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Friday Family Game Night!

This past weekend was the Ragnarok XP Gaming Convention. Daughter Number 1 said she was coming down and had signed herself and my grandson up for a game. So, really it behooved me to join in. The Raganarok Team have been giving me invitations for years, but I've always been busy. This time I didn't really have any excuse.

Friday night we had a real live Family Game Night though. Daughter brought her copy of Twisted Cryptids, and she, Grandson, Mrs. Rabbitman, and myself spent a jolly evening eating stray hikers and dodging investigators while trying to accumulate myth points and become legendary.

Saturday we both signed up for afternoon games so we didn't have to rush in the morning. The convention venu being about an hour away in downtown Kitchener with heavy urban traffic.

Ragnarok is mostly an RPG and board game event, but there were some miniatures. Although most of the miniatures were more for RPG style games. Not a lot of vendors. I didn't need a crochet geek character, or expensive dice, or re-enactment gear. I bought Zombie Munchkin for my daughter at the Bring and Buy and I bought myself a pack of Japanese scenic items from Torchlight and Dan gave me a bag of Skaven he found in his closet. Skaven, they just get everywhere, don't they? But after investigation I think I'll get two Midgard units of Stormvermin and two units of skirmishing Gutter Runners out of it once I've repaired some tails and painted them.
 

Event schedule clearly displayed on various large screens

Something Marvel. A Marvel themed RPG I think. I don't think it was Marvel Crisis Protocol though.

Something Star Wars.

Vendors and board games

Tanks!

Various RPGs on going

A different Star Wars encounter

The venue had multiple levels. Not many vendors.

Joe of Miniature Landscape Hobbies (see also his Etsy store and his YouTube channel) was running a game of Silver Bayonet on a Hobbiton themed board that he had built for a customer, Torchlight Games and Hobbies, and was delivering at the show. Pasha Dan had also signed up for that, and we knew the other gamer as well, so it was more a meeting of chums than the usual convention game.

British infantryman moves past a hobbit-hole

French and British parties meet in an obscure village called Horbiton looking for enchanted items. The villagers have all run off as zombies have invaded the valley, naturally.

Another British infantryman recruits a bandit lady to our team. Their love affair was tragically brief. I don't think their song got past the first chorus before the dastardly Frenchies shot them both down.

British officer recuits another bandit, Codpiece Joe.

Our rifleman engages a zombie

I had hoped that the game was going to be a more of a Middle Earth take on the Napoleonic supernatural game; hobbits fighting Nazguls or something. But the board was fun to play on anyway. Dan and I got absolutely tabled, losing spectacularly to our  young opponent.

Speaking of Dan, the weekend before he had brought his modern African warlords over and we squabbled brutally over an abandoned UN Aid Convoy using One Hour Skirmish rules. Dan puts a lot of character into his kitbashes and buildings.

So these were games 23, 25 and 26 of the year.

Play Date With the Mad Padre

The Mad Padre began some post-Easter vacation by tootling down for a visit on Friday night. He was eager to give my new favourite game Snorkers! (Good Oh!) a try and brought his 1:2400 scale metal Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine collection.

Game 1: Massacre in the Mist

So Friday night we had a small game with three destroyers and two light cruisers on each side. The British had two Leander CLs and three Tribal DDs, vs two Konigsberg CLs and three M1936 class DDs.

There were a lot of fog banks between us (randomly tossed like a frisbee onto the table by me before we set up), and I maneuvered my units to port to try and get on his flank and sink one of his light cruisers. Mike did the same, moving his light crusiers to his port and screening with his destroyer flotilla.

Flotilla of Tribals moving ahead with a Leander, the Achilles off to port.

 

Germans open the fight by launching a torpedo, which misses

Tribals concentrate on center German, and the Achilles launches a couple of torpedoes 

Devastating barrage! Bridge hit, on fire and now crippled. I'm really liking these 3d printed markers.

After British attacks cripple the tailing destoryer, the lead destroyer moves at flank speed into a fog bank and leaves a smoke screen for the rest of the squadron to retreat behind. Achilles has raced up to launch torpedoes and open fire at the German light cruiser


Oof! The Konigsberg eats two torpedoes!

Smelling blood, the Tribals move at flank speed to race past the smoke screen and also launch torpedoes to finish the two crippled Germans off. The burning Konigsberg disappears into the grey North Sea, but the destroyer in still afloat and the Cossack takes her crew off.

Game 2: Slaughter in the Solomons

The next morning after a breakfast of ham and eggs (if I'd had my thinking cat on, I'd have gotten some sausages so we could say "Snorkers! Good Oh!" at breakfast. Oh well, opportunity missed) we went back to the Basement o'Gaming.

Mike wanted to play more Snorkers, and try my Pacific fleets. I set out a promitory to give us a bit of terrain to think about and again randomly tossed mist down on the table. Mike took the Americans, with a Northampton class CA, a Brooklyn class CL, and an Atlanta CL plus nine Fletcher DDs. Each cruiser was escorted by 2 DDs and then he had a squadron of three DDs as a seperate unit.

The IJN had two Mogami class CAs, six Fubuki class DDs, and four Kagero class DDs. The IJN was divided into 3x destroyer flotillas and a unit with the two cruisers. I deployed the cruisers in the center. The Kageros on the port flank and the Fubukis on the starboard. The 3rd Flotilla with three Fubukis and one Kagero was ahead in a skirmish screen.

View from IJN side. Destroyers all advancing at speed.

Mike's leading destroyer screen has turned and unleashed a salvo of torpedoes and gunfire on my skirmish line

One destroyer is instantly crippled and on fire. It turns into the mist patch and limps away to survive the battle.

The survivors turn to port and launch torpedoes

The USN replies in kind

I bring in an airstrike on his 8" Cruiser

His CAP and flak have whittled my attack down. A Betty dropped a torpedo which was promising, but then missed.

My destroyer screen (under fire) has one sunk. As you can see in the back, Mike is bringing his 8" and 6" cruisers around to bring their broadsides onto my destroyers and be ready to engage the Mogamis when they emerge from the mist.

Mike brings in his airstrike. Because the other cruiser is hidden in the fog patch, we ruled that the flight of SBDs would go after the nearby destroyers.

Things then got very exciting and I didn't take any pictures. The flotilla of destroyers in the picture above got a Queen card (+1 to torpedoes), so I took them through the fog patch to ambush the Americans massed on the far side. Rather than crossing the American T, I turned hard to starboard and charged into the middle of the USN formation, bridge crews shouting "Banzai!" The Atlanta and her escorts were to my port, his destroyer screen to starboard, and the other two cruisers with escorts ahead with the Brooklyn slightly to starboard. Each Kagero destroyer emptied all of their torpedo launchers, putting 24 missiles into the water aimed at six different ships.I then proceeded to roll very hot on the torpedo tracker. His Atlanta CL took two or three hits. The Brooklyn CL took four hits. I also targeted four destroyers (I couldn't get a firing solution on the Northampton, which I was charging directly towards). He failed most of his evasion rolls. After a flurry of dice rolls, his two CLs and three of his destroyers were going down.

Ouch, baby. Very ouch.

Game 3: Destruction in the City of David

After lunch Mike wanted to play his new board game, Storm Over Jerusalem, which is about the great siege of AD 69. It's interesting, especially having read the account in Josephus. There are cards to manage to get things done. Mike gives a good overview of how it works on his Wargaming Blog HERE.

Initial set up

I was fortunate in that I got the two cards to build siege ramps in the first turn and put one against the Temple and the other against Herod's Palace, which are the Roman objectives. I had to take them within eight turns. After a couple of assaults and aided by a Ballista card the Xth Legion stormed the Temple, and I played the Roman Brutality card to destroy retreating Jewish units, including one of his two leaders.

And being a Roman I also played the Deface the Temple card to grab an easy 2 VPs.

I then concentrated on Herod's Palace. Attacks into the lower city to the north were merely a diversion to keep him from reinforcing the Palace. Capturing at least one part of the city is important to deny the Jewish defenders from getting VPs. And since you can only put 5 units into any zone, you may as well attack wherever you can.

As you can see below, I tightened my ring around the Temple and was eventually attacking with a siege tower from the lower city, I had broken into the old city in the south and built a siege tower, the XVth Legion has attacked up the siege ramp again, and finally, aided by a battering ram, cohorts from the Vth Legion made a breach and stormed in, massacring the garrison.

Victory! Titus wins a Triumph.

A clear Roman victory.

But playing 3 games with my bestie, putting my tally to 12 for the year, was a definite victory.

Feallan, Not Fall In

My group of friends regularly traveled to the HMGS-E conventions. Fall-In was generally regarded as the highlight and best attended. Some years it was a couple of van loads going down. But this year everyone decided to not do that until the current political silliness is sorted out. 

Brian attended a family birthday celebration in the tiny village of Port Albert on the Lake Huron shore and realized that the venue, the Port Albert Inn, would make a nice venue for a game gathering. So a bunch of us said it sounded like a Good Idea and he booked the entire inn. Operation Feallan was born.
 

Bar and lounge. We had to stock the bar ourselves

Just some of the libations that were consumed. I had a cider.

Cozy little room

But I'd only want to share it with someone I really liked being in close proximity to

Eleven games were played over the course of Friday night and Saturday. I was last to arrive and a 15mm game of Ruthless was already underway as gangs of desperados shot up Kevin's 3d printed town.

Your correspondent, in the corner, green cardigan

After that there was the board game Thunder Road on one table and the card game Groo on another. The third game of Groo, featuring seven of us and after several drinks, got very raucous and went until 0200.

Groo

Saturday morning Keith whipped up a Full English, including blood pudding for those who like it, and stuffed on eggs, ham, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans and toast we got down to the serious business. There were two games on offer. Six of us played Midgard while others played Devilry Afoot.

Saturday morning. Midgard on left and Devilry Afoot on the right.

Devilry Afoot. Blackadder and Baldric encounter some very cuddly witches

Six of us played Midgard using Brett's 30-plus year old classic metal Warhammer Fantasy Battle armies and some custom traits he devised to cover some of the unique WFB things like Night Goblin fanatics and the Imperial Steam Tank.

 

The Old Worlde comes to Midgard

Ogres

Trolls

Boar and wolf riders surge forward!

Imperial knights, steam tank and flagellants

My command of Night Goblins

Dramatic Things Happening on the right wing

Center hotting up

Me, doing my best to keep big scary knights busy

Man of the Match. Brian's Imperial Captain, who even after the rest of his command was dead around him, pulled Victory from the bloody, and rapidly closing, Jaws of Defeat by slaying Keith's War Boss in single combat after already killing Kevin's Orc War Boss as well! Game ended with the Empire at negative 7 Reputation and the Orcs at negative 9 Reputation! Very close indeed.

After a late lunch of potato soup and ham sandwiches, Keith and Brian ran a 6mm game of O Group while Peter ran a game of When Nightmares Come.

German Kompanie HQ. The Germans were Brian's Fallschirmjaeger kompanie.

American Company HQ. The American forces were Keith's.

Norman farm

Tank duel. I knock out two StuGs!

I finally get my attack moving in the center but by then the Germans had collected their three FUBARs to end the game. Keith's flanking attack on the right and US heavy artillery battering the Built Up Areas in front of me killed the necessary number of Germans to win.

Meanwhile on the other table...

When Nightmares Come

They played a total of three linked scenarios in the afternoon

After dinner Brian ran a 15mm Slave Holder's Rebellion (or more commonly called the American Civil War) game using the computer moderated Carnage and Glory rules.

Leading Union brigade

The Carnage and Glory rules are interesting in that the computer tracks casualties and morale status and all you know is if your troops are advancing or disordered or not responding to orders. There are no dice rolls or figure removal.

This was a historic action from 1862 in Kentucky that was a heavy Union defeat. We did better than the historic commanders by not being bundled off the table as quickly as they had been.

My cavalry brigade trying to protect our flank

On the other table people were playing some board games: Battle of Hoth, Splendour, and 1812.

Charcuterie and dessert wine for Afters, which sadly my stomach was in no mood for. If I'd known, I'd have skipped dinner and held out for this!

Sunday morning was just clean up and March Out. Plans are afoot to do it again next fall.

Sunday morning group photo

Fun was had.

'Feallan' is the Old English word from which we get the common English name for the Autumn season.