunday morning came, and after a good breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I
went in to the con room to set up the camera/dolly unit, and then my last
game for the weekend: an Aeronef battle involving fleets from the US,
Japanese and German aeronef navies. Basically the premise was that the
Germans had been raiding the South Seas islands in the Pacific of R-Matter
during the early 1900s. Both the Japanese and US took exception to this
pilfering (they wanted the R-Matter for their own), and each sent in a
fleet to capture the latest raiding freighter group.

I had four players for three sides. I had thought to maybe make the Germans
just a simple freighter group and would run them until captured or they
escaped. But after Rich Meaden and Don took the Japanese navy, and Martin
Connell the US, Rich Ogden decided to take one for the Fatherland. So I
gave him the little German secret: the Kaiser's spies knew of the plans by
both the US and Japanese to try and capture the next freighter run, so
substituted a Schleswig-Holstein battleship dig in place for the freighter.
With no markings and plenty of panels for cover, it was, in effect, a
Q-ship. Once either the US or Japanese got close (12 inches or less), it
would be revealed to be what it truly was. The German player (Rich) would
also by turn 3 or 4 get a rescue fleet of some cruisers and battle
destroyer digs.

As Martin and Rich had played the game before (in the distant past), and as
the game is not complicated, by midway through turn 1 all players had the
gist of how to play. From that point it mostly ran itself, relieving me to
go about taking some photos and whatnot.

The game ended in more or less a draw. The fleets were still in an aerial
melee, but given the amounts of damage the survivors could take, it was
highly unlikely that any nets were going to plummet into the ocean below
for at least another turn or two. We called the game at that point and
cleaned up for the end of the weekend.

Once we packed up, Yerin and I got on the road, stopping for a few
geocaches on the way in Binghampton and along the northern stretch of I-81
in Pennsylvania. In Great Bend, PA, we were brought to an old (1955-era)
155mm howitzer by a geocache. That was pretty cool. Back on the road,
somewhere before Scranton, I somehow fell dead asleep mid-sentence in a
conversation with Yerin. I woke up an hour or so later. We stopped for
dinner, gas, and she dropped me back home by 8:30pm before heading home
herself, some 4 miles away (it's be great when John Lerchey moves down
here; I'll have another built-in local GZG opponent!).

And thus another ECC was completed! Thanks to everyone who came or
otherwise participated from afar. I'll try to get the video put together
and up in the next couple/few weeks. I'll also get photos to Jerry to put
up on the con website.

Mk