We are back from vacation and I finally have time to report on my visit to the
Southern Front Wargaming Convention in Raliegh, North Carolina.
First off, I cannot praise the organizers enough. It is a small but very well run event. I vastly prefer attending small conventions as compared to my last visit to Historicon a few years ago. I suspect I am getting cranky in my old age, but crowds and noise are not my favorites anymore!
There were only 8 games running at once, in a single room, but they were all high quality and the ratios of games to players were good. There were plenty of vendors (I will show off my loot in another post)
Saturday morning, I played in a game that was one of the
peak wargaming experiences of my career (tm) and Saturday evening I ran a game of Astounding Tales 2! Here is a summary:
Random Shots
Here are a few random pics of other games going on, it is NOT representative. There were some really great looking games. I missed Saturday afternoon (the missus and I went to lunch), but here are some from the other 2 Saturday slots.
Chain of Command. There were many games run in various theaters, I wish I had been able to work it in. Looked great!
Wings of War, with honking great German Bombers
Little Round Top
A really nice Napoleonics game in 28mm. I love the ground cloth and I think they were using the Blucher computer moderated rules.
WW2 Double-Blind Crossfire
I may exaggerate occasionally, but this was one of the peak gaming experiences of my tabletop career! It was a double-blind game of
Crossfire run by Mike Tyson (Thank you Mike, if you read this!)
He had two identical tables set up next to each other divided by a clever curtain on a PVC pipe frame.
This is all I saw of the opposition...
The scenario was early war Eastern Front, and I draw the Russian straw. As I was the only player who had and Crossfire experience, I was nominated to be the COmpany commander. Or else, per the Commisar.
Each side had a company plus some armor support in a meeting engagement. I cannot give a blow by blow as I was completely engaged in the game, but a few observations:
- The rules worked well. Mike also had an assistant umpire on each table, which helped greatly. Crossfire was a great choice of rules as it flowed well, he kept the tables roughly in synch. The rules are simple enough that they were almost transparent to the experience of "where the heck is he? Should I try to cross that open ground? Where the hell did those guys come from ?!?!?!" He made some mods to allow continuous fire until you failed, and I have to say they worked well. We came to a decision in 2 hours and even the guys who had their platoons wiped out enjoyed it.
- We lost, but barely. each player took a platoon, and I also had the company commander and a T-26's and SU-76. But my master plan of ordering one of the platoon leaders to retreat across an open field to "draw in" the Panzer 38T to the muzzle of my SU-76 ended in lots of dead Russians shot in the back in the above-mentioned field.
- I spent 4 turns firing into what turned out to be an empty wood because I thought Germans might be in there and ammo is cheaper than bodies, even for Russians. When does that happen in a normal game?
It really is the best way to wargame, suddenly recon becomes vital as it is in real life and fire and movement really becomes viable and overwatch comes into its own at the tactical level. The fog of war was heavy too, with a lot of command friction and uncertainty.
I am so inspired, I am working on my own double-blind game, but on a different scale. Stay tuned for details.
I will leave you with this quote of the game:"Umpire: You just got shot at by a machine gun. Player: Crap, what machine gun ?!?!?!"
Here are some snaps.
My fellow Soviet players
Movement to contact, Two Russian platoons advance in line at the top, my guys are at the bottom
My Comrade's platoon in the center, getting ready to peek through the hedge...
The endgame, where my SU-76 waited in ambush for a target that never showed up. I did not know that he had spotted me and knew I was there. That is an important thing about double-blind, you not only don't know where the other guys are all the time, but you don't know what he knows about you!
Kudos to
John Acar, the German player opposite me, who also played it slow and used lots of recon and bounding overwatch. As a result, he easily avoided my ambush It was good to roll dice with you again.
Astounding Tales 2!
Saturday Evening, I ran my Death Temple of Sarnath game, with a full crew of 8 players! Here is the background information and the last couple of times I ran the game:
I was busy running around GM-ing the game but, fun was had by all! It ended with the Nazis winning and making off with the Eye of Azathoth, the Gangsters recapturing Shirley Uoff after she had been rescued by the RCMP just before she could get on the plane, and the Zanzibar Slavers deciding the kidnapping Miss Lemon would do and hauling her off for shipment to the slave markets of Istanbul.
Here are a few snaps from the game.
Everyone fully engaged!
Hercule Poirot ponders his next move
Doc Savage prepares to punch out a few robots. Supreme Subjicator Zenobia of the Radon Zombies of the Ionosphere had also crash-landed in the jungle.
That is all for now, next time I will recap our vacation, which does almost have some wargaming content!
