PrairieCon at 30

PrairieCon is a tradition in the small gaming community of western Manitoba. Every Spring for almost 30 years (!) gamers have gathered to play roleplaying games, card games, board games and miniature wargames. While the premier event at PrairieCon is still the AD&D tournament (run continuously since PrairieCon I) other games have become increasingly popular.

I've been attending PrairieCon since PrairieCon III or so and most years I try to run at least one game on the weekend. Two years ago Conscript Greg B. and I ran a monster World War III game; last year Conscript Mike F. and I ran a very cool zombie game; and this year Conscript Frederick and I put on a big Star Wars game: "Escape from Mos Eisley". We set up the game with four factions, each with two players: the Rebels (Luke, Ben, Han, Chewie, 3PO and R2D2, plus a few Rebel survivors from the Tantive IV), the Imperials (Darth Vader, stormtroopers), the Sand People (led by a very disgruntled Jawa and including several Banthas) and Jabba's gang (bounty hunters and Fringe riff-raff led by the Hutt himself).

The scene is set just after Luke sells his landspeeder - credits in hand, he, Ben and the droids head towards the Falcon and passage off-planet. Han and Chewie are at the ship already, but in order to get there Luke and Ben must traverse a dense urban swath of terrain and elude the other factions! The winner of the game is the faction that has possession of R2 when time runs out. In the event it was an extremely close result between Cory (Rebels) and Conscript Mike F. (Jabba's bounty hunters) but Mike finally prevailed! Well done Mike (and 4-LOM!)

Now for the pictures...

a wretched hive of scum and villainy...

Tusken Raiders moving in single file to hide their numbers...

Over the clash of sabers...

... comes the sound of a thundering herd!

In a stunning revision of canon, Ben kills Vader!

Final battle for the astromech droid. 4-LOM won

Big thanks to Frederick for schlepping his buildings and terrain out to Brandon and for doing a great job running the game (while I kibbitzed with all my old gaming pals I only see once a year) and to the organizers of PrairieCon 30 for a job well done!

Adeptus Titanicus at Prairiecon 2019

Loyalist Titans stalk the land at Prairiecon XL in Brandon, MB.

Did another Prairiecon just happen...? Why...yes, yes it did! It is indeed that time of year again, when a number of Conscripts travel to the lovely city of Brandon, Manitoba, to participate Prairiecon - Prairiecon XL, in fact! 40 years! That's just tremendous, what a fun tradition to take part in!

For 2019 there were a number of Conscript-involved games at the three-day event, and I'll share some photos of one of them in this post - a game of "Adeptus Titanicus", the re-boot version GW released last year.

View of the table, the opposing Titan battlegroups all lined up...

The scenario was a very basic clash, intended to show off a few models and the rules.  The fight involved an isolated station where the Warmaster, Horus Lupercal, kept a "summer home".  A loyalist battlegroup from Legio Gyphonicus wanted to secure this location so valuable intelligence could be gathered.  The rebel forces, comprised of a Legio Mortis battlegroup, were determined to stop them - after all, who wanted to be the one to explain to Horus that loyalists had captured his summer house???

A close-up of the objective...Horus Lupercal's "summer home".

As a wrinkle, the players were not allowed to deliberately fire on or destroy the buildings (again, the loyalists wanted to preserve the possible intelligence finds, while the rebels feared the consequences of Horus finding out any of his stuff was wrecked because their efforts were lacking...). Two buildings in the centre of the table were found to have strange, dark-age-of-technology shielding that blocked all fire - even indirect shots that would go above them - and so the opposing Titan commanders would have to maneuver with these restrictions in mind.

Warlord Titans anchor the loyalist battle line...Curt's awesome Lucius-Pattern model in the foreground.

The opposing battlegroups were identical and balanced, intended to give a general flavour of the game - two Warlords, one Reaver, one Warhound, and a full-strength banner of Knights on each side. Curt was kind enough to travel to Brandon for a visit and bring some of his amazing Adeptus Titanicus kit with him, including his awesome third-party Lucius Pattern Warlord, which looked amazing on the table.

The Legio Mortis engines move toward the centre of the table...

Reactors were powered, orders issued and battle joined! Over a few turns, the rebel side had the low-end of the luck with the dice...in particular, one of their Warlords had its shields blown out on the first turn, followed quickly with a number of serious blasts from opposing Volcano Cannons, blowing off arms, punching holes in the body and in the head. Yikes!

Heavy fighting in the centre of the table, Knight banners on both sides going head-to-head

Another view of the clash among the Knights.

As the fighting continued, the rebel Warhound was destroyed, its weapons blasting away randomly before it went critical and exploded.  The opposing Knight banners traded blows, with the loyalist side bearing the brunt of the losses in that confrontation...but overall, the Loyalists had the edge by the time we called the game - although one of the loyalist Warlords was nearing critical status on its reactor after heavy use of the volcano cannons - that might have been interesting if we played one more turn...

"What happened to my arms???" Things got rough for this Legio Mortis Warlord after its shields blew out...

What treats, we wonder, would the loyalists find in Horus' summer home? Might have to play a "Part 2" for this game sometime, maybe an Epic 30k game? We'll see!

Congratulations to Prairiecon for 40 years! That's quite an achievement.  Hopefully Dallas and Mike will post some more photos from their games over the weekend as well.  Thanks to everyone who attended, and to Dallas, Mike and Curt for making another trip to Brandon for some great gaming. It's a great tradition, and I wish the Prairiecon folks all the best for the next 40 years! 

Prairiecon 2015 Game One - Battlegroup Fall Of The Reich

A table dotted with wrecked tanks - that's my kind of game!

Summer is (sort of) here again in the Canadian prairies.  And while the temperature projections are dismal by the standards of our usual glorious weather, there are still some excellent summer traditions. One of those is PrairieCon, the annual gaming event held in Brandon, Manitoba. "Gaming event" is probably a drastic understatement - while Prairiecon is not a huge event size-wise compared to other conventions out there, it has a great reputation and history in the community.  Dallas has a much longer history with PrairieCon than I do, so he is much better at explaining the event and I will leave that to him. But as near as I can figure this is my tenth year at Prairiecon, and it continues to get better!

Commanders confer before the game - on the left side of the photo is the Russian table edge, and the German one is at the opposite end, behind the town.

The edge of Dolgelin - the train station at the upper left and and road section in the bottom right of the photo are the objectives for the Soviet attack

Soviet artillery had already hit the Germans before the battle started

The Soviet advance begins - the train station is to the right side in this photo.

Soviet advance on the left side - T-34/85s and infantry

The Fawcett Avenue Conscripts like to make a visit to Prairiecon every year to play some games and run a couple of games as well.  This year we hosted two games - a WW2 game and a Star Wars space battle game. This (obviously) is the after-action report on the WW2 game: Battlegroup Fall of the Reich.

The only early break for the Germans - this IS-2 hit a mine in the road and was knocked out!

The "Battlegroup" rules are published by Iron Fist Publishing. I will say the rules overall are pretty good, but the books themselves suffer from what I refer to as "British Rule Book Syndrome". Symptoms include beautiful production values, fantastic background information, baffling explanations of simple rules mechanics, quirky approaches to what should be simple rules mechanics (armour ratings expressed as a letter, while everything else is a number), odd decisions on content (the basic rule book does not provide an example of tank vs. tank combat resolution), painting tutorials that are so complex they are only useful for people who are already expert painters, scenarios only suitable if you have an enormous collection of figures, and Kafka-esque layout decisions that have you swearing endlessly (case in point - the stats for the tank will mention what gun it carries, but the stats for said gun are elsewhere in the book, on a big table of guns - ~@#@#@!!!!).

Soviet assault crosses the railway line - T-34/85s in the lead.

"British Rule Book Syndrome" does not render the rules themselves bad - it just makes you a little insane.  Black Powder is a good example of this. That is a bloody fantastic game, but the rule book, even though beautiful, makes me bonkers at times. I don't enjoy "Battlegroup" as much as I do "Black Powder", but "Battlegroup" is still a fine set of rules.

This King Tiger tank missed so much we decided an appropriate token was needed to shame the crew...

A 37mm Flak gun team waits for the attack - the half track is a supply vehicle, a neat feature in the Battlegroup rules.

The WW2 scenario for Prairiecon was adopted on one presented in the "Fall Of The Reich" book - "Holding Dolgelin Station".  The battle takes place during the final Soviet offensive in 1945 on the Eastern Front, the drive on Berlin.  The Germans made a desperate stand as the Soviet army groups crossed the Oder River.  Dolgelin is a village at the edge of the Seelow Heights overlooking the Oder river valley and here the King Tigers of the 502nd Battalion clashed with the Soviet spearheads looking to break through.  This is, of course, something many WW2 gamers like me enjoy - an excuse to use King Tigers :)

The Soviets approach the train station, one of the key objectives.

"Battlegroup" rules are agnostic on scale, although generally driven toward 20mm.  We used 15mm figures for the game, and it works just fine.  I have been painting a lot of individually-based 15mm infantry for skirmish gaming in this scale, but I found in playing "Battlegroup" that the figures based in groups (for games such as "Flames of War") work just fine or even better, as the players find it much easier to move the blocks of infantry around. My preference is still individual basing, but you can't argue with the people actually playing...

The Soviets have blasted the train station, and prepare to mount an assault...but...

The actual scenario from the "Fall of the Reich" book is (consistent with the British Rule Book Syndrome) a very, very large game and even though I have a sizable 15mm collection I still couldn't pull it off on as they have suggested.  No worries, though - it's still great inspiration and we just slimmed it down for Prairiecon.

The train station continues to sustain further damage, but note the dreaded "Scottish number" and the pin token - the infantry are pinned by German MG fire and the assault doesn't go in.

The German forces for my version of the game comprised a Volksgrenadier platoon, an MG42 team, a PaK40, a 37mm AA gun, a lone Marder III and a panzerschrek team.  They were bolstered by three mighty King Tiger tanks, lords of any WW2 gaming table.   Their objective was grim and simple - hold to the end, break the morale of the Soviet attack and buy more time for Berlin...Conscripts Mike and Cam took command of the Germans.

This officer shamed the motherland by fleeing the battlefield - he will be shot for cowardice as an example to others...

The onrushing force of Soviets was suitably enormous - a platoon of IS-2 tanks, a company of T-34/85 tanks, a platoon of hard-ass veteran infantrymen and a platoon of regulars, backed by a maxim MG team and battery of 152mm guns off table.  The Soviets could win two ways - capture the train station and the crossroads at the end of the village, or just break the morale of the Germans.  Conscript Dallas and a Prairiecon visitor took command of the Soviets.

The Tiger tanks are finally finding the range...and many Russian tanks pay the price. The Volksgrenadiers in the church chipped in with a couple of panzerfaust shots as too.

The premise of the scenario is that the King Tigers of the 502nd (acting as a reserve) are moving toward the front, which they still think is further east, closer to the Oder, but they are surprised to run into a Soviet spearhead just outside the town, where a hasty defence is organized.  The Soviets would start well on to the table (18" on), and the King Tigers would move on to the table one per turn.  The Germans would be under Soviet guns immediately.

The motherland avenged! The train station falls, and the IS-2s move into the village.

The Soviets started out big, hammering the Germans with artillery and suppressive fire from the 122mm guns of the IS-2s.  The Germans lost their Marder, PaK40 and panzerschrek team in short order - ouch! It looked like a walkover for the Russians. It got a little grimmer for the Germans in the next couple of turns, as the King Tigers suffered from abysmal luck on the gunnery dice, missing again and again against the Soviet tanks!  The only early success for the Germans came when they pulled a "mine strike" token, and an IS-2 was knocked out on the road.

The train station has fallen, and the IS-2s move past the objective - note the carnage on the other Soviet flank at the top of the photo

The Russians, however, got a nasty surprise when they attempted to capture the train station (which the Germans had fortified).  They blasted it with artillery from off-table and with direct fire from the IS-2s, but Mike was on fire with the saving throws, and the squad in the building refused to stay pinned down.  The Russians ultimately captured the building in a bloody close assault, but it cost Dallas an entire infantry platoon.

IS-2 blasting away at targets in the town.

Further carnage was wrought by the German MG42 team stationed in another building on the outskirts of town.  The machinegun devastated the other Russian foot platoon, while the King Tigers (for once) finally found the range, and began to knock out T-34s with ease.  The losses started piling up on the Russian side.

End of the war for this 37mm German flak team...

The Russians resorted to heavy bombardments from their off-table artillery, and these took a toll on the Germans.  Finally the pin markers and casualties started to add up for the Germans, and their battlegroup ultimately broke in the end, but not before extracting a fearful punishment on the attacking Soviets.  All in all, a very suitable ending considering the setting.

The King Tigers blast away - note that one got tagged with an "out of fuel" token; these tokens are a great feature of the Battlegroup rules

Overall I found the "Battlegroup" rules to be pretty good, if maybe not as good the the hype online makes them out to be.  There are some excellent mechanics in the game, particularly the battle rating system and the random events. There also some mechanics I ignored, like ammunition limitations in the tanks.  This is, of course, a very realistic concept but the game already calls for enough documentation and I wasn't about to bother keeping track of ammunition in 25 tanks and anti-tank guns.  The rules can be confusing at times - in particular I find the off-table support process ponderous, and the means for organizing the off-table support in the army lists is confusing and poorly organized.  Navigating the book will make you want to scream, but overall it's worth it!  And the campaign background and presentation is excellent - even if the scenarios they offer up are not ones you will be able to put on easily, they are fantastic inspiration.

Some of the other games happening at Prairiecon 2015.

Thank you to Dallas and Mike for playing, and to Conscript Cam who came down to Brandon to join our games - it is always great to see Cam! A very special thank you here to Dallas for taking nearly all of these photos and for lending his terrain to the game, particularly his incredible warmat from Barrage Miniatures, as well as excellent grass fields and trees.  And congratulations to the Prairiecon organizers for another outstanding event! I look forward to next year.

Prairiecon 2018 - Battle of Blickheim, a "Team Yankee" Game

Ouch! Tough outing for the Royal Canadian Dragoons at Prairiecon...victory came at a price

So another "Prairiecon" has come and gone! This is Western Manitoba's main gaming event, held every summer in Brandon, Manitoba.  Conscript Dallas has been involved with Prairiecon for...longer than I can recall, so I will leave origin content to him, but as a group a few of us have been going to Prairiecon every year for...wow, something like 19 or 20 years, with Dallas even more? It's a real tradition, one I look forward to every year.

This year I am pleased to share reports of a heavy Conscript presence at the event, with three different demonstration games.  Dallas ran a fleet-scale "Battlestar Galatica" game.  Byron ran an exciting "Through The Mud And The Blood" WW1 game.  Our great friend Curt came out from Regina to host a special game of "Spectre".  And if that wasn't enough, we also ran a game of "Team Yankee".  That's a LOT of gaming!

The table at the outset of the game...the peace of the village of Blickheim will soon be shattered...

For today I'll touch on the "Team Yankee" game that was played on the Sunday morning at Prairiecon. The game was an opportunity to put the new Canadian units I had been working through the winter into play on the table.  The timing was fortuitous given that Battlefront has recently "released" its new Team Yankee book, "Free Nations".

Soviet elements prepare to move out on the assault

The scenario is we played was derived from the battle reported in the (fictional) book "First Clash" by Kenneth Macksey, which features the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group in action against a Soviet ground assault set in a fiction Cold-War-Gone-Hot in the 1980s.  In Macksey's story, a moment in the battle arrives when the Canadian line starts to buckle, and the Canadian commander unleashes his reserve armoured Squadron, catching the Soviets by surprise, and blocking their breakthrough.

Soviet advance elements approach the McPizza king...they would soon learn the blue "objective marker" was, in fact, a NATO pre-registered artillery target!

Since the theme for Prairiecon 2018 was "It's a trap!", I set up the scenario with some mild deception.  The Soviet players, controlling a T-72 battalion with some attached infantry and AAA support, were told they needed to clear the village of Blickheim (home, naturally, to a critical 'McPizza King' location) of a lingering Canadian rear-guard, that the NATO forces were in retreat.  They would have eight turns to accomplish this.

The Canadians appear! Leopards and M150s move into firing positions

The Canadians, on the other hand, learned they had the opportunity to arrive from a totally unexpected table edge at a turn of their choosing - they have been working themselves into position through the late hours of the evening and into the morning, with the Soviet forces unaware their flank was vulnerable. This was a great advantage - which the Canadians would need, as the Leopard C1 tanks do not dominate the tabletop the way other modern NATO MBTs would in games of "Team Yankee".

Soviet armour burning after the ambush...

The game was well-attended, with several guests and observers participating.  Dallas led the Canadian side, with help from Byron and Curt, while Dave V led the Soviet side, with support from a few convention-goers.

Leopards try to move out...the obstacles ended up being tough to overcome, due to some bad luck with the dice...and you can see the Soviet's put an artillery aiming point on one of the bogged-down tanks, causing Canadian frustration and knocking out a couple of Leopards

The Soviet column rolled up aggressively, and uncertain of the location of targets, started to hit the town with heavy fire.  On the third turn, however, the Canadians emerged on their flank, and opened fire. A pair of US Cobra helos came along in turn four to add to the carnage.  Under Curt's careful guidance, they picked off several T-72s with TOW missiles before the ZSUs finally got to them.

Many Soviet tanks and BMPs were lost, but critical morale roles kept the large Soviet tank company in play to the bitter end.  The remaining T-72s dished out heavy return fire, knocking out many Leopard C1s.  The Soviet infantry also struck hard, neutralizing a bold flank maneuver by a Leopard C1 troop with their RPGs.  As the number of losses on the Canadian side mounted, it was in doubt for NATO...

Soviet infantry prepare their AT weapons...

But in turn eight, the Soviet side finally broke...a real nail-biter, and a pyrrhic victory as the Canadians were reduced to a mechanized infantry platoon (which was a little low on the 'mechanized' part due to losses in the fighting), a pair of Lynx recon vehicles, and a pair of surviving Leopard C1s, all that remained of the 12 tanks which started the ambush...

A Canadian Leopard C1 troop shows the impact of losses from infantry AT weapons...

A big "thank you" to everyone who came out to play, particularly to our great friend Curt, who made the trip from Regina.  Work has been very, very busy over the past month and a half (and as you can see, the blog posting and painting progress has been very sparse) and it was SO great to dive into a bunch of gaming and see so many friends once again.

Gaslands at Prairiecon XL, Plus More Gaslands Terrain!

Well, last weekend was the epic gaming event known as Prairiecon XL - yes, the fortieth (!) running of western Manitoba's oldest (and greatest) gaming convention. The Conscripts were well-represented there too, with Conscript Greg staging an amazing-looking Adeptus Titanicus game with an assist from founding Conscript Curt, Conscript Mike wheeling out his incredible "Walls of Terra" for a Horus Heresy 30K game, and yours truly debuting my Gaslands game, times two.
 

I have to say that my Saturday was not the best planned, as it comprised running a Gaslands game (9am-1pm), a stint on the registration desk (2-4pm), auctioneering in the famous Prairiecon game auction (7-9pm), and ANOTHER Gaslands game (9pm-12:30am). Wow! Although 15-year-old me would've licked Saturday and likely gone to a party afterwards, 40-something-year-old me was thoroughly beat after running 7 1/2 hours of games and volunteering for four more hours.

Murdercycle at top lines up another two-wheeler...

...and wipes him out with his Gatling MG. Good times!

Anyway, the first running of Gaslands at Prairiecon had seven players brand-new to the game, and I think they all had fun. The last man standing was Dan from Niagara Falls, Ontario (!), who took home a copy of the game, three Hot Wheels cars, and some guns and other bits courtesy of Winnipeg FLGS Maxx Collectibles. Thanks Garth!

Our 9pm session had another seven players, including Conscripts Mike and Greg. Again, all except the two Conscripts were new to the game but everyone picked it up quickly.

Eventual game-winner Kevan confabs with Prairiecon luminary Craig D.

Carnage was the name of this game in both the 9am and 9pm sessions.

Good sport Murray (for I think it was he) nabbed the booby prize (some Pixar "Cars" toys) for first player to have both cars eliminated from play. Attaboy!

Did I mention there was carnage? This is the aftermath of an out-of-control car careering into (and destroying) a pickup truck. Fun! 

 

You can see in the pics that I've added some new terrain - these are 3mm MDF Shipping Containers from Lasercraft Workshop.

They were a snap to assemble, and although they're designed to have opening doors, I ended up gluing them shut. They were designed without a "detente" to keep the doors from swinging backwards and it was just too much of a pain to fix that.
 

After assembly, I painted the containers in block colours, washed them with Nuln Oil, and did some sponge-chip weathering.

The branding was printed off from the Internet, cut out and applied with white glue. I lightly traced the "character lines" from the container onto the paper with Nuln Oil, just to give the impression that the logos were painted on. I think it worked OK.

Here's a pic with a typical Hot Wheels car, for scale.

The containers come eight to a pack, four large and four smaller ones.

In a pinch they might even do for 15mm games - here's a pic with Battlefront West Germans and a PSC Leopard 1.

The containers were a great hit, but Gaslands went over even better. It's the perfect convention game - visually impressive, easy to pick up, and fast playing. I'll definitely be adding it to the regular Prairiecon rotation!