43. I Continue to Game in Public

In August a couple of weeks ago, I attending a local one-day miniatures mini-convention near where I live:  Skirmish.  It's put on a by local group called the DFW Irregulars who themselves are part of the Lone Star Historical Miniatures group.  I first attended two years ago but was not able to attend last year.  This year's con was slightly larger than 2009's, in that they had expanded from one large room to include a medium sized room as well.  It's been reported that they had 92 attendees and 26 games across three time slots.  There were several local vendors as well:  Texas Toy Soldier (also dba The Terrain Guy), Grenadier Books, Portsmouth Miniatures, and Frontline Games.

I think originally, Skirmish was intended as a Historical miniatures gaming convention, but (wisely, in my opinion) they expanded the selection to allow non-historical games.  Dr. Who, zombies, and other fantasy and sci-fi games were in strong evidence.

I invited four friends who have an interest in gaming, but who don't game for one reason or another.  Of the four, one accepted and came for two of the sessions.  I think he had fun.  This is an improvement on 2009 for me, when I invited two friends (different to this year) and neither of them came.  But one of them was kind enough to call me during the first session to tell me I could come with him to a new game group to play Descent that afternoon if I wanted to....

Any area's miniature gaming aficionados are, by virtue of the hobby we love, a small group of people.  You see the same faces time after time, at one game store's open gaming and another game store's open gaming.  So it pays to have thick skin and not make enemies.  I'm definitely seeing many of the same faces the more I game locally, which is a really good thing, and I can wholeheartedly say that I didn't have a problem with any attendee or GM at Skirmish.  What's even more amazing is that our "area" is a very large geographic area, encompassing all of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex, and a lot of these guys drive an hour just to get to the convention.  I think that shows more than anything else how small and insular our hobby is:  92 people came to play, out of a combined city-wide population of 6.4 million and 9,000 square miles!  So if you find someone with whom to game, with whom you like to spend time, HOLD ON TO THEM!

Your Honor, I give you Exhibit A:  Exhibit Hall A, that is.  Heh heh, forgive me, your Honor.  What?  Contempt of court!?  Why you...!

Did I forget to mention they had Flames of War and Field of Glory tournaments running from 0900 to 2245?  Well, they did.  In fact, here they are.

Overlooking our Sudan game in room B.

Anyway, here are some select pictures of my games.  I took a lot with my phone again, but won't subject you to them all.  I've not included anyone's last name, as I didn't ask permission before posting on my blog here.  Privacy, don'cha know.

My first game was a The Sword and the Flame (modified) game in the Sudan, run by Greg W.  From the Event description:  "December, 1885.  Khartoum has fallen:  Gordon is dead, but so is the Mahdi.  The Khalifa is now the leader, and has concentrated thousands of warriors around the Nile town of Ginnis for a possible invasion of Egypt.  To counter this threat, the British, in a surprise move, have concentrated their forces North of the village of Kosha, with a plan to take both towns."

And that's exactly what happened.  I set up my 3 artillery and one unit of rifles, and the British pretty much rolled in and ran us out of town!  It was a fun game, ably run by an experienced GM, although either our setup or the general disposition of forces unbalanced it slightly.  Note the left flank British player who never made contact the entire game.  And our reinforcements, to which he was reacting, were too long in arriving (ie, they never made it on the table).  More details in the pictures with pertinent highlights.  (Edited clarification:  I wasn't the only Dervish player.  There were 3 of us and 4 British players.)

The Locals' disposition.  My rifles occupied the black rock (the hill in the foreground) next to a cannon.

Before the battle, showing the British deployment.  Yes, they started that close to us.  It represented the surprise attack factor.

In my first real die roll of the game, my brass cannon (the best of the three) managed to first misfire (rolled a 6) and then explode (rolled a second 6).  Ahh, yes, a special way to begin a full day of gaming.

The Fuzzy Wuzzies stream out to attack.  Too bad for them they all get killed, pretty much without ever making contact.  There was a British gunboat behind us (out of the picture to the right) blasting away unanswered.  The problem was compounded by the front groups rolling poorly for movement and blocking up the rear groups, who rolled really well for movement.  Bummer.

One of my other cannons, that did not misfire.  I got a few good hits in before it was over-run.

The Egyptians storm the black rock.  Bring it on!

The Egyptians are seen off by the defenders (noble, heroic) of the black rock.  Yay me, and my dice rolling skills (for once).

Unfortunately, the Egyptians have more than one method of accomplishing Britian's will.  Their shooting saw off the defenders (cowardly, dastardly) of the black rock.  That was pretty close to the end of the game, anyhow.

Daily wins/losses:  Me 0, The Other Side 1.

The second session had my friend and I playing in Doctor Who, Dalek Invasion of Earth 2150 AD.  From the description:  "They've bombarded us with meteorites, subjected us to cosmic rays, smashed our cities, destroyed whole
continents of people!  Some of us they've turned into living dead.  Robomen.  But I tell you this, the wheel's turning full circle.  Our day's coming!  Take control of the Doctor's most frightful enemy, the Daleks, or play the resistance and fight back against the motorized dustbins and take back the streets of London.  The scenario loosely covers that battle between humans, Daleks, and Robomen before the arrival of the Doctor as the rebellion matches tyranny with courage against technological superiority."

We used the Doctor Who Miniatures Game (DWMG) rules, GM'd by Jamie M.  They had fantastic urban rubble terrain, and Dalek miniatures are always cool.  My Robomen didn't fare too well, and my friend Carl (who was playing the Resistance) got the first Dalek kill of the game, and a nifty real 20mm cannon shell as a reward!  The game played so fast with only four players (2 per side) that we switched sides and played again.  This time, my side still lost; however, I completed my unit's individual mission:  I retrieved the stolen plans and got them off the table.  (Of course, it took the sacrifice of both the UNIT soldiers to do so, but that's the level of commitment required to fight Daleks.)  And at the end of the game, all the players received a prize:  yes, these guys are the coolest.  I got the First Doctor, from Black Tree Design.  Yay!  Also, I didn't realize it at the time, but these rules are actually free to download.

The ruined landscape of London.

Classic Robomen.  Hey, I think that guys owes me money.  Yo, pay up, being a Roboman is no excuse.

The fearless Robomen open fire at the Resistance.  Fearless doesn't mean bulletproof, unfortunately.

Daleks prowl the streets, attended by Robomen.

The three pictures above illustrate what happens when you try to take on Daleks single-handedly.  "The Last Hope of Humankind" (who appears to be Charlie Manson!) merely draws their attention to himself.  He was actually able to run away around the corner, but then came back and ended up in the third picture, mano-y-Daleko.  Mano lose-o.

The Doctor does not appear in this game, but his TARDIS does.

The second game.  I'm the Resistance.  I had to get into this particular building in the middle of the board, get the "attack plans," and get them off my table edge.  I had two UNIT soldiers and one Resistance fighter.  Here, a UNIT soldier takes aim at a HUGE group of approaching Daleks and Robomen.  Holy cow!

A UNIT soldier blasts a Roboman.

Daily wins/losses:  Me 0, The Other Side 3.

For the last session, I played on the same table (the terrain was re-arranged) a game of 7TV.  This was The Man with Silver Hands and the Silver Nemeses.  The description:  "Remember all those bad films that played on Saturday Afternoon in the early 90’s and late 80’s.  Have you ever thought, why doesn’t that bad guy just kill James Bond?  This is that game.  Everything you loved
about the Prisoner, the Saint and pulpy spy television is here.  In the year 2000 two individuals fell back in time, the insane Doc Grinder (cybernetic fiend of tomorrow) and the mysterious man with silver hands.  Now in 2011 the endgame has come.  Doc has unleashed his horde of the “silver nemeses” on a small town taking the inhabitants as subjects for experimentation.  The man with the silver hands and Department X must stop Doc Grinder before he unleashes his sinister plan for world domination.  The rules are very simple to learn.  Be prepared for a general level of campy-ness and puns."

Interestingly, these rules are very nearly the same as DWMG, as they're written by the same folks, so the concepts and execution are very similar.  Doc Grinder was actually an NPC, so I took the role of a group of Metal-nauts, intent on showing the world that the cyber way of "life" is better than the squishy way most humans live it.  My squad of baddies (so-called, quote-unquote) technically lost (since they all died) but my sacrifice bought Doc Grinder the time he needed to activate his time machine and escape, thereby winning the game, and winning for me a real 20mm cannon shell!  Yay!

This game was GM'd by Brian G., and was a lot of fun.  I enjoy campy games, and this had lots of camp.  He also awarded prizes, and I received two miniatures:  Tweedy Mattison & WPC May Killan (aka, one of the newest Doctor Who's and companion).  Very cool.

Not-necessarily-London.  The Man with Silver Hands (TMWSH) must get from left to right.  My Metal-nauts must stop him.

Certain select humans were "honored" by Doc Grinder by being put in stasis, in anticipation of being turned into Metal-nauts.  TMWSH got points for freeing them.

Doc Grinder's Metal-nauts.  Hey, I think that guys owes me money.  Yo, pay up, being a Metal-naut is no excuse.

A very cool, removable-roof building, highly detailed.  My Metal-nauts aren't doing very well at this particular moment.

Metal-nauts fire at a Department X operative...and miss.

Somehow or another, I got two Metal-nauts into contact with TMWSH (center right of the picture).  And somehow or another, I had his neck in my metal vice-like grip.  I almost was able to kill him.  If you think this is out of the spirit of the game, let me draw your attention to the Event Description:  "Have you ever thought, why doesn’t that bad guy just kill James Bond?"  Well, that's what I was attempting to do.

As it turns out, I was not able to kill TMWSH.  In point of fact, he killed my Metal-naut.  But I had slowed ALL of the so-called Good Guys down long enough for Turn 10 to arrive, and then I rolled exactly what I needed for Doc Grinder to escape (I think it was a 6; the same as I had rolled to start the day when my cannon blew up; I could be mistaken.  But it was a very difficult roll to make, one that would become easier as Turns progressed.)  That blue star in the lower right is the gadgety machine propelling the Doc to safety.  Bwa-ha-ha-haaa!  Yay evil!

Daily wins/losses:  Me 1, The Other Side 3.

In the end, a good time was had by all (well, by me, at least).  My thanks to the guys of DFW Irregulars for putting this on each year.

Thanks for reading!

2. A good foundation provides the building blocks of success

Welcome, fair traveler! Greetings and Salutations! Pull up a virtual chair and sit a spell. Listen to me wax eloquent on such diverse topics as tables and gaming and why I should be Emperor Of The Known Universe. I'll start this blog with a description of my gaming environment. My game room is not the biggest room in the house (I'll have to wait for the kids to move out first before I can grab the "playroom") but it's certainly bigger than any game room I've ever had before. In point of fact, I've never had a game room before. When we moved into this house in 2006, I knew my dream of my own room had come true, but what good is a game room without a game table to play on? I really didn't want to just stick some folding banquet tables in there, with some plywood on top. And I didn't want a ping-pong table either. I wanted something nice, a really nice piece of furniture that just happened to be a table. And I wanted it to be store-able, able to be folded up and put away or taken with me in a car. So I did a little designing and I had my Dad, who is much more experienced in woodworking, construct a table. The essential design is mine, but the details and the nuts and bolts (as a figure of speech) are his. Hey, I'm an idea man, what can I say? I should add that I did the staining; he did the woodwork construction but I finished it off. My Dad is no "gamer" by any stretch of the imagination. He really could not understand why I wanted it the way I wanted: the height, the legs not coming up to the edges, the purpose.... His idea of gaming is playing cards or doing puzzles. Even now I don't think he really gets it, and if he does then he doesn't approve. Different generation. Now for some pics. I'll put the text above the applicable picture; it's easier to write something and then insert the photo. Click on the picture for a larger image. First up: my game room, in most of its glory. That's my painting table in the far left corner. I have two more bookshelves against the left (hidden) wall, plus a closet filled with unpainted miniatures. Anyway, my table is 4' x 6'. It's divided into 3 top sections, each section being 2' x 4'. The kicker is, the sections are removable. The tops have parallel lips that sit inside the frame on top of the legs. Each lip has two holes per side through which I insert metal pins to secure the table top to the frame. That way you can push down on the edge of the table top and it won't pivot up or flip. It's pretty sturdy, but I haven't tried sitting on it or anything. Certainly it holds up under a 6'2" man (not me) leaning on it reaching over to move his army. It's difficult to see in the pictures above, but the frame is recessed under the edge of the table top by approximately 6", so you won't kick the legs as you move around the table, and you can sit in a chair and the legs are more out of the way than if they were right at the corners of the table. The cool thing is, when you remove the pins, the table top comes loose. Next, you lift each section off and stand them up against the wall out of the way. Having removed the table top, what you have left is the legs and the frame.Now, in order to either store or transport the table, you simply remove the middle extensions. These are attached by... by... well, I don't know exactly what they're called. They're "bracket clasps," for lack of a better description. Here's a picture.After you unlatch the clasps, the middle extensions lift out, thusly:This then allows the legs to fold up almost flat (one folds flatter than the other, gotta be a little careful with that when transporting them). This picture doesn't show the legs fully folded, just a little bit for demonstration purposes!Now I can put it in the trunk of my car (as long as I fold the back seats down) or stand it up in my closet. AND, if I don't want to store it I can still use it in a smaller capacity! Simply attach the two halves of the frame together and you have the basis for a 4' x 4' table.The two halves of the table top that are the outer halves in full mode, now become a nice square table for smaller, perhaps skirmish-level, games. And it takes up much less room.So there you have it, my gaming table. I actually have another 2' x 4' section from the original board, but have not figured out a way to extend the frame without really weakening the structure. One of these days I'll pester my Dad to work it up for me, then I'll be 4' x 8', ready for my kids to move out! Hoody-hoo! The best thing, since the labor was free, is that it only cost me materials. Back in February 2007, it was only $168 plus state sales tax, totalling roughly $180. Not bad for an "heirloom" piece of furniture, as my Dad calls it. Thanks for reading. Please remember me when you go to vote for Emperor Of The Known Universe. And keep checking back; my next subject will be: philosophy! (...and how it relates to painting miniatures....) Oh and pictures of miniatures. Pretty pictures.