Remembering Memorial Day

Best wishes to all our veterans, along with my thoughts and prayers for the family members our fallen heroes left behind. 

Product Review: Specialist Military Publication Rules

For members of the Northwest Historical Miniature Gaming Society, (NHMGS), Memorial Day Weekend is when our flagship convention, Enfilade!, is held.  In the past, we've been able to fill nearly all the tables and host about 120 games during the course of the holiday weekend.  Unfortunately, as of now, we're just shy of 100 games and we're expecting record-breaking attendance.

After the third, or fourth, "call-to-arms" my friends Adrian and Dean issued for gamemasters, I volunteered to run, not one, but three games.  Which by the way, will be my first time I'll be hosting a convention game.  (A future blog post might be on "How Not to Have a Nervous Breakdown at Game Conventions)

I was looking for a set of rules to use for mass combat in my Star Wars Redshift Chronicles campaign and came across the "Commander Series" by Specialist Military Publications (SMP).  I figured if I could learn these rule systems, I could run my own Star Wars game better.

First up, is:

Blitzkrieg Commander, SMP's first product, which is advertised as a "fast play" set of WWII wargame rules.  While the book weighs-in at 120 pages, the core rules only take up 32 pages and that includes illustrated Examples of Play.  The rest of the book is comprised of Army Lists which illustrate unit types, movement rates, attack strength (the number of dice rolled), how much damage a unit can take ("hits"), the availability dates and other asundry of data.

The rules are organized around the game's Sequence of Play, with chapters discussing the Scheduled Phase (for artillery and airstrikes), Initiative Phase (where units can act on their own), Command Phase (where headquarters and commanders issue orders) and the End Phase.  In between the "phase chapters" are sections on Movement, Firing, Artillery and Air Support, along with Close Combat, Engineering and Minefields.

The basic premise of the rules are simple.  A unit type rolls a given number of six-sided dice (1d6s) to attack another unit.  Such attacks are successful on a die roll of 4, 5 or 6.  However, this depends on the terrain the target unit is in.  A target unit can only take a given number of hits, before it is knocked out and removed from the playing table.

Blitzkrieg Commander (BKC) was popular enough that SMP issued the first "spin off:"

Cold War Commander, (CWC), covers the Post-WWII era, from 1946 until today-ish.  The game mechanics are nearly identical, but with some extra added features found in modern combat.  Weapons such as helicopters, anti-tank guided missiles, speicalized (and deadly) artillery and aircraft munitions and differing tactical doctrines employed by the armies of various countries.

Last of all, there's the "final frontier:"

Future War Commander, (FWC), deals with the "what if?" conflicts popularized in science fiction.  Unlike its predecessors, the Army Lists in FWC are based on the current availability of sci-fi miniatures and figures.  So you'll find topics about combat vehicles such as "walkers" and "grav armor," along with devices such as adaptive camouflage, shield domes, plasma and cryonic weapons.

So in preparation for Enfilade, I read each of the rules.  Twice.  While I may not be an expert at these rules, especially since I've only played CWC once at Enfilade 2010, at least my rulebooks are well highlighted.  In fact, the pages are more yellow than white.

After pouring over each book, here's my pre-Enfilade assessment:

Likes:

1. As I mentioned earlier, the rules are simple (4,5, or 6 hits the target).  The Command System is also based on rolling 2 d6s.  A successful dice roll means a commander, or headquarters element can issue an order to a combat formation.

2. But what I like most about these rules are the extensive Army Lists.  Some game companies publish a core rulebook and then if you want detailed information on the various combatants, you have to anxiously wait for--and buy--their supplements.  The all-in-one Army Lists are especially helpful to my work in my Redshift Campaign.

3. Lavishly illustrated Examples of Play.  These sections are a great help in understanding each rule concept.  If you're already familiar with similar rules, then you can skip these parts, which makes reading these rules much faster.

Dislikes:

1. These rules are a "buckets-of-dice" system.  That is, you can combine all the attack dice of every unit firing at a target and roll them altogether.  While I don't particularly hate a system like this, a lot of my gaming buddies do and this makes it hard for me to muster-up any enthusiasm for playing these games. 

2. Armored units get a "saving throw" when attacked.  Which means the defender gets to roll a fist-full of dice to determine whether or not his lead tank "brews up" or not.

3. The rules cover a lot of concepts in a short amount of pages, which means a lot of detail is lacking.  In other words, these are "game" rules and not "simulation" rules.  So a lot of similar units have nearly identical combat capabilities.

Overall:

After my extensive studies, I enjoyed gaining the familiarity with SMP's products and I'm happy I purchased them.

As for my Enfilade preparations:

Due to my work schedule and other commitments, I won't have time to play test these rules before the convention.  How each of my game sessions pan out will be for a later blog post, so stay tuned...

Happy "Star Wars Day!"

Wikipedia has a short synopsis on the origins of Star Wars Day.

Space Empires--The Advanced Campaign

A few weeks back, my friends Terry, Tom, Joe and I set out to reconquer the galaxy in GMT's Space Empires.  We tried to randomly draw which empire we'd lead, but Joe & I resumed command of the Altairans and Chulakians we played during our initial session.  Terry & Tom ended up swapping realms, with Terry ruling Terra and Tom the Viscount of Vasyria.

We employed all the advanced rules, which included vessels like fighters and carriers, raiders; along with bases and merchant pipelines (trade routes).  We didn't include the warp points and doomsday machines from the optional rules, but added the indigenous aliens of deep space.

After we explored and exploited our home regions, more or less, we ventured beyond our borders, where the last remnants of the Greyling Empire awaited us.

Despite inhabiting the cold wastes of Deep Space, the Greylings gave our scout ships warm receptions at:

Cygni...

...Babbage...

...Aries...

...Abydos...

...Gath...

...Deneb...

...and Arrakis.

While the Altairans managed to avoid tangling with the Greylings, they had problems of their own.  Altairan scout ships encountered:

Unknown dangers...

...black holes...

...or merely got lost. 

The other empires ran afoul of natural hazards, or experienced catastrophic accidents, to be sure, but after loosing a half-a-dozen scout ships, the Altairan High Command wised-up.  Research and Development efforts were then focused on building cruisers with long-range scanners (in game terms, this is the Exploration Technology).

The other star-faring races didn't catch wind of this development until an Altairan cruiser group uncovered a nebula and mineral deposit just outside their border, without blundering into them.

By the end of the Explore & Exploit Phase of this campaign the galaxy looked pretty much like this: 

The Expand & Exterminate Phase of this campaign, will be resumed at a later date, when our starfleets are strong enough to take on the Greylings--and each other.

Note:  There's still a lot of uncharted areas in Deep Space.  This is because, we decided on an in-house rule, brought up by Terry (I think), that replaces the Danger! and Lost in Space counters with another token until something tangible turns up.

Book Review: Every Thing I Need to Know I Learned from D&D

"Don't tell mom" is the mantra among my siblings and I.  There are aspects of our lives we'd rather not have our mother know about, so when we confide in each other, we always insert the mantra-phrase at some point in our conversation.

What does my mommy issues have to do with Shelley Mazzanoble's latest book Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons?

Plenty.

You see, Shelly's mom, Judy, continually bombards her darling daughter with well-meaning advice and self-help books.  Said darling daughter, has other ideas on what's best for her.

So the book is a humorous quest for knowledge and enlightenment our hapless author can relate to and more importantly, use.  Topics such as spirituality, travel, fitness, cooperating with others, romance and even child-raising, are related to corresponding game techniques.

There are seven other reviews for Everything I Need to Know, 3 x 5-stars, 3 x 4-stars and one 2-star rating.  The disappointed raters thought the book was more about the game D&D, rather than about associating gaming experiences with real-life and searching for solutions.

I must admit that my own 5-star rating is somewhat biased.  Shelly and I come from the same hometown and we're both now living in the Seattle-Tacoma area.  So it was very entertaining for me to read about familiar sites and places.

If you're a gamer, especially a D&D player, you should be able to relate to some of Life's dilemmas Shelly finds herself in.

Webcomic Chapter 3 Posted

When I started this story, my intent was to post one chapter every month.  Unfortunately, I had some technical difficulties which caused all the pictures to be deleted when exported them from the Comic Life program to computer's C-Drive.  I'm sure this was due to operator error.  In any case, I didn't have time to recreate Chapter 3 before travelling back east to visit my family.

Despite being a month behind, Chapter 3 has now been added to Breakout from Bongolaan, which consists of pages 48 through 77 (54 through 84 using the slideshow) and is also posted on my Redshift Chronicles site.

The Soundtrack Interlude for this chapter is:  I Know There's Something Going On by Frida.  I always thought this song evoked a sense of mysterious foreboding.

One of my friends told me he couldn't find the second chapter.  I realized that clicking on a picture initiates a slide show, so the reader may not see any of the narrative on the blog's page.

In response to this, I created title pages for each chapter.  Here are the titles for the previous chapters:

I used images that weren't already incorporated into the body of the story.  Since only a fraction of the photos I've taken get put into the story, finding a suitable pictures for titles has been easy--so far.

Book Review: Danger Girl, The Ultimate Collection

Just as I was leaving the Emerald City Comicon, I happened to see a copy of Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection and added this to my own, less-than ultimate graphic novel collection.  I've known of Danger Girl, but haven't read any of the stories, until now.  This volume is comprised of Danger Girl 1-7, along with a prelude, and introduces us to pistol-packin' Abbey Chase...

...whip-crackin' Sydney Savage...

...knife-tossin' Natalia Kassle...

...and techie wizardess "Silicon" Valerie...

...as they attempt to thwart the plans of the Hammer Empire's quest for global conquest.  (Or "reconquest" in the minds of these neo-nazi types).

I found this series to be fantastically drawn and an entertaining blend of Indiana Jones, James Bond, Charlies Angels and Tomb Raider, with a dash of Star Wars thrown in.  In other words, Danger Girl is an action-adventure movie in comic book form. 

According to the Danger Girl entry in Wikipedia, Abbey and her gal-pals have gotten themselves into several compromising positions since they first tangled with the Hammer Empire back in 1997. 

Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection also includes an introduction by Bruce Campbell and Danger Girl's creator J. Scott Campbell, along with cover art from the original releases and a sketch book. 

I'm happy to add my 5-star rating to Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection's, other ten on Amazon.com. This piece of work is shaken AND stirred!

Centennial Sinking

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of RMS Titanic.  I'm almost as fascinated with maritime history as I am with naval and military history.  And very few maritime disasters are as fascinating as the Titanic.  There's even a homepage for artifacts that have been recovered since the wreck was discovered by Robert Ballard.  I saw the exhibit when it came to Seattle 11 years ago.

My interest in the Titanic pre-dates the James Cameron film.  I read A Night to Remember by Walter Lord back in high school and did a book report on it.  And despite today's special effects and the re-analysis of the Titanic's sinking after the wreck was discovered, I still think the movie version is better than the Cameron's film.

Happy Easter!

Hell Over Korea Wargame: Freshly Maid's 2nd Mission

Tim, in the role of Captain Decker, took Freshly Maid out for another spin.  This time over the Antung-Yalu River bridges. 

Here's his AAR for Mission #2:

Took off in the dark and almost immediately ran into rough weather; tried to get around it and managed to fly through the soup to reach the formation rendezvous, which was carried out successfully. Were not happy to see that we were going all the way to MiG Alley with no escort, but intel says fighter activity was not expected. That was not how it turned out.

Short of the target (Zone 8) a CCF Yak-9 attacked from 6 o’clock low. Fire from the lower turrets and tail gun caused him to break off. Upon reaching the target area, cloud cover was about 8/10ths so we had a tough time seeing the target. As we approached the IP, another CCF Yak attacked from 9 o’clock hi—he too was forced to break off from our defensive fire.


Over the target itself we encountered medium flak and took hits to the tail section that shorted out all the electrical systems to the tail turret, which remained inoperable for the rest of the flight. Bombs were dropped, but it is not likely we actually did much damage (off target, 0 percent). As we exited the target area, more light flak followed but only managed some superficial damage. Then a VV-S MiG-15 came at us head on. The bombardier fired both forward turrets, but didn’t register any hits. Lucky for us, neither did the MiG, which did not return. Away from the target (Zone 8) a North Korean Yak-9 attacked from 10 o’clock high, but was driven off as previous attacks.


We managed to remain on course without any further difficulties, though we once again hit some bad weather that pushed us off course temporarily, but did not cause further difficulties. We landed as planned around 1645.

Gaming: ECCC-Style

Gaming, whether the wargaming, role-playing, or computer variety, go hand-in-hand with sci-fi/fantasy and comic book conventions.  Games are an interactive way to experience the adventures of one's favorite heroes (or villains), in one's favorite setting, from Middle Earth to the "galaxy far, far away..." 

The organizers of the Emerald City Comicon, knew this and devoted two entire sections of the WA State Convention Center to gaming.

While tables in the above photo were only half-empty, keep in mind this was taken on a Friday afternoon.  I'm sure by Saturday and Sunday, every seat was taken.  Also, open gaming is often conducted after the official events come to a close.

In order to participate in table-top gaming, one needs playing pieces, or preferably miniature figures--painted figures.  Bringing unpainted figures to a game is a social faux-pas and is like wearing white after Labor Day, or having red wine with fish.  But not everyone has the patience to develop their skill.  (Like me).  So painting workshops, like the one pictured above, are also part of the venue of most conventions.

Now here is every gamers' favorite superhero--the game store owner.

Shown here, ready to leap tall game shelves in  a single bound, Gamestore Man, is disguised as Chris Ewick of The Game Matrix, in Tacoma. 

I spent several minutes chatting with Chris while he was giving several players a crash-course in one of the demo games he brought with him. 

There were several other vendors in the gaming area.  However, as my departure time drew near, the only vendor I spent time with were the folks at the BobaKahn booth.  Some rare Star Wars Miniatures caught my eye and I was debating on whether to purchase any of them.  But when I looked in my wallet, I realized I was down to my last $20 bill and I needed to pay for parking. 

I left 15 minutes prior to the closing of the Exhibition Hall and my parking fee was $18.  Just enough for 1/2 gallon of gas (at today's prices).  I went home, tired and hungry, yet happy for my 5-star experience of my first comic book convention.

In the future, if I get a chance to attend all three days, I'll probably sit-in on some of the seminars and workshops and maybe even participate in a game, or two.  (Unless I win the lottery, my budget couldn't afford a 3-day shopping spree).  But even if I'm limited to just one day, next time I'll try to remember all the books and things I wanted to have signed this year--but forgot--and bring them along next time.

Until then, maybe the Spirits of ECCC Past Shows will help to remind me...