Williamsburg Muster 2012

Well, our club just finished up the fourth of our winter conventions, and I think that by almost all measures it was an outstanding success!  Lots of public kudos from gamers, gm's, and vendors.  Lots of smiling happy people hanging around the hotel and playing games, buying miniatures, talking about history, and having a great time.

This was the first winter convention that featured RPGs, and it was a success, for the first time.  We actually had more RPGs at our previous Summer convention, but a lot of the GMs from that show couldn't make it this time.  Expect to see more RPGs at our next Summer Show (Guns of August 2012).

Boardgaming was a big hit, from around dinner time on Friday, until Sunday afternoon, there were constant games being played in the boardgaming room.  A successful addition.

Our main attraction, and our first area, Miniature Gaming, still continues to be the big area of the convention - which is great!  We had 70 events this time, not counting the four miniatures tournaments that were held, and it was a really good time.  We cut down on the number of tables in the Patriot room, but added more miniatures tables in the Washington room, so it was balanced better, and there was more room for people to get around.

A great show, and it will definitely be followed up by more great shows.

If you were there, thanks for coming, and if not - then we will definitely look for you in August.

-Chuck

Bunker Hill, part 3

Flocking via a vinyl grass mat...



I started with a 50x100 inch vinyl grass mat from Woodland
scenics, and after spending $32 for the material at my local hobby shop and carefully cutting out my roads, shorelines, etc. I came to the frustrating decision to remove the mat because nothing I tried could make it actually stick to my contours. I should note that I did not have a proper heat gun and that the temperature in my garage was in the 40 degree range.



Too, something I really did not consider to be a significant problem turned into one - the way that I was installing the mat gave it no stretch, so I had problems forming the grass mat to my hills.


Below are pictures of the grass mat process from it's start to the "last straw" issue that made me pull it all up. - my inability to shape this material around my hills. That all said, I kept a big piece of the gass mat to experiment with after I pick up a heat gun.

Next post - flocking, resin, and pot toppers...

AAR - Fire and Fury, January 10

We had a great game of Fire ad Fury, set up by Wayne, using his really attractive 10mm GHQ ACW armies.  Here is an after action review written by John Snelling . . .

New guys are being attracted every time we play on Tuesday nights at World's Best Comics, which is great.

It was a long time since I've played F and F and really forgot how quick units get into action more on that later. Accouple games of Wings of War lost one and won one they were fast games.

It's good to see Rob planning to come by and run an ACW ship game - WOW that's been a long time since I've gamed ACW ships decades ago. It should be really nice.

  Action at Green Castle scenario by Wayne (Dewayne) Hill
The Union really got the jump on the Rebels but the Rebels stubbornly fought back.

A standstill. No side giving ground despite numerous charges. No give and take just stand your ground and trade volley after volley.

Union General Turnista was carried off the field due to exhaustion. Then Union General Dietrick was wounded severly when his horse was shot and went down, after a long struggle he finally freed himself only to be kicked in the groin by the horses last gasp of life. 

What would the Union do?

Without any hesitataion Col. J. Dent arose to the occassion. The word spread from brigade to brigade, regiment to regiment, man to man that the Col. was a fightin man's man. Gaining courage, like strong fingers turning into a steel fist, the Union soldiers charged again and again into a hailstorm of hell to emerge victorious. The stubborn and equally courageous rebs could stand no more and were routed from the field. 

 Triumph on the field. Soldiers carried Col. Dent on their shoulders praising him for his wisdom and bravery. Later Col. Dent was promoted to General by the President.

Bunker Hill, part 2

This post will get you from the basic map to the pre-flocking stage for the layout.

1.) Choose the rules for your game. In my case, I like the rules published by the Canadian Wargamer's Group in Habitants & Highlanders. Picking the rules sets the groundscale - in H&H, 25 yards is 1 inch on tabletop.

2.) Using the groundscale from your ruleset and the map scale, draw a box around the area you want to use for your battlefield. In my case, I am using a 4x6 table, and the black block marks the area I want to use for my battlefield. I then broke up that grid into smaller grids to help me draw the major terrain details as accurately as possible. I had 18"x12" paper, and I drew in the coastlines, roads, and elevation changes, using different colors for each
(that was a bit more organized than necessary).

3.) Fit up the tracing paper as you draw features that cross between pages, and mark each page for a grid - I used A-D and 1-4.

4.) Lay out all of the pages to check that you have everything placed right, then start from one corner of the table and start cutting out the outermost line, adding your grid numbers to each piece cut out, then working to the next, next, next, etc. This is again more organized that some of you might choose to be, but it made sense to me.

5.) Cut the shoreline in the blue foam bottom layer. I have some landing beaches on the short edge of the map that I cut with a shallow angle, but most of the banks are cut at a pretty steep angle - something like 75 degrees. This is because I want to distinguish between the landing beaches and the rest of the shorelines. My tool for cutting the foam - a hacksaw blade. I find that I have more control with it than a hot wire, and the mess is really negligible.

6.) Glue down the blue foam bottom layer. I used a construction adhesive made for foam.

7.) Cut the elevations, using the grid sections you cut out before. I used 1/2" thick foam for the bottom layer, but I wanted to really show the elevations for Moulton's Hill (30 feet) and Breed's Hill (60 feet), so I decided to magnify them by using 1.5" thick foam for Moulton's Hill and two layers of 1.5" thick foam for Breed's Hill. This scaled the heights to the figures more so than to the ground scale, but we of course do the same thing with roads, bridges, buildings, etc and I like the visual effect - it should give the players a sense of the terrain that played a role in the battle.

8.) Shape the hills. I wish I could tell you that I had a single perfect method for cutting the hills, but I actually used everything I could think of. I started with a saw, but finally settled on a wire brush, and then used an electric sander with a drywall screen to smooth things out, and a foam sanding block for more smoothing. The mess took quite a while to clean up, and I made sure to do this while my wife was away for several days...

9.) Add joint compound or spackling to smooth the banks. I actually added this to the various slopes too, but later had to remove that - I'll get into that in another post when I get to flocking...

10.) Just to see a bit of what the final product will look like, I laid out the works and some troops.

Next post, flocking...

Bunker Hill

My "theme" game for the Williamsburg Muster will be Bunker Hill. Given that I am using a battle that predates the "Wars of 1812" it is a bit of a stretch, but it does feature Americans and British troops at least.

I want to use this blog to walk through my process to create a gaming layout for a convention game. I try to create games for our conventions that go a considerable step beyond the standard club game, trying to give the many gamers who travel to our convention something special.

Here is the wikipedia entry for Bunker Hill - I am using both of the battle maps from there to make my gaming table.

Link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bunker_Hill

I have several rulesets that I want to playtest with, and the coming month should see several playtests. I am set on a 25 yards per 1 inch groundscale, with 1 figure equaling 25 men, and an effective musket range of 75 yards.

Now for the setup:

My layout will be 4'x6', fitting cleanly on a 5x6 convention table with 6" to spare on each long side for the players to put their dice, tape measures, rosters, etc. Conveniently, a 4x6 layout also fits perfectly in my SUV for the drive to the convention.

I have a base of 1/8" thick masonite because the insulation sheathing that I am using to construct the terrain is somewhat fragile, and the masonite will help to prevent any major damage. Too, I can paint the masonite where necessary to provide the illusion of depth to the "water" that I add to the gameboard.

In my next post, I'll show how I cut the foam and build the terrain layers. Here is a teaser picture of the gameboard after the first night's efforts.

AAR - December 3 - Shako, at the Hangar

Steve McCabe posted the following After Action Review of a Shako Battle, held at the Hangar on December 3. It was a refight of the battle of Salamanca, from 1812.

Everyone,

Just wanted to comment on this weekend's game.  Thanks to all who came. 

This was by far the largest Shako battle we have fought to date.  With the British numbering roughly 37 infantry battalions, 4 cavalry regiments and 3 artillery, while the French had roughly 50 infantry battalions, 5 cavalry regiments, and 7 artillery. 

The initial set up was Thomieres (Callahan), Maucune (Dave), and Cuto's Cavalry (Dave) swining around the left flank.  Claussel (Oscar) was marching straight down the center, with Brennier & Ferey in reserve, and Foy (Scott) waiting on the British right flank for something to happen.  That is when as per history, Marshall Marmont was wounded, and Bonnet (historically Bonnet was wounded as well, but the French lucked (?) out) took command at the end of turn 3. 

At the end of turn 1, Wellington sent send orders for Crauford (Carl) to advance against Scott.  Turn 2 saw Leith's 4th Division (me) advancing on timed orders against Oscar and Carl advancing against Scott.  While the French continued their flank movement. 

Turn 3 saw the trap enfold that Wellington had set up for Marmont.  Pakenham's 3rd Division (John) was waiting for for Thomiers in line.  The British Cavalry Division (I forgot the gentlemen who played this division) showed up on Johns flank.  The unexpected appearance of the 3rd Division and the cavalry shocked the French players as much their historical counterparts.  At this time, the British 1st Division began their timed advance up the slope toward the flanking units.  ADCs from the now Bonnet were dispatched, and each one met an untimely demise for the French. 

Turn 4 saw Calhan's fore units get destroyed by volley and charges, The British Cavalry charging Dave's lead cavalry elements and the rear brigade of Calahan's.  In the mean time 2 heavy french guns commanded by artillery master Scott, was blasting holes thru my portuguese and highlanders.  This pounding went on and on and on.  By the way Scott, did I tell you how much I DON'T like you!  :-) 

Turn 5 on...  The British 3rd division destroyed Callahan's lead division (which is historically what happend).  The British Cavalry division destroyed Cuto's division.  My division fertilized field with blood but eventually defeated Oscar's Claussal's division.  Another division, Brennier's followed up and even though I had a significant help from 1st division, eventually broke (historical note, the 4th division was the only division that broke in the actual battle, and this was done by Clausal's).  The British Cavalry broke against Dave's Maucuane Division.  Meanwhile, Carl's Light Division was beating up Scott's Foy Division.  Carl was on the verge of routing Scott's division, when ADC's finally made it to Ferey now led by Callahan, and started turning Carl's flank.  There were desperate cries of help from Carl, but there was no one near enough to help.  The closest division was mine and it was in its own death throes.  Callahan was relentless in advance, with two battalions of the elite 95th rifles routing.  Scott in turn counterattacked turning the table on the other two light battalions.  Scott, Callahan, and Carl ran the fight all the way to night time, where Carl's light division barely survived with two Portuguese Cacadores badly wounded but still holding their own.  They limped away, with the French unable to claim a victory there, but the casualties on the light were tremendous. 

For the rest of the game, we called the fight at the end of turn 11.  Dave's Maucune division was almost entirely gone between John's hammer blows and Justin's division in the center on the hill fighting Dave's rear and flank.  That division was ready to break.  Oscar's Ferey Division was badly mauled but was still fighting against Justin.  We ended the game with a 3-2 victory for the British.  The right and center was in pretty much a British victory but the left flank of the British was only being held with barely two battalions against two divisions, even though one was badly mauled. 

As a historical note, there were a lot more British divisions on the table then we played with.  There was also the 5th, 6th, and 7th... I did take the liberty to move the 1st division to the British right center (this was historically next to the light division) and boosted it with two additional guard battalions which did not make it to the division until 1813.  As for my 4th division, this actually was the only British division routed in the battle, but the new 6th division (which we didn't play with) ended up turning back Clausal's division.  The 3rd division in history did surprise the French on the flank and rolled up one division after another.  Instead of British KGL's on their flank, there were actually Portuguese Cavalry and in one of those rare moments, performed quite well, and routed the French light cavalry they went against.  Where the 1st division was situated, there was actually the British Dragoons.  This heavy cavalry charged over the hill and into the flank of the french.  With infantry and Portuguese cavalry to their front, and heavy cavalry on their flank, whole French divisions evaporated.  On the other side of the battle, both Ferey and Foy didin't get into the fight and acted as a rear guard when things went bad for the French.  There was only one division we didn't play with for the French, which was Bonnet (which I believe never was close) as well as the Army Heavy Cavalry (dragoons) that were never even on the maps...

So ended the Battle of Salamanca, 1812... Thanks everyone for joining in...

Search for the Quantum Eagle

This is an AAR from a Combat: Alien War Game from the 2011 Guns of August convention by Alex Hoover. I suspect that Alex and his crew will be back with more C:AW gaming at Williamsburg Muster 2012.

A progressive scenario of small sci-fi skirmishes where teams brave hostile terrain, natives, and each other to retrieve a mysterious alien artifact played at ODMS’ Guns of August convention, 2011.

Mission Briefing: Scientists have detected an anomalous reading originating from a remote world that has been of no particular interest to date. The signals are a closely protected state secret, so obviously, everybody in the galaxy knows about it. A squad of US Marines has been detached to locate and retrieve the source of the anomaly and will be racing against teams from rival nations, privateers, mercenaries, rebel groups, and "entrepreneurs" to be the first to grab the glory. This world, as uninteresting as it is, has been charted by the United States and volumes of data about it have been published in official ledgers. As such, nobody is sure what they will find there. This scenario used the following squad level teams:

USMC Squad (13)

• Squad Sergeant V NCO
• Team A Leader E NCO SSW
• Team A CAA E NCO ASSW
• Team A Member G
• Team A Member G
• Team B Leader E NCO SSW
• Team B CAA E NCO ASSW
• Team B Member G
• Team B Member G
• Team C Leader E NCO SSW
• Team C CAA E NCO ASSW
• Team C Member G
• Team C Member G

Mercenary Team (5)

• Merc V NCO G(1)
• Merc V NCO G(1)
• Merc V NCO G(1)
• Merc V NCO G(1)
• Merc V NCO G(1)

Alien Team (9)

• Jedun E NCO
• Soldier E
• Soldier E
• Jedun E NCO
• Soldier E
• Soldier E
• Jedun E NCO
• Soldier E
• Soldier E

Local Yokel “Militia” (20)

• Foreman G NCO (x 2)
• Yokel G (x 18)

The game was conducted in a progressive campaign of three vignettes. In the first vignette, a player had to get his squad across a 2’x2’ board, corner to corner. Another player played the local fauna, the Krgrgkrt (no guns, but pick the best of two dice during close combat), starting in the other two corners, whose goal was to eat the squad. The first vignette was run twice, with players swapping squad and bug play. In the second vignette, two players started their teams in adjacent corners and had to transit to their own opposite corner, obviously inhibited by the other team. Wounded combatants who made it off the board were given a stim-pack, so they were back to full up around for the second vignette. Wounded combatants left on the board became Krgrgkt snacks. The third vignette pushed all the boards together, with a hole in the center for the “Quantum Eagle” a millennial-old crashed space ship from an unknown alien culture. All the surviving teams started on the outskirts of the board and had to get a “scan” of the QE from each of the four corners. Scanning didn’t take a turn, it just required a team member to end is turn on a corner of the terrain piece. Three extra squads of six Krgrgkrt were added to the board and played by the umpire, since it sounded like a good idea.

a typical setup for a bug scenario

The terrain used had two effects. First running was limited to 3+d6 inches to simulate swampiness and to keep it from being too easy to dash across the board. The tufts of marsh grass both cut movement rate to half to cross and provided one level of cover. Setups varied board to board, and players swapped out to different boards for different vignettes.

While the idea for the three progressive vignettes was very structured and flowing, the actual play at the convention was a little less so. We had quite a few walk-ups, a few people who just played a quick one-off vignette waiting for another game (which says nice things about the rules that you can do that), and a few initial vignettes when one of the referees would play the bugs to accommodate the walkups.

The bug vignettes played out fairly well with players getting a good chance to exercise the rules in simplified combat (only one side with guns). All the squads played out fairly evenly and proved to be a significant over-match for the bugs, but at an expense of 20-25% of their forces.

The most common tactic was to first sprint to what looked like a good location for a stand, then open up on the bugs. Several Marine players discussed the merits of suppressing one squad of bugs and trying to outmaneuver the other, however, none actually did that. It is probably a little different in the abstract and when the bugs are up in your grill. A few players did successfully charge one element of bugs, raining lead, then blow through on that side. Falling back and picking bugs off at long range (even through the cover) was also effective. One bug player was able to eat an alien squad down to one solider left. We let that player have a try with another team.

After taking a few lumps and drawing a little blood, the second vignette ran fairly smoothly as well. While tactics tended to be a little more conservative (perhaps thinking ahead to the third vignette), taking a few potshots and lobbing a grenade or two, while keeping mobile was the order of the day. There was a little bit of confusion a time or two when a “Mad as Hell” retaliation during an interrupt action turned into a “Who the Hell’s turn is it?” Those were quickly sorted out after a couple of deep breaths. Only one player decidedly left a string of wounded behind (playing the alien team with the uzi titin’ monkeys pictured above, lower right), but a few early casualties were left behind to ensure a team would make it all the way across the board.

The four vignettes on the table. Tracks of the action in two of the vignettes . . .

And the fourth one

The final vignette, the all-in race to capture the data on the Quantum Eagle for your side, ended up playing relatively smoothly. Major questions were ironed out in the initial play, so the players were pretty much autonomous. The militia squad was able to use their numbers effectively, both in spreading out and using a little bit of meat-shield tactics. The mercs were able to effectively press their skill advantage by just muscling at everything in sight (including charging into close combat with bugs!). The multiple SSW carried by the Marine squad was put to good use clearing them an open path to the objective. The alien team found it relatively easy to split up and hit the corners of the QE, securing the first couple of scans. While the Marines did a good job taking out the bugs at range with heavy firepower (and were the only team to have all their combatants who entered the final scenario survive), it bogged them down a little, so they were late getting to the objective. The mercenaries pretty much brute forced their way to getting three scans first. However, the militia made a mad sprint (with some excellent 9” run rolls) late in the game and was able to secure three scans in one turn, winning the game.

From Alex: lessee ... i ‘member the bugs are yellow and the “vikings” were the minis for one of the merc teams ... ~ a 50min scenario ... X’s are killed figures and W’s are wounded ... dotted lines are for “tactical repositioning to the rear ... also, though I thought the shirtless tattooed minis I made were rednecks, but everyone else was calling them “pirates,” hence the “P” ... everything else is self explanatory, right?

A referee providing some guidance on the finer points of bug-slaughter.

Peanut butter logistics were key to keeping the forces marching in the marshes.

The militia readies for a final push to win the game!