Conscripts Storm Legio-Con 2015!

LegioCon 2015 took place this past Saturday at the St. James Legion here in Winnipeg. As in previous years, the Conscripts were invited to put on a participation game at the convention. This year, I brought out my new Great War trench terrain and set up a WWI game - more on which below!

The Legion is a cozy venue for gaming and was absolutely chock-a-block with games and gamers. Lots of 40K, but some historical stuff too.

Mark, manager of the local GW store, helped organize the convention and as you can see, was going a mile a minute all weekend.

One cool feature of the convention was a "gamer's buffet", where you could get a 30-minute taster of various games from an experienced player. The games included 40K, WHFB, Flames of War and Infinity. Neat idea.

Conscript Jim was also involved in organizing.

Members of the Manitoba Model Soldier Society put on miniature painting demos throughout the weekend.

Here's a period we don't see all the time around here: English Civil War in 15mm.

Check Your 6! game in progress - Pacific War action.

This table was outstanding - rural France for a 20mm WWII game using home rules. There are several terrain ideas here that I'm happily pinching for our games.

A side room was used to display models and figures entered for judging.

Some really nice work on display.

Now to our game! I set up a modified replay of the first WWI trench game we played on the terrain, still using Warhammer Historical's "Great War" rules. Here are the German defenders - the Battalion commander, two companies of two 8-man platoons each, two MG08s, a 77-mm field gun, a trench mortar, a "T-Gewehr" anti-tank rifle team, and a sniper. A "beute" MKIV tank and platoon of storm troops come on in reserve.

The British: battalion commander, two companies of three and two 9-man platoons, two Vickers MGs, an 18-pounder gun, a scout platoon, and a Highlander platoon, plus two MKIV tanks. A cavalry squadron of three 7-man troops plus squadron commander are in reserve, ready to break through as needed.

German gun placed in the "Holland stellung".

MG08 team emplaced in a shell hole.

The game commenced with a preliminary bombardment by the British, the only effect of which was to eliminate a section of barbed wire, albeit in a key position! The British then commenced their advance across No-Man's-Land.

Unfortunately for the British, the Germans were able to seize the initiative and take the first turn, opening up with machineguns and cannon all along the front.

Fokker D-VII chases an SE-5a over the trenches. I put the planes out for an additional bit of eye candy.

Far above the mud and the blood...

The British took advantage of the long sap to run their Scouts and Highlanders into the heart of the German defences. The Scouts are pictured here about to assault a German platoon.

Firing revolvers and flinging grenades, the Scouts overcome the Germans and wipe them out! Close combat in these rules is bloody indeed, and the side with the higher Initiative value has a huge advantage when they can catch the other side out of cover. But look out for the platoon at top centre - the following turn they leapt up and gunned down enough of the Scouts from an enfilade position to cause them to bottle out and run.

Meanwhile, the cavalry has come on from reserve and pick their way across the cratered landscape, towards a gap in the German lines.

On the British right, the MKIV suffers a minor mechanical mishap but lurches into the German trench zone, its 6-pounder cannon and machineguns concentrating on a German MG nest right beside it. The last gunner miraculously survives the onslaught, only to be gunned down by a Tommy from an enfilading position.

In the centre, the Highlanders follow up the doomed Scout platoon and assault the remaining Germans. Highland steel proves decisive as the defenders are slaughtered to a man.

Under fire from the German field gun, the cavalry works forward, with losses...

In the skies above, the hunter becomes the hunted...

Highlanders consolidate their victory in the front-line trench.

The surviving cavalry have the green fields in sight, but the crew of the 77-mm gun in the "Holland Stellung" may have other ideas for them...

The game ended in a (rare) victory for the attackers - but not a cheap one. The British got several units into the German trenches, but several had been reduced to only a couple of models and had stuck around only thanks to excellent Leadership tests. One of the tanks had been damaged and the German MKIV was still operational, together with the storm troop platoon at full strength. But the requirements for a British victory had been fulfilled.

I had made a few changes to the scenario from last time; most significantly, moving the British start line to 12" onto the table. I also allowed a preliminary bombardment (per the Great War rules) and slightly reduced the number of German reinforcements. These helped the British side quite a bit, but we were denied the grisly War Horse-like spectacle of cavalry charging machineguns, at least.

I think the guys had fun and I had a good time running the game. My thanks go out to Conscripts Greg, Dave V., Frederick and Cam(!) for playing, as well as to convention attendees Bob and Mac. LegioCon is always fun, especially since there is a small, inexpensive cafeteria and bar directly downstairs from the gaming venue. Thanks again to the organizers (Bryan G., Mark T., Garth B. and Conscript Jim) for a great job in organizing and for the invitation to bring out our game.

See you next year!  

Escape from the Death Star... or not

Being a big fan of hobby amortization, I'd been scheming for awhile about how to repurpose the corridor tiles from GW's classic Space Hulk game for use in a Star Wars "Death Star" game. With the push on to do a game at C4, I'd drawn up a tile layout and some ideas for how the game might work. For various reasons I didn't run the game at C4 but I didn't want to waste momentum, so I ran it on a Thursday night for the boys.

The rules of the game are based on the Star Wars Miniatures game (RIP) from WotC. The Rebels (Luke and Leia, Han and Chewie, the droids, and Ben) start in the corridors and have to get to the Falcon, situated in the hangar. The pursuing Stormtroopers are represented by "blips" (seen in a pile at centre left of the first picture), a mechanism stolen from Space Hulk. Each blip has a number on the back - 0, 1, 2 or 3 - which is the number of Stormtroopers it represents. The blips are only revealed when they come into view of a Rebel character. Blips only move 6 squares per turn but otherwise follow the rules for characters.

There were about seven "blip-spawning" tiles on the board (the dead-end ones as seen above) and blips were generated there at random intervals. The characters ran around the board trying to avoid the blips and make their way to the hangar.

The droids started off near the hangar and the Rebels needed to get Artoo and at least one other character to the Falcon to win (they needed to transport the Death Star plans to Yavin IV). The Imperials could not harm the droids. Vader started on a tile near the hangar but was prohibited from taking any role in defending the hangar until he defeats Ben. In the event, that wasn't required, but he handily aced Ben anyway (I think Frederick rolled two "20"s in the combat and Ben whiffed with "1"s).

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine"

Oh crap, didn't think he was really gonna do that...

"They went that way! Get 'em!"

A fun game but it could use a little tweaking. There were too many stormtroopers and it was too easy for them to gang up and trap the Rebel characters. I'd thought of having a simple "morale" mechanism for the Imperials that would require them to back off if they failed a check after a friend was hit, and that might work to relieve congestion and allow the Rebels to move more freely. I think we'll likely play it again sometime as it looks cool and has potential as a convention participation game.

Red Wedding Squadron - "Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures" meets "Game of Thrones"

This past weekend, Conscripts Kevin, Frederick and I ran a participation game of X-Wing Miniatures at the 2013 Central Canada Comic Con (C4 for short). We we putting on the game for Imagine Games and Hobbies, who provided the tables.

Kevin and I devised six 100-point teams, based loosely on the canon of the original  movies: Luke Skywalker, Biggs Darklighter, and Wedge Antilles flew in a flight together, Han Solo and Chewie piloted the Millennium Falcon with a couple of Y-Wing escorts, Gold Leader led a flight of 3 of Y-Wings, Darth Vader led some TIEs, Dark Curse led another gaggle of TIE fighters, and Boba Fett was escorted by a couple of Interceptors.

Princess Leia's Blockade Runner was lying dead in space, in the middle of the large 8'x5' table. Whoever had sole control of the board at the end of the game would win.

Below, looking "east", Luke's and Gold Leader's sections are closest to the camera, with the Millennium Falcon in the distance.



On the Imperial side, from west to east, was deployed Boba Fett's, Darth Vader's and Dark Curse's teams.





At the start of the game we were joined by conventioneers Jim, Danny and Eric. Throughout the course of the game, other people came up to watch, so we talked with them, describing the mechanics of the game and handing out fliers for Imagine and Jim-Con. As the game progressed, a few other players were brought into the game, as we gave over our ships to them.

To the west, Boba Fett and Darth Vader ganged up on Luke, with Gold Leader caught in the shadow of Leia's ship.



Biggs was the first to fall, bravely absorbing shots that would otherwise have hit Luke and Wedge.



The Rebels concentrated their fire on Boba Fett and Vader, reducing them each to a single hull point. However, Luke was the next to fall, caught in an Imperial crossfire. From the disabled blockade runner, Leia mourned the death of her boyfriend, not knowing he was her brother. (George R.R. Martin would be proud.)



Meanwhile, Han Solo and Chewie led a charge into the middle of a TIE swarm...



...shooting down two of them in quick succession!





Gold Squadron finally arrived, but too late to save Wedge.



In retaliation, Vader went down to concentrated Y-Wing fire.



And Boba Fett's luck finally abandoned him. After dodging way too many proton torpedoes and laser shots, he was ion-cannoned to death.



Han Solo's escorts started falling.



A couple of newcomers joined the game, helping consolidate the Imperial advance by overwhelming the remaining Y-Wings.



As the game wound down, all that was left on the Rebel side was the damaged Millennium Falcon. We judged that Han escaped, vowing to return another day to rescue the Princess.

Leia, for her part, had her eye on one of the Imperial TIE fighter pilots who never took damage, always rolling "evades", even when hit with 3 crits.

"The Force is strong with this one!"



The game ended in utter carnage. Most of the named characters were gone, with Wedge, Fett and Vader all dying during the same turn!

At some future convention, I think a "Rescue Princess Leia" scenario would be in order.

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The rest of C4 was a lot of fun. The 3rd floor was filled with booths selling memorabilia, art exhibitors, club displays, and various celebrities signing autographs and posing for photos. Check out this great home-made suit from the Bioshock video games, seen at, IIRC, the Costume Alliance booth.



I was also able to buy a nice cameo necklace for Jen from a lovely former work colleague, Angela Sawatzky, who sells steampunk jewelery under the brand By Blackbird Designs.



I spoke to several people who thought this year's convention was better than the last couple of years. I hope to see people out at next year's con.