TRUMPETER SALUTE 2011
Convention in Review

A review from my attendance at the April 1-2-3 event.

Overall I'd rate the event a 7/10 on my games convention scale.

I spent most of the Friday night, April 1 doing a lot of 'catch-up' with the lower mainland of BC tabletop game players. Many of whom had also not come to a Salute event for a few years also. I even managed to connect with a few Vancouver Island players, including a new one that lives not far south of me here.

I was with my sons in the event, so I was careful to monitor them as they got into games and made connections with the adults in the game play atmosphere.

Now some visuals:




On Friday there was a best of session game run by Colin Upton, using a modified Sword and the Flame and his own 'flavor'.







I counted 6 players and at one point there must have been 20 crowded around the table.



My boys were attracted to the LEGO and Canvas Eagles WWI aerial combats.







Also going on during the Friday were WWII games (there were a lot of these at the event - much more than I have ever seen before), including a Squad Leader looking one...sadly the GM was not to be found.








John Westra was also doing his WWII fighters in "Check you Six".





Saturday brought a new set of tabletop opportunities.

The boys got into Star Wars minis battles (using the plastic ones) and more Lego.

I did a skirmish game with Doug Hamm, of Larry Leadhead fame, and his innovative approach to using cards as part of the movement system brought a new set of ideas for me in skirmish action games.

Then came the 'main event' Battle of the Piave River using SHAKO II rules with Chris Leach in attendance to give some rules clarifications.








Having been a player in Shako before (not version 2) I was tasked at Eugene de Beauharnais, commanding the Army of Italy. The combination of great painted minis, well done terrain and really good sportsmanship on the part of everyone involved led to a "BEST of SESSION" award for the game. The added bonus of commanding a French Victory helped my spirits.


Here is the Austrian final position as seen from Macdonald's HQ


Here is the Italian-French position as seen from Eugene's HQ


Part of the bonus I did get in a game with Colin Upton for the first time!



As a team on a winning side!

Saturday wrapped up for me with an Age of Reason rule re-fight of Minden. Amazingly enough I got tasked to the French side again teamed up with Colin Upton.

It took me a bit of review to get the rules clear again on AoR, once I had it clear we saw the best way to setup and got another victory as the British player chose to come forward with only 1/3 of his cavalry and I sent ALL of the French Cavalry after it. The British horse was routed, then the close combats got bogged down with infantry. No action on the part of the Prussians could change the result... their right flank was gone and French horse was ready to unleash behind the main Prussian lines.

Sunday brought a lighter crowd and I had my SHAKO game, a small action decided by the players as neither had ever played before. I had them roll for terrain and layed out the tabletop accordingly.

Some British and Spanish vs French in the peninsula.




With a very aggressive plan the French Player essentially RAN straight at the British lines. Their cavalry appeared on the flank as planned and cut down the British Light Dragoons, sadly the French chose to approach in columns and this cost dearly as the Royal Foot Artillery blew away one battalion and one more collapsed under the combined weight of fire from British Foot and a bayonet charge into the fresh British lines. The French cause was lost and they would soon be in retreat.

The game was excellent for demonstrating how fast from set up to conclusion of action a simple game could be. We were done in 2 hrs 15 mins.

Just as we completed a reporter from the Burnaby Now arrived and did a series of photos ... I plan to show links to them once I find out where they are.

I then did a Shako discussion with a curious gamer to show how simple the overall system was, took about 20 mins to do that in the process of saying the farewells.



Colin Upton won the best of session with this Ticonderoga, using Age of Reason, game. Followed swiftly by the announcement of Colin Upton winning the BEST OF SHOW for his two session winning games! Well done Colin!

The cap off to the day was winning a draw prize and a table host draw prize!


A few vendors were present, most notable was Imperial Hobbies.



The canteen crew were fabulous.


Much fun had by all!

Convention Game decided.

I shall take my SHAKO troops to the tabletop at Salute this year.

I am prepared to bring the Action of Sabugal to the event on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of this battle, which led to the final expulsion from Portugal of the invading Imperial French armies.

I am certain that I have the troops needed and plan to bring extras so as to, potentially, layout a meeting engagement also.

I go to gather these troops this coming Monday and may be able to put a photo or two of them on here before traveling to Vancouver and joining with the other Historical and tabletop miniatures fans at the Trumpeter Salute Convention.

Convention consternation.

I find myself torn between a local games event and a more distant larger *miniatures* focused games event.

For the local one, I could easily attend, take my children and count on having a few good conversations. There would be no historical miniatures games to play unless I set them up. Were I to do that I could not count on any players unless I convinced them to come to the event.

For the more distant one, I have now learned I can get the transportation, I have the accommodation for the many days of the event ~ I am even likely to be able to bring all my boys to it. I have now seen the games listed for the event ... not much to draw my interest at the moment.

My torn position is I could be interested in doing a game at the more distant event, yet this event has no incentive beyond the personal pleasure of putting on a game. While the more local one has *free* entrance for those game masters who put on events that other players can take part in - thus increasing the attendance *fun factor*. The game master scheduler for the larger more distant event has even made a recent email appeal to get more games put on ... yet still no incentive.

My question to you, the interested Convention Game Master and or Player:

Would you like MORE game event options, or at least a full slate of them, at a game Convention and would you be willing to pay to play ~knowing~ that the game host that brought all the minis and terrain and essentially put on the game got into the event *free*?

Do you think that all attendees, either players or GM's must all pay to be present in a Convention setting?

Back to the Tabletop

There has been some time since I have put any effort into setting up a tabletop game.

Now I find I am itching to move into a set of them at the coming Salute Convention in April 2011.

I am looking at a Naval action, the Battle of Lissa and a Campaign setup with the principle ending of the Battle of Albuera. Luckily I can also go for a straight up tabletop game using a scenario by Rafael Pardo.

Have any of the readers done Napoleonic Battles in the Peninsula?

How about smaller sail actions from the Adriatic?

What are the experiences?

BIG IRON

Bluebear Jeff agreed to my request to get something going on a tabletop.



I has simply expressed a desire to push lead, maybe something naval as I knew that Jeff had been reading much on things 'wet'.



So the Japanese-Russian engagement from the turn of the last century was proposed.
The Battle of the Yellow Sea



This time my eldest son got to choose where he wanted to start off, then whether he wanted me as a team mate or not.



He chose the Japanese, and set me up as the leading element.

Not knowing much of the early iron behemoth tactics, I went with a line from Nelson, "forget about all the tactics and maneuver, just go straight at em."

Then I discovered that I had better gun range than their lead ship.




Time to do a little maneuver, at least to get my better guns into range and keep their others limited.




Next time, I go slower and let them come to me ... the Russians had to get out on the one end where the Japanese already were.



Nothing like the historical, of course we did not get the zany luck of killing the lead Russian Admiral right after he gave a change course order...

TRULY VILE
Battle at Jeff's

Last Sunday saw a contest at Bluebear Jeff's table.

This time round was a second encounter with Victory Without Quarter rules.

The differences this time were, a storyline, complicated battlefield terrain and a time limit (of sorts as my eldest son and I could not stay on and on till a final ending).

The setup saw Vile Stagonia opposite a river (with fords) and Duchy of the North, marching in parallel lines, Jeff has the battle that this is based upon.

Essentially the Stagonians must overcome working on exterior lines of communication while the Norden troops have the advantage of interior lines of communication.

Another problem with the Stagonia situation was totally dependent on early luck, as the river fords could only be crossed at 1/2 speed, something that the movement rules run by random cards make even harder since on many turns NO ONE may get to move at times.

The Victory Without Quarter rules are a 'game' as opposed to a simulation, something that must be taken into account and I would certainly never run a tournament with them nor use them with any historical simulation players.

Here is the situation at the end of turn one, not much change from setup other than the one bit of luck for Stagonia was the entire left wing got to move (sadly only 2 units on the right - the ones that have to cross the river fords - got to move).

Turn two and more movement on the Stagonian Left Wing, so was the Norden Left Wing busy, again only 1 unit crossing a river even got to move.

The big VILE STAGONIAN MOMENT came when my son decided to first charge at (not allowed by the rules) then SHOOT AT the Duke of the North, who was just inside charge range and definitely in pistol range of his Vile Stagonian Trotters. IT was a resounding success with many hits and a failed save. BANG the Duke of the North was dead!

Needless to say the player handling him was not impressed, actually figuring the battle was over ~ not so said I and I was ready to trade him my crummy situation in a heartbeat ... he did not take me up on it. (darn)

Turn three, plenty of movement on the whole Norden line, only the Stagonian Left was moving, nothing at all from the Right wing, no cards = no move. Now the one unit that had got to move was totally out of position, alone and being shot to pieces, with no return fire allowed, in this GAME no card = no action - nothing, zip, zilch Nada.

Now at turn four I was seeing shades of Austerlitz in this battle.

And I was on the 'allied' side.

Stuck behind a river and forced to sit still for three turns while my opponent got his shooting lines set up...the battle was really over here ~ we just did not fully accept it.

I got a hit in with some great dice rolling, then it all went downhill for the Black Foote veterans I had, they wisely fell back across the river and then I decided to move the Right Wing Horse to the Left, sadly with this GAME rules what I decided means nothing since unless I get the cards to take action my units can do NOTHING, which they did for the next few turns.

The other ford was similarly totally blocked up, now with masses of infantry catching my foot working valiantly to push across. A foolish order to attack at all in my view as only 2:1 odds is useful in any attack situation, and with this GAME rules even a force at 3 or 4:1 will have trouble if their cards do not come up.

Then four turns of maneuver and finally the cannon showed up (cards not drawn means no action remember?)



My son did yeoman work alone on the Left Wing, taking and holding a hill that I told him to after Killing the Duke of the North, certainly the winner of this game. This formation that he used to move forward made me think of some proposed changes, especially in light of what masses of infantry can do to horsemen, I really think that such a double block when facing ANY horsemen should get HUGE bonuses in close combat, for the block of pikes would be everywhere here and NO CAVALRYMAN would ever charge into such a mass of men with no clear way past them. Yet in these rules only the lead unit must or gets to fight with NO bonus for the MASS of so many more men RIGHT THERE!

Once again I remind myself, this is a GAME and not a simulation.

Over at the river ford, the death toll mounted, again all I could do was watch as none of my cards came up here.

Turn ten, game si essentially over as the VILE STAGONIANS have managed to get at least half of their army killed at this point.

Odd dice rolls make our host shake his head, though the contest was not in any more doubt since turn 4.

Turn 12, too little too late.

At long last I get some cavalry move cards (the others are gone from the deck now), it was a futile move, mostly to permit my son to finish enjoying the day.

I'll wrap it up here with some more minis eye candy.



Next time a simulation, if the demand is for a cards game, I'll choose poker.