Sunday, April 30, 2017

InCon 2017 Comox Valley

The busy April wound up with another games even, InCon in Courtenay.

Friday Night has an opening ceremony with 'advertisements' about the games coming over the weekend, here the Star Wars game is promoted.
I had been asked to run more historical minis demonstrations, and went out to do a big support for my son's Star Wars game:

the Interdictor project as it appeared at the end of March
I could not share anything about this project as we wanted the appearance of the Interdictor Goliath to come as a shock to the players in the game.

IT WORKED out so well!


Snoopy and the Red Baron face off again in a light-hearted Friday night game
The Batman of Victoria had an Adam West version and a sense of humor to go with it!

More fun pics around the Tardis?!?
I ran a Victory Without Quarter game in the morning on Saturday, this time Alpia won the engagement:

Jeff's Alpian Wars were popular enough to be requested on Sunday!
Then it was time for that Star Wars game to roll.

setup as the 'breaching pod' moves in ...

impact on one of the gravity well generators

damage effects included lighting as well, the blue bridge lights turned out well

Nebulon-B in some trouble ...

the Interdictor was forced to retreat into hyperspace by the demolition team

Games crew!
It was fun to be all in a game with all three of my boys when they had other options to play.

Then Saturday evening came the Warr Without an Enemie game that I ran:

We setup a map based loosely on the 1643 battlefield of Marston Moor and rolled up a pair of armies, done to showcase the speed and flexibility of the game system.

Roundheads

Cavaliers

to the left the Parliament had to move into the center of the field and push the Royalists, on the top right, off the road

lines of Parliament got formed to hammer at the town

though orders were given to march to firing range, the terrain did a lot of disruption (due to poor die rolls) of the Parliament in moving forward

at a critical moment the Royalists roared out to battle and hit the Parliament lines hard sending many scattering away

the Parliament lines on the left were solid until the Parliament horse were broken in front of them and then the artillery began to hit them hard...
A Royalist victory, though not without great losses among the Cavaliers that rode out to the van and into the enclosed fields ...

Sunday saw opportunity to get some photos and run another game of Alpian Wars:

a quick re-set of the table and Victory Without Quarter was back in action

Alpia had the hard task of coming into the land via the forest defilade

while Stagonia chose to set up with horse in the center and foote on the wings

battle was at a measured pace

leaving time for some photos
Then a gap came to quickly setup the Interdictor in damaged mode for a full set of photos:

many of the models are seen here

the damaged sections are featured

one dome was not 'damaged' as it would need more foam domes than we could afford

the one damaged was plenty for the game

the ship's decks were set with metal base stands painted in with camouflage of the rest of the deck so that smoke or flames could be attached via magnets

the damaged dome was loaded with magnets and had lights inside to enhance the 'hollow' effect

all in all the project turned out well and the ship will see future action(s) at Games and Grounds in Courtenay
Many thanks to Kelsey for helping to realize the "Project Interdictor", I hope she gets to game with it more at Games and Grounds.
Alpian Wars resumed

a busy action all over the table with neither side really gaining advantage

till the Vile Stagonian Knights got in a hard thrust against Alpian horse

while the foot of both sides wore each other out

Good end to the InCon events with a full game played to resolution with no hurry up to finish.

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Trumpeter Salute 2017

Whew!  What a month!

This past April saw two main convention events and an Easter Festival that I was part of the organizing group.

So now I shall quickly summarize the Salute 2017 in Burnaby this past month.

main room

main room

main room

Doug Hamm's Lion Rampant

fabulous chariot races

Star Fleet Battles (with excellent models)
cool stackable terrain for Battletech

closeup of Battletech terrain

Naval games using a table so large that players needed to climb onto the table!
I put on my Hundred Days Campaign, starting with a huge skirmish battle:

skirmish battle in action, thanks to Rene Charbonneau in playing the battle out
Then running the battle with commanders busy in other games while the strategic situation moved forward.

strategic map that Saturday morning

battle developed around Braine Le Compte

Bonaparte was there

The table was coated and I maxed out my 3" square metal bases

My Opponent turned out to have been a playtester for Fast Play Grande Armee and the final version BLUCHER

battle near the end

Anglo-Dutch could not hold back the Imperial Guard cavalry

the immense table was covered in more of my minis than any before

In order to get the Prussians into the battle I needed to 'improvise' new 3" stands

the carnage was immense
I played out a huge battle from 3 pm to 10 pm that day and had a series of excellent game design discussions.

we ended the day with big smiles all round
Other games that Saturday:

connection with old friends like Francis of Imperial Hobbies
more Battletech
Bolt Action
Pulp Alley - an award winning display

using cards Pulp Alley moves fast

the setup was a Mad Max like encounter in a post-holocaust world
Doug Hamm's Napoleonic battle

lots of Russians
Vimy was the feature game for the Saturday mid-day time slot

Truly a mammoth work

with attention to detail done well all along the way ...
Wooden ships & Iron Men


With lovely models
the ever-present Canvas Eagles
my eldest son even used a bunch of my terrain to run a role play game