We track basic visitor stats here at the Warbard, as most websites do. What people are reading, which links they’re following, the usual stuff, including how people find this site – what inbound links they’re following, and (to some extent) what search terms they’re using to find us. We use the open-source web app Piwik for most stats, and the built-in WordPress Stats for a few details.
Over on Flickr, both Corey and I can track views on our accounts in a similar fashion, which photos are being looked at and what search terms people are using.
We’ve both noticed, this year and last (in other words, since we rebuilt Warbard in it’s current format) a mildly amusing thing: every year after the huge Salute wargaming show in London, over the water and far away in the United Kingdom, we get a big jump in viewership stats. The reason? About a month before the world-famous Salute show, we have the Trumpeter Salute show in this part of the world, and for four of the last five years, I’ve been there, taken lots of pictures that’re up on Flickr, and for the last two years, posted here about it as well.
So gamers hit Google looking for eyecandy from Salute, and get our blog and our Flickr photos because of the similarity in event names. Oops.
Trumpeter Salute is a great convention, the highlight of my gaming year in many ways, but it’s not the immense and justly famous show in London, which I got to in 2000 and badly want to go back to one of these years! If you’ve come looking for Salute pics, sorry to disappoint you! But have a look around, you might find something else of interest, and thanks for the bump in traffic and the minor amusement!
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!
Ran my RCW game Saturday afternoon at the convention. Short version: everyone had a good time, but unlike our playtest a few weeks ago, the Whites got splattered, despite having more support and forces than the playtest. The Reds go going faster at the beginning and the Whites never had a chance to develop the momentum they had during the previous game.
Anyway, longer update and photos in a few days when I’m not blogging from my phone…
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!
Sent off my request for a table to run a Russian Civil War game at Trumpeter Salute 2012 over in Vancouver (March 30, April 1 & 2, for those interested!), using the excellent Through The Mud & The Blood rules from TooFatLardies, of course.
I’ve got a pretty good handle on the painting of 50+ White Russians and nearly 70 Reds. The Whites have turned out to be more fun to paint than I thought, as they had some very individualistic units running around, and the habit of wearing items of dress uniform into the field where they could. Pygmy Wars has been a huge help in this regard; if you’re into RCW at all that site is a goldmine of information, and written by a wargamer so it’s far more focused on gamer-friendly information than other sources! I also have a couple of more colourful Red units, so not everything colourful on the table will be White!
As I’ve done in the past, because my mind can work in odd ways, I’ve started a poster (possibly a magazine cover?) for the game. I’m not entirely happy with the current version, although I think the basic idea (a map burnt through, basically) is sound enough. The Devil, as always, is in the details, and those aren’t right yet. Nevertheless:
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!
Amulet of Fire characters all converted to .45A 2nd Edition. With a certain amount of cut’n’paste magic in Open Office, but whatever. Grade One mooks & goons are all alike anyway, right?
I usually try not to do this, but lack of time has forced my hand. I’m planning on re-re-building all the cut’n’paste victims at leisure post-Trumpeter, though. Needs must when working seven day weeks, attempting to keep up with LPL, and getting ready for a convention!
Beer. Bed. Work tomorrow, then packing for Trumpeter, then Trumpeter starting Friday afternoon.
Trumpeter Salute 2011 will feature the Saturday Matinée Special .45 Adventure 2nd Edition version of Amulet of Fire! Click for full-size image.
Alongside the Lead Painters League over on LAF, the other thing keeping me amused this week is getting ready for Trumpeter Salute 2011 over in Vancouver (well, Burnaby, really, but close enough…) this weekend! Trumpeter is the region’s “big” gaming convention, really, at least on the Canadian side of the border. This will be my third visit in four years, and it’s always a highlight of my gaming year!
I’ll be running Amulet of Fire again, going over with a friend who has space in his car for the mesa and other stuff needed for it.
I’ve (possibly foolishly…) promised to run Amulet in the barely-just-released 2nd Edition of .45 Adventures, so I’m busy tonight rebuilding all 30 or so characters for all six teams of Amulet. I’d say “converting”, but really 45A 2nd Ed has a different enough character & skill system that I’m rebuilding! Some interesting differences between the new and old versions; must do a full review here of 2nd Ed after Trumpeter!
There will be a bit of a Lead Adventure West Coast meet-up, partly over my Amulet game on Saturday. Always nice to see some of the Vancouver-area folks again, throw more money at Bob Murch & Imperial Hobbies, loose at games, and all the other traditional convention activities!
