Chris Palmer
And now another week has gone by without getting any painting done. A multi-day weekend visit from the in-laws put a wrench in my painting plans for this week. 🙁
As of now the horizon looks clear, so I am very hopeful for next Monday. Until them keep your fingers crossed!
I will paint once again!
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Rob Dean
Historicon last weekend left me inspired to do some work, but tired and a week behind on life’s necessary chores. Today I finished a few figures for the portable fantasy game (PFG). These were a Dark Alliance light warg rider, and five Caesar goblins. My immediate goal is to add some additional tactical options to the box before I head off to Gencon in a few weeks.
As I posted a few weeks ago, William and I had a trial game. I was having photo upload difficulties, so I only posted a single picture at the time. Here is the table as we set it up, using most (but not all) of the scenery in the box. For reference, the cloth is about 36” square.
Here a group of orcs crosses a Dave Graffam Model bridge.
When everything is packed away into the 12 liter box, it looks like this. The top layer is the ground cloth, the rules, and a hill.
The next layer down includes two more hills and the roll of roads.
The buildings, trees, figures boxes, walls, lichen and miscellaneous scenics are in the bottom layer. One figure box includes tall figures; the other is short but has more space.
With today’s figures, I’ve got 32 foot figures on half-inch bases in the short box, plus a couple of Reaper Bones spider swarms.
The deep box includes the two cavalry figures, the dragon, the troll, and a few overly dramatic tall foot figures.
Here’s an overview.
With a couple of weeks to go, I’m feeling pretty good about this project…
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Buck
A view of the gaming area in full swing
Now that HISTORICON is behind us, the HAWKs will begin planning our annual gaming day, Barrage. This year’s event will be 13 September. If you would like to run an event, please contact surdu@acm.org. Also, see the Barrage Web site: http://ift.tt/1z5yVfo
In addition to a full slate of games, we will also have a table running all day with games specifically suited for younger gamers.
The HAWKs
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Rob Dean
The convention report is a time-honored HAWKs tradition, so here is my 2014 Historicon report. I’m pleased to report, by the way, that the blog entry software I use has recently been updated to correct a problem it had been having with uploading pictures, so I hope to be back to posting on a more regular basis.
This is the third year Historicon has been in Fredericksburg, and the convention center is apparently trying to work with us on improving some things. The most important innovation this year was temporary carpeting in the main gaming area. This reduced the noise level to something that wasn’t immediately giving me a headache, so that’s an improvement. On the other hand, they reduced the number of water stations and didn’t seem to be keeping them filled, which was a slip from last year. Bathrooms continue to be a problem…
Getting to Fredericksburg is an adventure, and I don’t mean that as a positivie comment. The convention center is just off I-95, which is the only practical divided highway route from the north. Construction between DC and Fredericksburg continues for the 3rd year, and the last 30 miles took me an hour an a half, from noon to 1:30 on a Thursday. If you can’t get through during work hours on a week day, when can you?
Arriving as I did around 1:30, I planned to do my shopping first, check out the flea market, and then see if there was something interesting to play in the evening. My shopping list was pretty short, some bases, some boxes of 1/72 scale plastic figures, and an advance copy of Osprey’s new medieval rules, Lion Rampant by Dan Mersey. I had hoped that these would be at the con; the Amazon release date is in late September. I’ll have a read-through review later, and hope to try them out within a few weeks.
I had hoped to get into a game on Thursday night, but it turned out that the two games in the HAWKs room I wished to play both filled with non-HAWKs, so no fill-ins were necessary. Norman had arrived by then, so we took a walk around and then went and checked into our hotel.
While there were a lot of interesting looking games, my eye was caught by this particular SF game on our evening walkaround, since I hadn’t seen a table with a monorail previously.
With an afternoon game on Friday, I was constrained to play something early and short in the morning.
I ended up in an Aerodrome game. Despite my kids having played regularly, and despite it having been a convention staple for years, I’d never played. I picked up the mechanics quickly. It’s based on the old Ace of Aces book game, with which I have been familiar since it was new back when I was in college (and saber toothed tigers stalked us on the way to class…). Norman joined me for this game. Since we were assigned planes on opposite sides, he also shot me down once. I was shot down twice in rapid succession, so it seems that my predictive skills are going to require some work before my next try at this.
We picked up a cache of Zvezda Hundred Years War 1/72 figures in the morning flea market.
The first of the three games I ran was on Friday afternoon. I signed up to do three different Hundred Years War skirmish games using 54mm plastic figures and our Medieval Mayhem home rules.
This first game had only 4 of 6 possible players, and two of those were HAWKs fill-ins, so I was concerned. The scenario involved an English raiding party attempting to collect livestock from a village to provision a castle about to be attacked.
The raiders collected some of the necessary livestock, but were eventually fought off by the French, who were arriving on the field throughout the scenario.
Norman and I had both signed up for an evening game with a hypothetical Zulu War scenario. The rules to be used were Black Powder, which neither of us had tried. I think he was considering them as a possibility for a 19th century imagi-nations project he’s doing.
He ended up commanding the main body of the British, and in the photo above had taken a defensive position.
Unfortunately, my troops, extending his line, crumpled under a fierce Zulu assault and we were rolled up. Sometimes you win, sometimes Zulus…
There wasn’t enough time on Saturday to play anything before I needed to set up my second game.
This involved a follow-on to the first scenario, in which a group of raiders had to cross the board (or at least most of it) with a convoy of cattle and sheep. Again, the French were converging on the board, so that the longer the English took, the more opposition they faced.
Here a reluctant Britains cow slows down the proceedings…
This turned out to be a tense and well-balanced scenario, insofar as any skirmish game (with an inherently wide range of possible outcomes) can be balanced. The English wiped out one of the three French retinues, which game them an opening to get their farm animals off the board for a solid victory.
I had all six positions filled for this one, though it still included two HAWKs to fill in.
Since the game only ran a little over two hours, there was time to check the flea market one more time before resetting for the evneing game. I found someone getting rid of a large stockpile of Caesar 1/72 Bronze Age sets of various sorts, so I swept them up on speculation (and as requested by Norman).
Norman was running two Bronze Age games, and is seen here with the first one:
My third game had six of six players. The scenario involved a raiding party from the castle attempting to burn a siege tower and a stock of timbers and parts for a second siege engine.
The English raiders eventually managed to burn the tower, but didn’t burn the extra supplies. With excessive losses on their part, this was declared a marginal French victory. I was happy to see these figures on the table; my records show they were last out for Cold Wars two years ago.
We stayed around on Sunday for one final game (and lunch with some other HAWKs) before heading home. I got into a WWII skirmish game with card-driven mechanics. It’s under development by my friend Buck Surdu.
Unfortunately, my luck with cards appears to be no better than my luck with dice, and my German sentries (shown above) were shot down before their first activation. I had better luck with a pair of officers inside the building, but it was still a pretty firm British victory.
The drive home was slow, due to traffic, so I may reconsider Sunday gaming next year. Overall, though, it was still a good convention. One other bit of gaming news came out of it: The HAWKs are now planning a road trip to Huzzah in Maine next May, so I’ve volunteered to coordinate our events with the convention.
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Buck
Last weekend was HMGS East’s flagship convention, HISTORICON. For the third year in a row it was held at the Expo Center in Fredericksburg, VA. I had planned to take both Thursday and Friday off work to attend. Since I hand’t committed to running any Thursday games, at the last minute I determined to go to work on Thursday and drive down later. I was supposed to leave work at 1700, but didn’t get out until 1830. I met my wife at Ikia just north of DC to pick up my son. He and I made excellent time, finding a rare gap in the normally heinous traffic on I-95 south out of DC. When we arrived and began unloading all my stuff into the HAWKs room, gaming had been underway for hours.
Dave running his 10mm Napoleonic game using Fate of Battle
Don ran a series of linked WWII scenarios on this table
Duncan running a War of 1813 game using Wellington Rules
Ants chasing a jeep full of soldiers
My first game was a GASLIGHT game in which teams of soldiers venture into a colony of giant ants to rescue some lost kids. Despite a valiant effort the ants ate all the soldiers, and only one of three lost kids survived to tell the tale — and spend lots of money on therapy.
Two soldiers skirmish with a radioactive ant
Tank running his Romans vs. Carthaginians game using Bear Yourselves Valiantly
Dave assisting with my Mincio River game
Dave assisting with Mincio
Chris’ Battle of Five Armies game using Bear Yourselves Valiantly
Bill’s G.A.M.E.R. event
Bill ran this 54mm WWII game using my under-development G.A.M.E.R. rules. (The acronym stands for the attributes of each figure: guts, accuracy, melee, endurance, and reaction). While one of the players thought that hand-to-hand shouldn’t carry over for multiple turns, in general the rules were well received.
A view of Bill’s 54mm Normandy game using G.A.M.E.R.
Chris’ Hundred Years War game
See details of Chris’ Battle of Barnett here: http://ift.tt/1o1ENT7
One of my 10mm Napoleonic games
I ran two 10mm Napoleonic Wars games with Fate of Battle: Mincio River and Hanau. Dave Wood ran another Napoleonic scenario, and he and Duncan ran the Battle of Vittoria on Saturday evening. All seemed to go well, with the occasional rules lawyer or bad sport to dampen the event a little. The rules seem to be slowly gaining some momentum; although, I did have one person sit through the rules briefing and then say he wasn’t interested and leave.
A good shot of the setup of Sam’s kids game, which featured the Eureka toy soldiers assaulting a for made of blocks held by the Eureka teddy bears
Sam ran her first convention game. It was a battle between the Eureka teddy bear figures and the Eureka toy soldier figures. It was set up as a kids game. She built all the terrain herself. She went with a candy land theme. She was quite nervous at the start, but once the game got going, she did a good job.
Sammy running her kids game
Like many of our kids table games, she used Milk and Cookies Rules from Big Battles for Little Hands for this game.
Sam’s game in progress
The objective of the toy soldiers, who outnumbered the bears, was to capture the fort made of toy blocks. While the toy soldiers killed most of the bears, they didn’t get to the fort, so it was a teddy bear victory.
Ed’s 20mm modern skirmish
Ed, who came down with Sam Fuson, ran his modern skirmish game set in Afghanistan.
Sam’s Sherlock Holmes GASLIGHT game
It was quite successful. The folks had a good time. Sam ran a Sherlock Holmes inspired GASLIGHT game.
Geoff running his Lego pirate game
As usual, the HAWKs set aside a table for kids games. Geoff ran his plastic pirate barroom brawl game twice.
Geoff making a point with the youngsters
I’m not sure what point Geoff was making, but it was hard to miss. Geoff is really good as a GM for these kids games.
Eric running his Armies for Kids Napoleonic game
Eric ran the Armies for Kids giveaway game this year. See Chris’ blog post for more details: http://ift.tt/1o0o82k
A view of some of the 28mm figures in the Armies for Kids giveaway game
This is our fourth year of hosting a game for kids under 10, after which we pass out free, painted armies to the participants. This is an outreach effort to try to grow the hobby. There were two very nice threads about this on TMP. The latter is from a dad. His comments capture exactly why we do this every year.
The winners in the Armies for Kids giveaway
It was really fun watching the kids’ faces as we passed out armies, terrain, dice, and rules at the end of the game.
This convention also marked the 20th anniversary of the HAWKs as a club. To commemorate this, we cut a celebratory cake Saturday evening, which was shared with folks playing games in our room. See Chris’ blog post for details: http://ift.tt/1yXHmcB
Bill’s large-scale Helm’s Deep game
Bill and his son William ran this Helm’s Deep game with very large figures on Saturday night.
Jennifer Palmer running her Blood and Swash tavern game
The start of my GASLIGHT dog sled race
Friday night Don, Chris, and I ran a reprise of our HAWKs 1000 race game. The original HAWKs 1000 game was organized by Todd Harland-White and had four races: dog sleds, a desert car race, a zeppelin race, and an airboat race through the jungle. Since Todd was unable to attend, we restructured the race with just three legs: the dog sled and car races as well as a new hover skiffs on Mars game. Each leg was an hour, after which the players rotated to the next table. Each player raced in all three legs of the race, collecting points along the way to determine the overall winner. See Chris’ post here: http://ift.tt/1o4LF25
Coming around the first turn of my dogsled race
My dog sled race was wild and woolly, as usual. There were lots of flipped sleds and wounded dogs along the course.
The hover craft lined up at the start of the Mars leg of the HAWKs 1000 race
The hover skiff race, a new addition, seemed to go very well. The hover skiffs (shown above) were made from dispensers for rolls of chewing gum with some bits added. The figures were a combination of manufacturers, from Blue Moon, scratch-built robots, Pulp Figures, Recreation Conflict, and others.
I ran a final event Sunday morning, my fifth of the convention. It was a G.A.M.E.R. event. It was mainly about getting feedback on the rules with a simple scenario in which commandos and partisans are trying to steal an enigma machine from the Germans. I don’t know if I was just tired by the end of the weekend, but the game wasn’t nearly as enjoyable to me as the other times I’ve run the game. There were also one or two people in the game who kept fighting the unique mechanics, kept waiting for me to resolve things for them, or wanted to argue about things. They can’t all be great, I guess.
So, I ran five games, all of which filled, and most of which went well:
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Chris Palmer Saturday night at Historicon the HAWKs (Harford Area Weekely Kriegspielers) celebrated their 20 anniversary. The festivities included a large sheet cake, which was shared with all who were there in the club’s room at the convention.
The HAWKs was formed as an outgrowth of a non-credit course, that was called “Wargaming With Miniatures”, held at the local community college. The course was run by Andy Haag, who went along to become one of the founding members of the club. Two participants in that original course are still active in the club today, Eric Schlegel, and myself. Slowly the club grew by word of mouth, and today we have over 20 active members.
| Buck Surdu gives a short speech prior to the cake cutting |
For a complete history of the club, see here: HAWKs History
| Member Bill Acheson does the honorary first cut of the cake with a Franco-Prussian era cavalry saber. The club got special permission from HMGS to bring the saber in for the ceremony. |
| The cake is cut for the crowd |
| The earliest known picture of a HAWKs meeting, taken in 1996. The club was meeting in my basement at that time. The game is a Stalingrad Factory game. Shown from left to right are Buck Surdu, Jamie Davis, Doug Rockwell, Andy Haag, and Eric Schlegel. |
| The club today. |
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Chris Palmer A couple years ago at one of the HMGS cons, to celebrate the 1000 convention game that the HAWKs had run, we ran a game called “The HAWKs 1000” which was a race game based on the GASLIGHT and Future Race rules sets. The race had four courses: boats, dog sleds, zeppelins, and cars; and players cycled through each race collecting points. At the end, whoever had the most points was declared the winner.
We decided to bring the game back for this year’s Historicon as part of the HAWKs 20th Anniversary celebration. This years race had only three courses: dog sleds and cars like before, and this year we added Martian hover-skiffs. I was selected to run the hover-skiff leg of the race, Done Hogge ran the car race, and Buck Surdu ran the dogsled race.
| Martian hover-skiffs on the start line. On the hill in the background, John Carter prepares to lower his sword to start the race. |
We got twelve players for our game, which we broke down into two teams of 6, and each team cycled through each of the race courses. Each vehicle usually had 2 occupants, a driver and an assistant (who was usually armed), and players were given a random assortment of “dirty trick” cards that they could play on themselves or other racers. In my race, besides just trying to finish first, there were also a couple side objective that the players could hope to achieve; the first of these was to rescue a lost explorer who was located in a far corner of the course, and the second was to rescue a Martian princess who was tied to a monolith in another corner of the course.
| Another “dirty trick” card results in a Martian White Ape jumping aboard one of the skiffs and scuffling with the occupants. |
My Martian hover-skiff race got off to bang, when on the second turn a participant played a “dirty trick” card on another that involved a pair of rogue Martian snipers with radium rifles popping up on the course and taking potshots at the racer. One shot went wild (actually hitting another racer!) but the other shot hit the robot driver of the targeted skiff. The robot needed to make a Save roll, and rolled a 20, which in GASLIGHT, means something BAD happened. So, as GM I ruled that parts of the destroyed robot had fallen into the engine, and the player needed to roll a Save for the vehicle or it would take damage. He succeeded in rolling a second 20, which on the damage table indicated that the vehicle exploded and fell to the ground. I let him make a Save for his assistant figure, which he did, and so the assistant set off to finish the race on foot.
| In the first race, the player who had his skiff blown up, manages to rescue the lost explorer with his assistant, and finish the race on foot, actually coming in third! |
The highlight of the second game was when a player had his skiff crash with only the robot driver survive he tired to use the robot to steal the skiff of another player (who had parked it to rescue the lost explorer) and so I made him roll a Save to see if his robot’s programming was compatible with the other skiff’s. He rolled a 20 as well, and so I ruled that in it’s attempt to diagnose the skiffs programming, defensive software in the skiff had short circuited the robot.
| In the second race, the pair of Martian snipers appears again, and creates havoc near the finish line. |
Both runnings of the race were a hoot to GM, and a great group of gamers made for a terrific night. It was a great way for me to wrap up Historicon 2014.
| Done Hogge (in blue shirt, facing camera) ran a cross-desert car race filled with bandits and lost treasure. |
| Buck Surdu (in blue shirt at far end of table) ran an Arctic dogsled race complete with rogue Yetis and wandering penguins. |
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Chris Palmer Saturday morning at Historicon I ran my “Warring Roses in the Mist game, which featured the Battle of Barnet fought 14 April 1471, using “Bear Yourselves Valiantly” rules and 10mm figures. In the battle, King Edward IV arrayed his Yorkist army to fight against he Earl of Warwick and his Lancastrian army on a foggy morning; so foggy in fact that the two armies lined up offset, so both had dangerously threatened flanks.
| The game begins, as commanders begin to move their units. |
One of the main features of the battle, other than the visibility limiting mist, was several hedges that cut through between the two armies, hindering their movement. In the game, the Lancastirans were able to advance their longbowmen to these hedges providing them some cover as the Yorkist army also moved their archers forward.
| Exeter’s longbowmen rush for the hedges (center of the photo), as Gloucester’s men advance (left of the photo). |
The archery duel commenced and after a couple turns the Lancastrian army had received the worst of it, loosing the achery duel in front of all three of their commands (Exeter on the left, Warwick in the center, and Oxford on the right) As their remaining Lancastrian archers fell back the Yorkist archers poured fire into the Lancastrian foot soldiers as they now tried to move up.
| The height of the battle |
The Duke of Exeter on the Lancastrian left, who was badly outflanked by the Duke of Gloucester across from him, quickly found himself in a bad position and his lines began to get badly decimated. Exeter was slowly pushed back and Warwick found his troops in the center now threatened.
| Exeter is pushed back from the hedges by the advancing Gloucester |
Meanwhile on the Lancastrian right, the Earl of Oxford, who outflanked his opposite, Lord Hastings, despite having his archers mauled was able to advance across the hedgerow and held his own for a while, but he was unable to maintain any momentum in his attack, and he too found himself slowly pushed back.
| Warwick (seen in the center of the photo) with enemy units drawing close, concedes defeat and vows to return another day. |
Once the writing was on the wall, Warwick conceded, and the game was called as a Yorkist victory. All the players said they had a great time, and several said they were eagerly looking forward the the rules being published early this Fall. As a GM I enjoyed running the game for a super group of players.
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Chris Palmer This year’s Armies-For-Kids project was successfully concluded at last weekend’s Historicon convention with the awarding of pairs of opposing, painted, 28mm Napoleonic Amries, terrain and other gaming aids to 6 lucky kids after completion of a specially designated kids’ game on Saturday at the con, GM’d be HAWKs member Eric Schlegel. We also handed out two complete pairs of 15mm Seven Years War Armies and terrain, left over from our 2012 Armies for Kids effort, to two lucky kids who took part in another kids’ game we ran during the con.
| Eric helps one of the kids during Saturday’s game (Photo courtesy of Buck Surdu) |
This year’s armies were provided through generous donations from Jay Hadley, Ed Mohrmann, and the Nashcon staff. The terrain we gave the kids was provided, and constructed, by Chris Johnson.
| The kids checking out their new armies. |
Next year we are planning to be putting together 40mm ACW skirmish forces for our Armies-For-Kids project, based on a generous donation of figures from Maynard Creel. So, if anyone has any 40mm ACW figures, or suitable terrain they’d like to donate, please contact me at cnjpalmer(at)aol(dot)com.
| Group shot of Gamemaster Eric Schlegel and the kids with their pile of “loot”! |
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Chris Palmer Jennifer and I arrived at Historicon Friday afternoon, and after checking into our hotel, we headed over to the Expo center to register for the con, visit the HAWKs club room, and unload our gaming stuff. Luckily, the table for my evening game, the Battle of Five Armies using “Bear Yourselves Valiantly” rules, was open; so I was able to enjoy a leisurely set up, and then break for dinner in plenty of time to be all ready for the start time at 7:00 PM.
| The Battle of 5 Armies begins. The ruins of Dale can be seen in the center of the table, and the Lonely Mountain over on the right corner. |
The game got off to a good start, and I was lucky to have a couple of fellows who had played in James ‘Tank’ Nickle’s Rome vs Carthage game on Thursday using the same rules, so they were familiar with the game mechanics and were able to help the other players.
The battle, using 10mm figures, is from the book “The Hobbit”, and features armies of Men, Elves and Dwarves, facing off against forces of Goblins and Wargs for control of the Lonely Mountain and the wealth it contains.
| Goblin hordes advancing. |
Though the allied armies initially found themselves hard pressed, the Goblins found the dice were not their friend and they had trouble successfully making a number of key dice rolls that eventually led to their defeat. First one, then three of the Goblin forces retreated, and at that point we called it a night.
All the players said they had a great time, though as a GM it’s always hard to see one side’s luck turn south.
| The men of Laketown find themselves facing a mass of Goblins. |
At the same time, Buck Surdu and Dave Wood were running a 10mm Napoleonic battle, the Battle of Mincio River 8 February 1814, using “Fate of Battle” rules.
| Dave Wood (in blue shirt on left) and Buck Surdu (in blue shirt on right) brief the rules to the players. |
| Players decide their next move as Buck Surdu looks on. |
Also being run Friday night was Geoff Graff’s 6mm Russian Front WWII game using “Look, Sarge, No Charts: WWII” rules.
| Geoff Graff, in blue shirt, looks on as one of the player Dave Schlegel prepares to roll the dice. |
On another table, Bill Acheson was also running a WWII game, set during D-Day, featuring much larger 54mm figures. He was using the under-development “G.A.M.E.R.” rules written by Buck Surdu, an featuring an innovative card activation and combat system.
| Bill Acheson, standing, running his D-Day game, “H -6 Hours” |
And in the middle of the figure scale, Don Hogge was doing WWII with 25mm figures and “Battleground WWII” rules in his Panzer Lehr Counterattack game.
| Gamemaster Don Hogge, in blue shirt, helps a player during his WWII game. |
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