Febuary 2019 Poldercon and Tactica

Star Wars at Poldercon

February ended up being a very busy month. Erwin and myself finished up the Stars Wars rebellion game. It took us several sessions to get through it, I think the play time suggested by Fantasy Flight is optimistic. The end results was very cinematic if a little unclear about the victory conditions. In our game the Empire located the rebel base and dispatched the Death Star. Before the Rebels could escape the Death Star arrived and blew up the planet. Since the victory condition for the empire is to capture the base it was not clear how that could be done, what with the planet now reduced to an asteroid field. Overall thoroughly enjoyable game definitely recommended. We plan to re-visit the game again soon. 

Harry Potter makes an appearance at Poldercon

Some blinds marker for IABSM

In parallel to that I managed to attend Poldercon in Holland. It is an American style event in Holland.  It differs from the European conventions in that is strongly geared towards participation games, with some preparation required, particularly having to reserve game slot in advance. I quite like this style of event. There was 20+(?)systems played over the day. Each system runs four game sessions during the day with players signing up for one of the session. It is a great place to try before you buy into other game systems.

The Start of the Dutch fight for independence with Sword and Spear

For the day I played Operation Knights move the German hunt for marshal tito in Yugoslavia in WWII using “I ain’t been shot mom”(IABSM)  company level game by Two Fat Lardies. Then the battle for Frisk(?), one of the first battle to create the state Holland in the medieval period using Sword and Spear. And finally operation Market Garden using Blitzkreig commander (BKC), brigade level(?) WWII rules.  I think I will pick up IABSM at some point. I want a medieval rules set but I am still not sold on Sword and Spear, despite already owning the book It seems a bit to much command and control in a period where command and control seems to involve pointing a sword at the enemy and screaming follow me.  BKC did not work for me, too much looking up tables in the rulebook and not enough narrative for my taste. The highlight of the game was when one player failed to activate for the third or four time in a row.I do not think there a many good gaming stories involve a player doing nothing for a good part of the game. 

L'Assassino

For the fourth game I actually Umpire’d the Milita’s Assassino game.  Richard terrain was best in show at Crisis last year and this year it won again at Poldercon.  Two would be assassin apprentice tried to impress their masters by kissing the hand of the Countess of Chaoso. The game can play pretty fast and both players picked up the mechanics after a couple of turns, so much that after a very close first game they had time for a second game which again went down the wire. Both players departed a few minutes late for lunch with a win a piece. Slightly off topics the lunch buffet in Poldercon not bad [for dutch food ;)].

Fighting sails in action

The next week it was down the Militia to playtest the Tactica scenario which was due the next week. Richard took command of the defenders. I took control attackers trying stop a the relief fleet running a blockade. We used the Fighting Sails rules from Osprey and had a pretty close game, one of the relief ships made it through but the rest were sunk.

Battle of Sant Lucia

After that it was off to Tactica with the table top sacshen crew (TT).  This year we struck lucky with the accommodation with a part of a refurbished warehouse complete with ping pong table acting as base camp.  TTS were running the battle of Sant Lucia, a naval engagement in the Caribbean in the backdrop of the american war of independence, using Osprey fighting sails with some modification. Alex the resident terrain guy created a stunning table Photos of which I suspect will end up in wargames illustrated and the Perry miniatures facebook page. Matthias and Martin followed up with some epic Langton Men of War ships.   The game plays at a pretty nice pace between the four of us, we rotated between umpiring the game, playing in some other games and doing a spot of shopping. For me the highlights were playing The Siege of Neuss 1474 using DBA 3.0. I have a mild dislike for DBA so to play a game of it and then ask the guys for a copy of the scenario is impressive. I also got to try the introduction game to AD1666 from the guys at Fire and Sword. The theme being the Congress of Vienna to decide who should be the next Holy Roman Emperor with D'artagnan and the Musketeers engaged with rapier politics on the backstreets of Vienna. Highlight of the game being Athos’ failed attempt to jump through a window to escape a bunch of angry Polish dragoons. I did not think I wanted another skirmish light game but apparently I backed the kickstarter.

The Siege of Neuss 1474

AD1666

I uploaded some photos of tactica to youtube 

That is all for now thanks for stopping by