A quick look at my painting bench as a I get ready for Saturday’s Russian Civil War game at GottaCon. On the right, 15 Bolsheviks, a mix of regulars and militia/Red Guard types. Behind them across the back of the cutting matt, a unit of Russian horse. Behind them and currently being ignored, 10 American gunboat sailors from Pulp Figures. On the left of the mat, 14 Bolshevik sailors. Off the mat to the left, a batch of finished Whites from ages ago just waiting to be re-housed as I (yet again) reorganize my figure storage. Centre, a field gun — the crew are lurking behind the Red sailors. The CD has some new greenstuff banners I just primed, and a small pile of ready ammo that will form part of a loaded/unloaded marker for the field gun.
All sorts of things, mostly Russians, being painted. See text for details, and click for larger!
In other convention-related news, I’ve submitted my RCW game to Trumpeter Salute; haven’t had the event confirmed by the organizers yet but it’s nice to have it submitted.
Right, back to the painting mines! Four days to the game!
In just under three weeks our local big convention kicks off – GottaCon 2013 is February 1st, 2nd & 3rd at the Pearkes Recreation Centre.
I’ll be running a Russian Civil War scenario, possibly with a Back of Beyond flavour. It’ll be a variant of my Even Whites Bleed Red scenario from last year’s Trumpeter Salute convention, mostly because I haven’t yet come up with a more entertaining title than that!
I’ve got Red sailors, cavalry and more Red regular troopers on the painting bench as we speak, and some nice scenery bits to add to my existing Russian scenery. Now, to get off the computer and back to that painting bench!
The Trumpeter Salute convention last weekend saw the first full outing of my Russian Civil War forces, in a scenario I called Even Whites Bleed Red. I’m a pulp gamer at heart, so a punchy, interesting scenario title appeals, what can I say?
The scenario is set “somewhere south of Moscow, sometime early in the Russian Civil War” and has a disorganized scratch platoon of Red Guard defending a hamlet from a composite company of White forces, composed of a shorthanded platoon of White riflemen and a plaston (infantry platoon) of Cossacks, lead by an energetic and capable group of Cossack officers.
I threw in my White Russian SPAD, for additional “Ooo shiny” factor and because I had the thing painted, and off we went, with two players on each side and me GMing.
The SPAD appeared very early in the game, although never had much impact, neither strafing run doing much. Above, the plane machine-guns the Reds in the churchyard,
This game, the Reds got themselves shaken out and in position fairly quickly. They were able to get most of the Whites pinned down well outside the hamlet, and the Whites never got into position to launch more than a token assault on the place.
Above, the White rifle platoon advances, one section in the foreground on the crest of the ridge, the other two behind it. In the far background, one of the Cossack sections can be seen advancing. The Cossacks had far less cover than the rifles, and the White players might have been better off funnelling their entire advance up the near edge of the board, sacrificing one section to hold the flank while the rest of the composite company pressed in toward the hamlet.
Above was the high point of the White advance, with one rifle section thrown back after attempting to storm across the railway embankment and attack the Reds along the stone wall. The Red reinforcements, one section of Red sailors and another section of Red Guard, also appeared just after this assault was thrown back, and the White players conceded the game at this point.
I’ve got some thoughts on why this game went so differently for the Whites when compared to our squirrel-obsessed playtest version, but I’ll save those for a longer followup post. Suffice to say that all four players enjoyed themselves, I enjoyed running the game, and we actually got done surprisingly quickly. Start to finish, including introducing the game to four players who’d never played it before, we were done in under three hours. Near-perfect convention game length, in other words. We could even have gone a bit longer and still had plenty of time for cleanup.
As it was, I had time to run a little demo session with a “stacked” deck to give two interested bystanders a chance to see how the Mud & Blood system worked, and get everything put away in good order!
So, Corey and I spent the weekend over in Vancouver at the always-excellent Trumpeter Salute 2012 gaming convention. We saw a lot of people we really only see at Trumpeter, played a bunch of good games and got to spectate at many more!
Corey is suffering from computer issues and hasn’t gotten his photos processed or online yet, but I finally sorted mine out this evening. You can go check out all of them on my Trumpeter Salute 2012 set on Flickr. Or you can read on for some of my favourite photos, and favourite games from this year’s version of Trumpeter Salute.
Canvas Eagles is an old standby, a great World War One air game. Rene runs pretty it much constantly at Trumpeter, and Corey and I both got into it Friday night. On opposite sides, of course. We have a firm convention rule that if/when we find ourselves in the same game at a convention, it has to be on opposite sides. That’s my Fokker Eindeker at the centre of this photo, which spent most of the game locked in a swirling, inconclusive dogfight with the very similar French Moraine-Saultier to the left. Both aircraft are very agile but not terribly fast, so we could neither outmaneuver nor outrun the other!
Colin is another Trumpeter regular, and has run a spectacular Darkest Africa game several yaears in a row now. I didn’t play this, just got a few snapshots.
Our Saturday morning entertainment, with a friend and I attempting lead our outlaw gang into town to rescue a gang member from the gallows, while Corey and another gamer ran the Law to try (and succeed, worse luck!) in halting our attempt. Legends of the Old West has the virtue of being an uncomplicated set of rules that get out of the way and let you get on with the game. Neat scratchbuilt Old West buildings, too.
Saturday afternoon and evening are most convention’s “prime time” and Trumpeter is no exception. Lots and lots of great stuff all at once on Saturday afternoon!
My own “Even Whites Bleed Red” Russian Civil War scenario I’ll give the full AAR treatment in another post, but it went well.
Spectacular scenery in this early World War Two Fall of France game, French vs Germans in 15mm.
Malcolm is another Victoria gamer and friend, but this iwas my first chance to see his full, spectacular “Boy’s Own Waterloo” setup. The British even won this time, apparently.
Saturday evening Eric Hotz ran his Roman Seas game, with our convoy set upon and seized by the merciless Pompey.
Also on Saturday evening, this elegant World War Two Eastern Front game in 15mm, showcasing new rules and some awesomely painted figures.
Sunday was a bit quieter, but Colin put on the appropriately timed War of 1812 Battle of Queenstown Heights, in which the British/Canadian forces held the Americans to a bloody but marginal victory.
Also running Sunday was this spectacular pulp game set in the South China Sea, with various factions vying to discover the secrets of this volcanic island.
Except that volcanic islands are, well, volcanic, and sometimes prone to slipping back beneath the waves and taking their secrets with them! No need to imagine that with this game, the lower half of the island really does vanish!
Thanks again to Martin and his family for the hospitality over the weekend, Jon for transport to and from Vancouver, and the excellent organizers, GMs and other attendees at Trumpeter Salute for a great time. See you next year!
Off to Vancouver Friday morning for two and a half days of miniature gaming goodness at Trumpeter Salute 2012!
The Russian Civil War figures and scenery I needed for the game I’m running Saturday have all come together nicely, and I’ve got everything packed away for transport. Clothes, toothbrush, all that boring stuff too, with luck…
I’ve had a quick look at the convention schedule, but except for my own game, I don’t plan ahead too far at Trumpeter. There’s always good stuff running, with some reliable standbys like the near-constant 1:72nd Canvas Eagles WW1 air games to fall back on if nothing else grabs my eye. That said, I always go to conventions looking to try new gaming systems, new rules, new eras, new genres and to play with different people than the usual crowd I game with all the time!
I’ve got the WordPress Mobile app installed on my Android smartphone, so there might even be some short updates here over the weekend before the big post-Trumpeter posts sometime early next week. Hopefully I remember to take photos, even.
If you’re going to be at Trumpeter, say hi if you see me. I usually scribble “Wirelizard” on my nametag these days, because that’s become my default username online, and I even remembered to make a sticker version of my orange lizard logo (see the right-hand side of the banner up above this post) to stick to one edge of my nametag. Or just look for the Russian Civil War game in the Saturday afternoon slot and come join in! 2PM (1400) on Saturday afternoon!
… it’s past midnight, so yes, technically it is today as I write this.
Anyway, Victoria’s big gaming convention started last night (Friday) and runs through to Sunday afternoon.
Saturday (today!) I will be running Jurassic Pulp II: Rex Returns for, hopefully, a sellout crowd. I’ve got six teams of two characters each, and last year’s game got five players, so hopefully I equal or exceed last year’s player count.
I”ll even try to remember to get some in-game photos, although I have a lousy track record of remembering the camera even exists while in the middle of running a game! Still, there will be at least some photos. The game will feature some new terrain features that have never been photographed before, too!
Final prep, bed, up early for the convention tomorrow.
I’m getting up earlier, on a Saturday, for a gaming convention, than I usually have to for work. Sheesh. The things we do for our hobbies..
Back in October 2009, near the beginning of this pulp craze of ours, I ran a game I called “Jurassic Pulp”, inspired by that T Rex vs SUV chase scene in the original Jurassic Park movie. We used Model Ts instead of SUVs, though, and they’re just a bit more fragile than a modern SUV. T Rex hasn’t changed, though!
A fairly complete report on that first game can be found over on Lead Adventure, including some post-game ideas from both Corey and I.
Took a fair number of photos while having a great time attending Trumpeter Salute 2011 this last weekend, and a surprising number of them actually turned out good!
Here’s a narrated photo tour of Trumpeter Salute from my point of view.
“Zombies vs Ninjas vs Robots vs Pirates” — what’s not to love? I have to admit I missed this one, but just the title alone is a hoot. The Lego Wars guys are awesome.
Darkest Africa, in a very pulpish scenario: Col. Kurtz of the Belgian Force Publique has gone insane and is attempting, with some allied/coerced native tribal allies, to invade the rest of Africa. The British with Zanzibari & Masai allies move in to attempt to put him down. I played one of the Belgian tribal allies – the one who survived the game, as the allied tribe on the Belgian’s other flank got shot to pieces by the Brits then chopped up by the Masai before the Belgians broke the British and Masai with rifle fire. The Zanzibari spent most of the game hacking through the jungle on a long flank march, and arrived just in time to let the Belgians and my tribe march off in exchange for being allowed to loot the battlefield!
The climax of the Darkest Africa game – the outnumbered Belgians, one flanking allied tribe destroyed, form “knot” (like a square, but tiny) to fend off a whole heap of swarming Masai. It’s touch and go for two turns of desperate combat as the Masai swarm the knot, but they’re fended off long enough for the Belgian unit to re-form a firing line and blow the Masai back into the jungle with rifle fire…
This awesome harbour was part of a WW2 15mm game that I didn’t play, but it was too good not to get photos of. The flaklighter ship was out cruising up and down the beach during the game, too, attempting to fend off the Allied attack coming from the land side.
Another eye-catching game I didn’t play, just got this nice shot of. It’s Uncle Mike’s Strange Aeons horror/pulp/Cthulhu adventure skirmish game, on his very nice (and double-sided!) portable 2’x3′ gaming board.
Finally, one last shot of my own Amulet of Fire game! This is the river end of the 2’x4′ jungle board for Chapter One of Amulet, with Corey’s steamship alongside my dock, and jungle tracks leading off to the mission station and further into the jungle! The Amulet game went well, despite not having the time to get over to Chapter Two on the mesa itself. The 2nd Edition of .45 Adventures is a good bit faster and more streamlined than 1st Edition was, especially with things like vehicles on the table.
I’ll be rewriting Amulet’s characters again, both for slight balance tweaks and because in last week’s hasty pre-con conversion of 1st Ed characters over to 2nd I flat-out copy-n-pasted several characters around, changing only names, and the scenario deserves better than that!
Already looking forward to Trumpeter Salute 2012! Perhaps I’ll do a pulpish end of the world type scenario, to go along with all the 2012 End Times horsecrap?
Just a very short post to say Trumpeter Salute was awesome, lots of fun games and great people. Good to see friends and regulars again, and meet new people.
I ran Amulet for a full group of six players, using the .45 Adventure 2nd Edition demo rules. The game went well but we never actually got near the mesa (Chapter Two) because although 2nd Ed does flow faster than 1st did, I put too many figures on the table.
Sorting photos now, will have a longer post tomorrow probably with lots and lots of photos, a list of my goodie haul (extensive!) and more!
