Cold Wars 2015 report

We're going to need a bigger... everything.

For Cold Wars this year, I figured I would be flying solo, so I opted to make it a one-day affair. Drive up early, sell things at the Wally's Basement flea market, play a couple games, then head home late. I was able to pull it off, but man, I might be getting a little old to do that much more. Was wiped by the end of then night, and the drive home was a challenge. So back to springing for the hotel room next time, methinks.

The con itself was a mixed bag. Well, that's not really true. For me, the con was great. I sold a bunch of toys, which paid for not only my attendance but with some leftover to buy yet more minis. I played in two great games that were a lot of fun and pretty much exactly what I am looking for in a convention game. I chatted with a bunch of cool folks. I bought a bunch of things I wanted. All winners.

But the con itself was, well, suffering. Fresh off the heels of what looks like the last snowstorm of the year here out east, the parking lot was a hell of ice and slush and cars at all angles and the like. Wally's basement was run in a more haphazard fashion. I noticed a distinct lack of a lot of the huge eye candy showcase games, which are always popular. There were empty tables in the game halls, the dealers room, and even in Wally's, which is always packed. I overheard one of the major dealers saying their sales were down by half, and that was towards the end of the day on Saturday. Ouch. I don't think Historicon will suffer as a result, but I wonder what Fall In will look like come later this year.

Anyways. I come to praise Cold Wars, not to bury it. Let's get on with the it.

My first game of the day:

S-334 - Monster Madness: Hydras, Harpies, & Hellhounds, Oh My!

Sat. 3:00 PM, 2 hrs, 8 players

GM: Katherine Rockstroh

Fantasy 28mm, Rules: Homebrew
You the citizens have demanded it, so the king has decreed it: the THIRD royal monster hunt! The goal: to slay the mightiest monsters ever to terrorize the kingdom. The prize: a new estate & the princess’s hand in marriage. All are welcome to attend; friendly rivalry is encouraged in this fast-paced challenge.
Young aspiring monster hunters welcome with an accompanying grizzled veteran hunter.

You'll notice that last line above. I entirely missed it when I was signing up. Not a big deal, mind you. As with the Hunger Games event from last Fall In, I am a-OK gaming with the younger set. I just didn't expect to be sitting down to this one, and, for the most part, being older than any other two or three gamers put together. Even the GMs were in their late teens. (This was a definite rarity at the HMGS events; I feel like I am on the younger side of the average age of attendees, and I am not young. At all.) No shade though, the GMs ran things wonderfully.

Seated around the table, our teammates were the players opposite us. This allowed the GMs to have each of us activate at the same time, which was pretty ingenious. Essentially, when a model touched a terrain piece, it spawned a monster, which you would get victory points for eliminating. And everyone had a vested interest in either winning the princess's hand in marriage or claiming the monster-infested grounds for their own.

I played Sir Bret, the handsome knight. My teammate was my twin brother, a knight in his own regard. In addition to my footmen, I also had some adoring peasants following me around, who I regularly sent to investigate and root out monsters, which invariably had an appetite for serfs.

Each player had a main character, a second-in-command sort, and a handful of other figs to... not worry about too much. The rules were simple and easy, with color-coded dice (red, blue, and gold) that were easy for even those math-challenged among us to count swiftly.

The game actually played like a Gauntlet-style video game, in a good way. Monsters were spawned. Easier beasts were quickly dispatched, while more fearsome creatures went on to rampage on their own. You'll notice I said above that you got victory points for eliminating the monsters. This, invariably, lead to rampant killstealing and similar shenanigans. It was glorious. The winner was a young druid who had her army of beasts (all of which she personally named) romping around the board swooping in for the kills.

The monster decks for each of the spawning area types. Made for smooth an easy management.

 A fearless footman finds a fearsome bulette hiding in the woods.

The majority of the figs were from Warhammer, the Dungeons & Dragons collectible minis line, Reaper Bones, and other iconic high fantasy sorts.

Not challenged enough, my serfs also spawn a purple worm behind us. Target-rich environment. 

The captain of the guard uncovers an umber hulk (or as she deemed it, 'an ugly cockroach..') 

Ways to challenge my humble cameraphone: photographing a jabberwock in the fronds.

Again, let me reiterate this game was a lot of fun. I would love to recreate it for the locals, and in a couple years can even get our kids involved. The GMs kept the pace moving, so turns moved along promptly. The victory point count definitely lead to some energetic rivalry. Great times.


Random games I passed while wandering the halls:

I mentioned above there weren't many large showpiece games, but this one definitely caught a lot of attention, recreating a World War II raid on a German airstrip. Apparently Doctor Jones was spotted escorting a mysterious crate off the field midway through the game.

I didn't get any details on this game, but the terrain was definitely evocative.

Another large game spotted was a Wild West game set on the three decks of a paddleboat. A homebrew construction of balsa, dollhouse parts, and other odds and ends the decks could even sit on top of each other for the full effect. Very keen.

My second game of the day:

S-278 - Just Another Wasteland Mystery 

Sat. 8:00 PM, 3 hrs, 6 players
GM: Joseph McGuire
Sponsor: World's End Publishing
SciFi 28mm, Rules: This Is Not a Test
The small shantytown of Pernicious Hope has gone quiet. Scouts report no movement from within. The town could have been sacked by an unknown attacker or abandoned by its occupants. Rumor suggest that the town’s leader found something interesting out in the wastes, but what is was is unknown. Perhaps this item's presence is tied to the town's fate? Can your warband solve the mystery?

I had been looking forward to trying out these rules since I first heard about them a while back, and they were the first thing I went for during registration. The rules are due out soon, but I always learn best by trying a game out, and everyone who played in our group was suitably impressed.

 Many handmade shanties and wrecks of vehicles past.

The rules were pretty straightforward. Activation is a little funny, but once everyone got the hang of it, it was no sweat, even with six of us roughing it out.

(And of course I botched my initial activation, but I just pretended I meant to do that so I could stay back and watch who does what first. Heh.)

There's a lot of great detail packed into the board, here. 

I grabbed the Fairfax Tribe, who happen to be featured in this batrep. Amusingly, I found myself sitting next to Joe C. from Dragonbait Miniatures, who I'd met at another con before. (Side note: they're prepping their next offerings, so keep your eyes open.) He was running Mad Max and some of his cronies.

Sneaking into the ruins near the inimitable Johnny Atomic!

Large Oak covers the rest of the tribe as they cautiously advance. 

An interesting twist turned up on the second round: in addition to investigating the abandoned township, Tall Hat decided the fearsome Rock Worms would be a mighty prize to bring home, if their corpses could be harvested. It was of course perfectly fine to let the other survivors do the dirty work of killing them first, naturally. Tall Hat's no dope.

(The book will include a bestiary of awful post-apocalyptic creatures to flesh out the world, just the thing to add to scenarios to take them from good to great.)

Max and his troubleshooters have a worm problem. 

Not pictured: on the far end of the board, the Peacekeepers unleashed the grenade launcher to impressive effect, causing everyone else to subtly start spreading out their models, heh.

In the campaign rules, you can loot the corpses of the fallen. Every gamer's dream. 

Did I mention how spiff the terrain was? 

One fo the things I liked about the rules was how they lent themselves to a natural role-playing angle. For example: shooting. You determine which models are shot by your characters for an activation, and only after that do you resolve the shots themselves. So there's no 'take out one guy, move to the next.' If you want to make sure someone stays down, you end up pouring some extra lead into them, just in case they get lucky. But you don't really know if it works until it's too late to do anything else about it. 

Along those lines: you declare your actions before resolving them, so if something goes south, you'll be left trying to cover for it.

Showdown. 

Preparing flanking fire. 

Actual quote: "Who vomits first?" Rock worms are not pleasant dinner company.

After the game, we all received a prize of a filthy mutant. Which lead to a brief discussion over the merits of the various filthy mutants. Big win.

If you're interested in the game, you can follow the news on the Facebook group, and read up more on the website.

After that was saying goodbyes, packing up, and hauling myself back to Maryland.

For more Cold Wars reports, check out Mr. Surdu, Mr. Nizz, and the fine folks at HAWKs, who always had a nice crowd in there playing.

Fall-In 2014: day two: Zombie Apocalypse!

Saturday morning rolls around, and for whatever reason we all wake up early. Good news because that means a leisurely breakfast at IHOP with a surprise appearance by a hostess with the magical gift of oversharing early in the a.m.

As noted in the Friday report, I did pretty well at Wally's Basement, so let's talk shopping at the con. I never know how much my dozens of readers really care about what someone else is buying. I mean, maybe? So let's hit the big topics instead.

Definitely fewer booths in the dealer's hall than before. I mean, I still found things to spend money on (thanks Brigade and Recreational Conflict!) but there wasn't a lot of competition.

Perfect!

I have a few big Kickstarter rewards showing up in the next few months, so as for strategies for spending my money I stuck mostly to things to supplement games/genres I already have. Better to add more terrain or figs or whatever, to keep me focused. So more Victorian scifi (Wolsung, IHMN) and modern (Pulp City, Gotham.) Was happy to see Brigade had some of the Midnight Workshop figs from Artizan, in addition to their Empire of the Dead offerings.

I didn't pick these up, but it's an inspirational concept.

I should also note that the one big purchase I made at Wally's was a handful of Skaard figs for Dark Age. Older models, but lovely, and priced so I couldn't refuse. Second army started!

And now my big Saturday event. I'd seen them run  games like this before, but this was the first time I was able to reserve a seat at the table.

From the description:

S160 Hold the Line - Z+60 Days
Sat 3:00:00 PM, 3 hrs, 6 players
GM: Henry Kyle
Period: Modern, Scale: 25mm, Rules: Zombie Apocalypse (Home Brew)
"Sixty days after the dead began to rise, your small Texas town is in danger of being overrun by the walking dead. Luckily, word has reached you of a safe zone a few counties over. As the non- combatants are loaded into a convoy to be taken to safety, it is up to the town's ragtag defenders to hold back the undead horde long enough for them to flee."

Yes, those are all 28mm figs.

Arriving at the table, it's a hell of an impressive layout.

The plotline is: we're some of the remaining citizens of Arlen, TX. The city is surrounded by a massive horde of the undead, and we're the defenders gathered on the south side of town, trying to hold off the zombies until a convoy of non-combatants can get moving (in eight turns.)

(They specified the southside of town, as previous runnings of this scenario have been the one of the other three sides of town. Clever!)

Suffice it to say, our work is cut out for us.

The rough outline. The deck of cards was massive, with many options played in different phases of the turn.

The rules are straightforward and fast. Within a turn, we had all the basics down, and we only had to ask for specific rules or 'creative' ideas. Initiative was by cards, worked wonderfully for the ten or so players they had. Victory points were earned for killing zombies (and other things) and points were lost when zombies began attacking the convoy (and a couple other things, I think.) Yes, this means we're encouraged to screw over the other players. Each turn each player got a random event card. Which helped them out or hurt opponents.

No, they don't have these rules available yet. Yes, when they do, I will be picking them up without hesitation.

My crew of ne'er-do-wells.

When I arrived, I had my choice of which themed crew I wanted to play. I went with the Dirty 1/3rd of a Dozen, four hardened criminals who didn't care so much about saving the town as saving our own hides. We didn't lose points for walkers getting to the convoy; this was instrumental to my strategy.

Other factions included: the local donut-eating cops, the local gun club, the A Team, the Sons of Arlen Motorcycle Club, the heavily-armed strippers, some Blackwater mercenaries, and many more. Each had their own little advantages and characteristics. Great to sit down to that kind of variety.

See that light blue police car in the middle of the barricades?

Turn one starts, we start taking shots into the undead crowd, and a few zombies get over the cars. The local cops, who have found some dynamite (via their random event card,) toss it into the horde. It bounces back a bit, and takes out... the police car in the middle of the barricades. This is bad.

My crew spots an ambulance nearby. Curiously enough, we have the rules on our card for how to hotwire a vehicle. We're stationed next to the A Team, so we take some shots at the zombies with them while falling back to our new ride.

Couple turns pass, and the barricade is now more of a speed bump. Zombies are streaming through the breach. Thanks to those random event cards, other zombies have popped up from buildings in town, from the sewers, and from one of the table edges. Eek.

My posse has jacked the ambulance and is heading to the road west. We can't get offboard until turn five, at which point we get VPs for saving our own necks. I did mention we weren't nice guys, right?

I should say most of my posse. Jefferson was tied up in hand to hand combat with one of the walkers that got through, and when he was able to break free, thanks to some help from the A Team... his buddies had driven off. No honor among thieves!

Seriously, it was a firefight!

My ride makes it to the edge of town, but needs to wait a couple turns until we can slip off. We pick off any walkers that are near us. Other townies are suspicious of my motives, but don't know what exactly I am up to. Other than, you know, running away. Snee hee hee.

LOOK AT THAT. So cinematic.

Thanks to someone else's random event card, a zombie breaks into the ambulance, and attacks us. After a turn or two, I go from three criminals fighting one zombie to one criminal fighting two other zombies, including the driver.

Remember Jefferson? Inexplicably still breathing, he sees the writing on the wall, and is sticking like glue to the other survivors, falling back to the convoy.  

I could write three more blog posts about everything else that happened in this game. Walkers ambushing survivors, one-in-a-million shots, terrible turns of the tide. One of the things that went really well for a con game is that each player had their own characters, and thusly their own story in this larger event, enhanced by their own cards and cards others played on or around them. Highly effective, and a real plus for the folks behind this game.

Posey, the lone surviving criminal from the ambulance, gets out, gets in another ambulance they randomly ended up packing next to, and uses that to secure his escape and me a fair number of victory points. (As bad guys, we didn't care about fallen comrades.)

Oh, and Jefferson, the luckiest bad boy in town, makes it out to the convoy at the end and off the table. Victory points are tallied. I come in second, after... another bad guy player who didn't care about the convoy getting attacked. Having zeds pop up so early, before we could muster a rearguard to keep them off the civilians cost a lot of points from the good guys, which really gave us criminal types an advantage. But I speak without fear of contradiction when I say that everyone had fun.

Huge game. Great times.

After that epic battle, we headed out of town early. Swung by Games and Stuff in Glen Burnie, since it was on the way and I'd never been before. Believe the hype, it's pretty close to the ideal game store. Clean, well-lit, well-stocked. Plenty of space for gaming. The downside is... that's it's too far from my house. Ah well.

Fall-In 2014: day one: The Hunger Games!

Friday morning brought an early but pleasant drive up from Maryland to Lancaster, with only a slight detour for the scenic route. The gents and I spent some time in the car chatting and speculating about bringing in some additional content and changes to This Very Blog. More on that as it materializes.

Got in right before the deadline for their Flames of War doubles tournament. I had... ample time before my first event so I stuck around a bit to check it out.

The tournament was in the Showroom this time, a large theater with high ceilings. Actually really nice! Never seen the room in use before, very strange. I am positive full reports will be up on WWPD before too long, and do a better job of talking about it then I could even begin to do.

Look, tanks and stuff. (I am not a historical gamer.)

After hanging out at the tourney for a bit, took to the halls to check out some of the other early games in progress.

One of the highlights of the show as a whole was the positively massive "Speak Easy & Carry a Big Stick" game on Friday night. Blocks of roaring 20's action lovingly rendered in 28mm scale. I formally regret not playing in this one, because wow. (Unfortunately, it conflicted with my game for the evening. Had I known how this one would look, though...)

For some closeups, check out Brooklyn Wargaming. For more pics, check out Mr. Olsen or Buck Surdu or Lord Ashram's and pretty much anyone who wandered near Fall-In the whole weekend.

Seriously.

Another drive-through at the FoW tourney. We were amused earlier that there was even a table set up on the stage, and sure enough, the dynamic duo were playing on that vaunted platform.

Aaron on the left, Maurice on the right. Action!

As noted above, I had lots of free time on Friday, so I ended up getting a table at the Friday session for Wally's Basement. Usually, I just stick with the Saturday morning session (the most popular one) but figured as long as I could make a few bucks past what I paid for getting another table, I would come out ahead. This turned out to be a great decision, as I ended up making more than I expected over the course of the weekend. Yes, I might have sold some of those items on Saturday instead, but it all comes down to the count of passers-by you get who might want to buy your things. And I was priced... aggressively low. So bonus! Don't think it'll be a regular thing for me (the actual selling is very draining, especially working the table solo) but glad I phoned in for the extra this time around.

As seen last year, they had the massive "Attack on Fort DeRussy" game set up again.

Again, more sweet pics over at Mr. Olsen's gallery.

All Quiet on the Martian Front is becoming a staple of cons, as well. Looks so good all prettied up. But why would anyone want to play anything but the tripods?

After a day of eating junk, I needed some vegetables in me to help balance things out. Sadly, the best I could do at the Host was a chicken caesar salad. I'll leave complaining about the location to others more qualified, but I really wish there were healthier food choices available.

On the other hand, the bar now has cider on tap, so let's just say the meal was not a total loss.

My game for the evening, and in fact the first thing I signed up for at the con, was The Hunger Games!

(Oh look, if you squint at this pic from Buck Surdu's gallery, you can see me sitting behind that guy who is standing up. Internet famous!)

 

Using the Blood and Swash rules with some modifications, each of the players got two characters, one male and one female. Each player was given a number. When that card came up in the deck, we got to active one character and take an action. The players informally decided that those were the districts we were from, because, well, that was kid-of a no-brainer given the setting. Plus, I was #10, so go farmers?

As you might notice above, the figs we used were some Doctor Who/pulp figs that were borrowed from one of the HAWKS gamerunners. Perfectly serviceable, but I note that it would have been pretty fantastic to have a bunch of miniatures of kids. You know, for theme. Speaking of...

Now, I hate sounding critical of anyone running a game at a con, especially a game I had a lot of fun at. But There was definitely room for improvement here. I always enjoy gaming down in the HAWKS area; the games are run very well, the figs and terrain look great, So, uh, sitting down to the above, which looks more like a playtest walkthrough than anything else, was a bit worrisome. Toss in some random figs, and yeah.

I do hate being critical, here. I don't run games at cons because I really don't think I have the patience or temperament to deal with that many players at once, and for a few hours with no break. This game just didn't have the presentation I was expecting. Certainly good for a playtest, though, even if that wasn't what it was billed as. And like I said, I did enjoy the game, and am glad I showed.

OK, back to business.

The game start, and the rush for the cornucopia's treasures is on.

Another surprise was that the ten players included four children. Kids at a con are always a crap shoot, but this group was great. They were all familiar with the setting, and were in pretty good spirits pretty much the whole time through. 

And remember how I said we all decided our numbers were our Districts? Since the kids all sat together, and the gamemaster started counting in that order, they were all in the lower numbered Districts. Couldn't have planned it better if he'd tried.

Much like in the books, the rush for the weapons and supplies (here represented by those chits and scraps of paper) turned into a bloodbath early. I sent in one of my tributes, but the other hightailed it for the seeming safety of the woods. 

This was, naturally, a terrible idea. See those colored dots surrounding the water above? Each was paired with a corresponding color dot at the table edge, dividing the area into... yes, just like the 75th Hunger Games, a giant clock. In addition to the cards used for player activations, there were cards in there that triggered the special events. The majority of which were terrible: poison gas, killer bees, some troll-like monster, etc. The player whose card came up after the event card determined which 'clock facing' wedge it would appear in, most of them being something bad moving in from the table edge towards the center, forcing all the contestants closer together. 

Panem forever.

For some reason, all my activation cards kept showing up at the bottom of the deck. The other random trend was, oddly, I also kept being one of the players triggering terrible disasters. It was amusingly strange luck.

Cotton balls representing poison fog and wildfires roll in from above. Not coincidentally on the side of the table opposite me.

More comedy from the random chance of dice and cards were crazy strings of 'kid luck,' which I am now convinced is a scientific principle. See those tentacles above? The beast behind them had seized the tribute of one of the kids. And after a couple rounds of getting pulled under, she needed to roll like a 19 or 20 just to survive. Triggering her straight up rolling nothing but 19s and 20s for the next few rounds, without fail.

If Troi meets the Doctor on the road, kill him.

In the end, it was a fun beer-and-pretzels game. The rules were simple enough that we all had them down within a couple turns. And it was able to handle ten players, each playing two characters, no sweat. So there's something to be said for that. I'd love to see a prettier presentation, but the game I played in was good times.

Hopefully will have day two up within the next couple days. Stay tuned!