From Tom Barclay (kaladorn_at_magma.ca) Friday: Drive down with Kevin Fox (new to ECC) and Adrian Johnson. Arrive in time to setup and run "Stargrunt Pickup Game" which became known (for map reasons) as "Grey Rocks vs. Brown Rocks". Watched Laserlight demonstrate that he has a relationship with the infernal, as that is all that could explain his amazing resistance to enemy fire... Bob 'Magic' Makowksy tried, then gave up and surrendered. Kevin managed to close assault a suppressed unit, and run into another along the way, walk through a hail of fire, then assault a smaller, lesser quality unit. And in the end, his 7 or 8 elites lay dead, and the regulars (or vets) on the other side lost one figure. (Yes Kevin, it is okay to roll numbers higher than 3 on d12...) Grey Rocks win hands down. Bob Makowsky surrenders half his squad, but they live. Saturday: Paint figures with Rick Rutherford. Learn a few more techniques from Rick. Share some knowledge in return I hope. Good clinic. Joel Frock, Adrian Johnson, Kevin Fox and I have variously spoken about the idea of running a terrain building seminar. Perhaps next year we can do that. Spend the afternoon getting the kinks out of Weight of Command, as it is a major undertaking and could not be tested full scale ahead of time. Smaller tests don't cover all coordination issues. Needed to get a wireless network in place, Teamspeak up and active, prove the system, print out some more squad cards, lay out figures into units, get our image processing on the go, photograph some 'pre game intel' pictures then muddy them up with night vision green and noise filters, etc. Went out for Java with Bob, Los, and Kr'rt and found the world's most comfortable couch. Nearly a critical game abort as the couch sucked us in. But professionalism overcame comfort. The game must go on. Saturday night, executed a 45 minute briefing and planning section for the players, a 3 hour and fifteen minute game, and a 45 minute post-game debrief/lessons learned/behind the curtains event. There were various objectives - to show what it is like operating as or with off board commander, where the on board commanders get instructions that aren't always relevant or timely and the off board commander, the only one with a real idea what is going on, is constantly lacking a complete picture and is recieving it with hysterisis. Also, we wanted it to demonstrate what happens when instructions or dataflow is less than precise. And we wanted to put the players in a place where they had to make situational decisions without full facts. And where players on the game boards had to adapt rapidly to changing pressures and to off-board command influences and the commander had to deal with out-of-game UN HQ and civilian government pressures. All in all, it went well. Interesting points: - Info for the UN HQ Cmdr was 'a day late and a dollar short'. His commands arrived sometimes late (authorizing weapons free on a particular unit three or four game rounds after the players on the board had went weapons free). But that was expected. - Experienced the confusion of having the mission target reported in two places and the resulting back-and-forth of orders from higher HQ. This too was expected. - Experienced the on-board commanders deciding which orders to obey and which to 'interpret creatively' in view of their own SA. This too was expected. - Experienced examples of units on different comm nets not coordinating (UN APCs driving off and leaving R&S elements sitting there with their thumbs out - and forcing them to hotwire a civilian truck to escape the WMD blast radius). This was unexpected, but goes on in real life as each unit follows its own orders. - Watched some very inventive play. Beth's UN HQ rescued some young schoolkids instants before the WMD should have went off, bribing them with candy. This same unit also served as a distraction when Aaron's unit of UN PA prepared for a 'through the floor' assault on the terrorists with the WMD in the church basement. Said tangos were located by Aaron using the advanced sensors in his PA, an inventive idea. All in all, a number of inventive ideas came forth (in the briefing and during the game). They were unexpected, sometimes surprising, and a lot of fun. - At the end of the game, due to Philip Pournelle commanding the 'snatch' board, he did not pass on to his troops the presence of the WMD. At end-game, the guys on that board said 'we though everything was just going as planned, no idea anything was wrong' and the guys at HQ said 'that board looks calm' (Phil restricted info flow upwards too) and Bravo board (the WMD board) looked chaotic to higher HQ and its players. Now, part of this was expected (Bravo had to deal with a mid-game change and the appearance of unbriefed heavily armoured hostile forces). Part of it is just a result of how things were played. But the experiences of players on Alpha board and Beta Board and in the HQ were each distinct from one another. - Ref's are preparing a proper AAR and summary. We are also preparing a study of what went right from the perspective of running one of these and what went wrong and what we think can address that in later iterations of similar types of command simulator. This way, perhaps, we can offer others insight into the process and if anyone else wants to try this (or if we do it again a year or two hence), the job will be easier. Then a bunch of us Canucks plus Tom Tongue sat up until the wee hours drinking beer and chatting. It wouldn't be ECC without late nights. The abscence of a bar really sucked though. It meant we couldn't even drink beer in the comfy chairs with a table and play a game. Hopefully they will rememdy this. Sunday Cleaned up from TWOC. John Davis asked me to run a quick game of SG for some latecomers who were new to the game. I did so, and the Africans were gradually beaten to death by the Gurkhas, even though the Africans had pretty good tactics. This game saw more close assaults than I have seen in some time (4 or 5). I think it was a good intro for the new guys. Overall Comments: - I missed the street preacher and Phil Pournelle exchanging bon mots. I wish I'd seen that. - Concession cart? Why the (*&@!! didn't we have one before! That's a great idea! Kudos to Mr. Calivari (Nee Davis) for making this happen, along with every other of the billion things the Con Committee does for us for which we do not thank them enough. Without them, no word of a lie, there would not BE a GZG ECC. Boys, I'm tipping a beer to you. Everyone else: Get in there and volunteer to help in the coming years! - I was very happy to meet Beth. I *wish* I'd known she was coming. I'd have brought her a present down from Canada like some Maple Syrup. Next time. Or I'll have to go to Oz for a Con. Pity she couldn't fit Derek in her suitcase. Or Lachlan and Janneke and the others. - To Los, thanks brother. You're a great guy and wonderful to work with. And you always have cool pix and stories. - To Cmdr. Makowsky, USCG. You're my kinda guy Bob. And the promotion was well deserved. And the picture of your crew and you with Ollie North was a neat item. Fun working with you. - To Weasel Boy Wasserman, merci for all your assistance. Good to see you again, wonderful fun working with you, thanks for the tech support for the game and the BB. You are the King, baby. - To Kevin Fox, thanks 1000x for painting so many wonderful figures for me over the past year. Thanks for 17 or 18 years of wonderful friendship. And thanks for helping out in our game Saturday night. - To Rick Rutherford, thanks for teaching me more painting tricks. :) - To JP, Jim, Tom, Chris, Adrian, Kevin, Mike Sarno, Mike Hudak, and others - thanks for the outrageous good natured burning that keeps my ego in check. I generously *assume* that it is good natured. :) - No Kra'Vak you say? I think we need a sequel to "The Weight of Command during a Grey Day on Carter Island!".... and it has to have Kra'Vak. TomB PS, I'm back. I've been on the test list for a long time. PPS - Quote Correction: The comment about latex had to do with crossing the border. Several funny comments were made by the Canucks this year "It was a latex-free crossing." (JP?), or "Do you have anything to Declare? Yep! I'm allergic to Latex!" (Tomb) ============ Quotes from TWOC: Tom McCarthy, during the briefing, when told that escalation of force was not acceptable under ROE: "Just watch me." Magic, talking to Tomb: "You know that rad spike that UN science observation reported to Mark? He thought it correlated with Tom's Fusion gun fire. That's what he reported to higher HQ. He even sent them a picture of the car." (The car had been burning as a result of a crash caused by a carefully aimed rifle volley at the tires, and the rad spike was from the preparation of the WMD...NOT Tom's fusion gun fire, which also had not touched the car) Tom McCarthy, after hearing on the radio that Weapons Free had been given on the Mercs he was fighting (and on whom had been using the heavy plasma gun already for several turns): "Ah. I have my hacker get to work on the timestamp on those image logs." Tom McCarthy to Beth Fulton: "You can fire your fusion guns at them. It won't do anything but suppress them." (Tom had fired twice, and I had rolled really well for the defence) (Beth fired, and wounded 3 out of 4 in the squad and killed the other). (This was also where the comment about being court martialled for what HE (Tom McCarthy) had already done arose) Over the radio from UN OpCO at HQ Kochte: Amnesty is not authorized at this time. UN HQ directs you negotiate with them in the strongest possible terms. In the CO's exact words "Tell them it would be in their best interest to surrender". Beth Fulton, to the Arms Dealers less than 30 seconds later: "I offer them Amnesty." Beth has captured a bunch of mercenaries, including their leader. There is a WMD with 28 seconds left on it. GM: You wish to interrogate the Arms Dealer leader. How far do you go? Beth: As far as necessary. GM: Well, it looks like he was thinking about talking before he died. You ripped his arms off. Beth, interrogating the next merc after the leader's body topples to the floor: "Is there anyone else who knows the code?" Scared Merc: "Y..yyesss! The XO! He got away in a boat!" Beth, looking at the squad she previously close assaulted near the shore and the dead single figure out there with a pistol. "Crap." Tom McCarthy, fleeing from the the board with the other UN troops in various APCs: "I just drove over onto the other board. Aaron (Newman)'s guys just asked me if I was there to give them a lift." (Tom had a big grin on his face - I feared the worst) Shortly after, talking to Aaron: "I was trying to get my R&S elements out. The CO radioed and said 'just catch a lift on one of the APCs'. I replied - you mean the ones that just drove by?" (Aaron had to hotwire a truck to save his guys. Good thing he asked me ahead of time if his guys had those kind of skills... *grin*) Aaron Teske's radioactively contaminated Hero, who had single handedly disarmed the bomb by removing the core, talking to his CO Beth: "I'm going to come join up with you guys. I disarmed the bomb." Beth: "Negative. Procede to the park, we'll get you some evac." (knowing he was 'Hot') Shortly after, Aaron is in the park, and Mark's Command VTOL arrives, and he asks to be picked up. Mark's rad gear goes off. Aaron is instructed to cable-hitch himself to a tow-hook on the outside.... Fine thanks for a hero.