IPMA Annual Show - Alpha Strike

On the Sunday of the IPMA Annual Show we put on two more games. One group ran a two-table Team Yankee game which featured Soviets and East Germans fighting Americans and west Germans. I believe each table was a separate game, but artillery and air assets could be assigned to either and the games were run simultaneously in terms of turns. 

Meanwhile Caesar and I put on a game of Alpha Strike. This was the game we tried out a week or so ago, with two forces of mechs looking to grab energy pods from a power station in the centre of the table and get them to a summoned drop-ship. Here's the power station:

And the overall table set-up. I can't remember how many points we had on each side, but I had around 14 mechs and vehicles, whilst Caesar had 16.

I didn't record a detailed blow-by-blow account of the game because (i) I was trying to remember how to play and (ii) I was very, very tired. However it was an interesting exercise in sending some mechs to grab the objectives (which would then slow them down and which also prevented them from firing whilst they collected the items) and covering them with fire from other mechs. 

Once again Daren acted as our public face, explaining the game to anyone who took an interest. However Sunday is a quieter day at the show, so he had less to do. He's reading here - not asleep. 

You can see plenty of mechs in play if you look closely. At this stage we were just approaching the power station. 

We had a lot of fun setting up the terrain. The loan of a load of small construction vehicles suggested a construction site should be a feature. 

The power station walls and guard towers suffered from the early firing, although one of my mechs simply jumped past them. You can see that we both made plenty of breaches. 

We advanced into the objective, with larger mechs providing fire support. 

The first casualty - I lost a Locust. Not unexpected. 

My right flank - two decent mechs and a heavy tank. They did a grand job whittling down Caesar's forces on that part of the battlefield. 

Later in the game and you can see the smoke and flames of destruction on several mechs. 

At this stage we worked out that the rules for evacuating the objectives via drop-ships weren't entirely all they should be and lacking the time or energy to create some new ones on the fly we called an end to the proceedings. We'd had a good day's fighting at a relaxed pace and with plenty of time to talk to observers, so the game had achieved its objective of providing something for people to look at. Something I learned a long time ago at a UK show is that a demo/display game just has to look like something's being played. If a game really is being played then that's a bonus. 

For the record, Caesar was probably winning. 

There was a lot of lovely plastic modelling on display at the show, and I contrived to photograph very little of it. 

My favourite was this dinosaur with some accompanying tick-birds. I'm a sucker for a nice bit of paleoart.

I also liked this Minmi diorama.

And who wouldn't be thrilled by a 1/35 scale Soviet T35?

I'm also an Eagle Transporter fanboy - it's the best spaceship to appear in film and TV. The perfect balance between looking cool and looking realistically functional in my opinion. 

Finally, I have no idea what was going on here, but it featured a cat, so I had to take a picture. 

Two of our club members had entries in a couple of categories and did OK - no wins but certainly some commendations.

Once again we had a successful couple of days of gaming, introduced the hobby and our club to a load of people  and had a good, if exhausting, time doing it.

IPMA Annual Show - Fjord Serpents

This weekend was the annual show of the Illawarra Plastic Modellers Association. As with previous years our club was invited to put on some demo game over the two days it ran. This year we embarked on an ambitious project to put on two different games each day

On the Saturday the 'main' game was Fjord Serpents, with a secondary game of A Fistful Of T34s. On Sunday the main game was a huge Team Yankee game spread over two tables, whilst the secondary game was Battletech: Alpha Strike. 

On the Saturday I was involved with the Fjord Serpents game. We had three players - myself, Ralph and Caesar, whilst Darren hung around and chatted about the game and the club to anyone who came to have a look. 

We ran the race scenario we'd been trying out for this show, with each player having a small, nimble karvi and a larger faster snekkja. Here we are at the start. Ralph and Caesar are on the left, whilst I kept my vessels together on the right. 

Oh, I know what you're thinking. "Never mind the ships! What about that amazing terrain?". Darren made all that. The waterfalls are gorgeous. 

Another shot of the ships on the start-line. 

And straight from the off Caesar decided to employ violence, ramming the stern of Ralph's karvi with his snekkja. 

Here they are fiddling with the troops on board as the grapples fly and the boarding action commences. On the left my ships were plodding down the fjord, although I had to engage in a little bit of maneuver in order to stop my fast snekkja running into the back of the slower karvi. 

The boarding action didn't last long. Caesar's initial collision had badly damaged the smaller karvi, and once they were grappled the two ships drifted. This meant that Ralph's karvi ended up on the rocks of an island and was destroyed. Caesar ungrappled and went looking for new prey. 

Caesar's new prey - my snekkja. 

I was rammed, and took a fair bit of damage. Top right you can see my karvi, now forging ahead in grand style. 

Caesar and I got into a boarding action, and I came off worse. At the top left you can see Ralph's snekkja. He's rammed Caesar's karvi in an act of revenge, and started another boarding action. 

Thanks to my ship having a skald on board my inspired crew were able to cut grapples and escape from being slaughtered by Caesar's crew. 

Thar is until he came in again.

A view down the fjord. My fight with Caesar is on the left. On the right you can see my karvi. I put in to shore to pick up a bit of treasure. Near the island at the top is the fight between Ralph's snekkja and Caesar's karvi. It was not going well for the smaller ship. 

My karvi loaded up treasure quickly, backed oars and prepared to round the island and head for the finish line. However my snekkja had once again broken free of Caesar's, and Caesar's vessel had forged ahead, unable to resume the fight. It was hardly worth it anyway - I was down to a skeleton crew and only had one hull hit left. But Caesar's snekkja was now at the top end of the fjord, and I had to get my karvi past him in order to finish the race. 

At this point I managed to miss taking a pile of photos. Somehow I managed to evade Caesar's snekkja - we exchanged some archery as we sped past each other, but that was it. I cut around the island and went for the home straight. Caesar had a chance to cut across the middle and sill intercept me, but he misjudged a turn and ran onto some rocks. 

To the left you can see the result of Ralph's attack on Caesar's karvi - the karvi crew was wiped out, with Ralph taking no loss. He put a small prize crew on board and sped off to intercept my karvi. Meanwhile his snekkja closed in on Caesar's

My karvi heading for the finish. But with it heading into the wind it was slow going. Meanwhile my crippled snekkja had put into shore and grabbed some treasure. It was still sailing, so I decided to keep moving and try and complete the race as best I could. The first problem was escaping destruction at the end of the fjord. When ships turn their sterns swing out, so you have to be very careful turning when close to land. I had to row slowly and cautiously, which all takes time.  

Some serious pointing from Ralph and Caesar as Caesar's snekkja quite frankly got what it deserved. 

Victory for Ralph. 

So now Ralph had two ships (his undamaged snekkja and a captured karvi), whilst I had a badly damaged snekkja and a fairly fresh treasure-filled karvi. Ralph's captured karvi cut across the bow of mine, forcing us to a collision and boarding action. It also delayed me for a few turns.

The boarding action went the way you'd expect - Ralph's skeleton prize-crew was destroyed and I cut grapples ready to run for home again. But Ralph had gone into race mode as well. His snekkja had speedily rounded the island at the end of the fjord, cut my crippled snekkja in half as it did so, and was now in hot pursuit of my karvi. Snekkjas move faster than karvis and Ralph kept the wind on his beam for as long as possible whilst I was forced to beat slowly down the fjord. He was catching me up!

But as he closed the wind veered in my favour and I could sail at full speed. Ralph was still gaining, but with everything moving faster he ran out of turns to catch me in, and I crossed the finish. 

The winner! My one ship collected three treasure from the board and nine for winning the race. 

Runner-up. Ralph's undamaged snekkja picked up six treasure for coming in second. 

The game attracted lots of attention, especially the terrain and the painting of the teeny-tiny crew figures. And the game itself was exciting and full of swings of fortune. I was pleased that my race to win strategy paid off, although it would have been nice to get my snekkja home as well. 

Thanks to Ralph for organising the scenario, Caesar and Ralph for providing ships and especially to Darren for the terrain. My sole contributions were some initiative cards, and my great sailing skill. 

In the next post I will cover the Alpha Strike game on the Sunday, plus a few (very few) pictures of some of my favourite models in the competitions. 

Gaslands At The Illawarra Plastic Modellers Association

This weekend just gone was the annual show for the Illawarra Plastic Modellers Association and, once again, our club was invited to put on a series of demo games to help showcase wargaming with pretty toys to a wider audience.

On the Saturday people put on games of Acting Panzer! and One Page Rules: Grimdark.

On Sunday there was a big Flames Of War game featuring the Russian advance on the Reichstag (which I will provide a link for if it gets written up on a blog anywhere) and, of course, Gaslands. I was responsible for pitting together the latter game, ably assisted by Caesar and with vehicles, terrain and play aids provided by Daniel and June.

We went for the same setup as two years ago, running a death race consisting of ten individual 20 Can vehicles with no sponsors. Each vehicle could choose perks from one class.

Here's the table setup.

And the route. It's a fairly long one, but we had around six hours of play time available and were quite happy if we didn't finish; it was a demonstration and all we needed to do was keep things happening all day and chat to people.

The ten vehicles. 

Front Row (Left to Right):

Welcome To The Machine - Car - Arc Lightning Projector plus Dynamo (Front), Loader

Dreamline - Car - Ram (Front) Armour

Molly - Buggy - 2 x Shotguns, Schadenfreude, Outrun

Lola - Car - Flamethrower (Rear), Madman, Crowd-Pleaser

Second Row (Left to Right)

Marvelous Engines Of Resistance - Truck - Ram (Front) Caltrops (Rear)
Big In Japan - Bike - Minigun (Sides), Feel No Pain, Dead Weight
Perfect Day - Performance Car - Hell For Leather

Back Row (Left to Right)

Invaders Must Die - Buggy - 2 x Machine Guns (Turret), Dead-Eye
All You Need Is Love - Truck - 2 x Blunderbus, Grenades

Freeway Fighter - Machine Gun (Turret), Chrome Whisperer

Here's the start-grid from the side showing one of June's buildings, Daniel's gear-phase marker and Thomas, who always supervises such events (and attracts a lot of attention from the younger visitors).

Another picture of the terrain.

The order of the cars given above was the play order, with Welcome To The Machine having pole position. Whenever a vehicle with pole position passed a gate, it would move to the next vehicle in sequence.

I dressed up for the day (although the jacket and scarf were useful because the hall is cold!)

Caesar and I simply made decisions for each vehicle in turn. Sometimes we diced for them. A ram on the first turn was the result of such a roll.

This, of course, precipitated the usual start-grid chaos. Some of the vehicles at the rear of the grid wisely decided to make short moves on the hope that the mess in front would clear.

Big In Japan fist-pumped his way through the traffic-jam

The admin console. We had the (very small) data-sheets for each vehicle lined up in order, which made working through them pretty easy. One was marked with pole-position and the yellow dice beneath the sheet showed which vehicle we were currently activating.

Back to the game. Some vehicles had got through the first gate and were using weapons. Lola flamed Molly, who was making an early break. 

Artistic version.

There was still a ram-induced jam behind the first gate. Big In Japan got rear-ended by All You Need Is Love and was destroyed. We allowed respawning; even without sponsors a vehicle gets an audience vote when they're wrecked and another two if they're not active at the start of a turn. The upshot of this is that if a new turn stats and a vehicle is wrecked then it gets to respawn.

Move vehicles made it through the first gate. Molly was on fire but, thanks to a perk, she got to dump all of her hazards which means that the fire went out. This was unfortunate for the other vehicles because she was currently the only one that had a clear path and which was facing in the right direction, so could zip ahead unopposed.

And did; she's already out of shot in this picture. But more vehicles were through the first gate, there was lots of shooting and some racers were heading the right way.

Molly was through the next gate and running along the back straight. However it was obvious that she'd have to run the gauntlet of an awful lot of tail-enders.

Big In Japan got back into the race as a new turn started.

Another collision as All You Need Is Love found its way blocked by Marvelous Engines Of Resistance.

A nice overview of things. In the centre Invaders Must Die and Freeway Fighter were free of the pack and running for Gate 2.

Lola did a deft swerve past the caltrops and collision.

The tail-enders passed the first gate.

Freeway Fighter and Invaders Must Die both had turret-mounted weapons, so were able to able to keep up a steady fire on each other as they ran through Gate 2. Both were taking a fair bit of damage.

The buggy succumbed first. Lola and Perfect Day were coming up as well.

Marvelous Engines Of Resistance was coming up on the inside of Lola, whilst the rear of the race consisted of Dreamline, Big In Japan and All You Need Is Love. Towards the top of the picture you can see Molly emerging from Gate 3. But audience votes had been at play; she was now carrying five hazards thanks to some judicious expenditure. And she had an area of hazardous ground plus some caltrops to get past.

A new turn saw Invaders Must Die back in the running.

Molly wiped out! The only positive from it was that she flipped over the top of the caltrops, so was saved any damage.

Freeway Fighter and Invaders Must Die continued their struggle. They now had a couple  of gear phases in which to catch up with Molly.

We were well into the afternoon now, and the number of visitors was thinning out. We'd spent a lot of the day chatting to passers-by though. And kids loved the various cars we put on display around the track.

Big In Japan's finest moment! He fired his mini-gun and wrecked Molly!

Mind you, Freeway Fighter was now out of the running as well. So was Lola. This gear-phase was a bloodbath.

Big In Japan's got tailgated by Welcome To The Machine but, amazingly, survived.

Invaders Must Die was running well and actually in the lead (since Molly was back at Gate 3 waiting to respawn).

Big In Japan met its end again, as Welcome To The Machine abandoned ramming and simply went for overkill with its arc-lightning projector.

All You Need Is Love was still blundering around near the start. And it would have been rude for it not to have shot up Invaders Must Die as it went past. Invaders Must Die was wrecked.

The back straight was looking busy, with plenty of vehicles back in play. Freeway Fighter passed Gate 3.

But Molly was back in the running and there was nothing to stop her.

We called the game at that point since it was time to start packing up. Molly had pretty much led from the start. Freeway fighter was looking a strong possibility for second place. Invaders Must Die would have to wait to respawn and would end up too far behind.

Once again the game was great fun to run and attracted plenty of attention from attendees. A few people were surprised to discover that the vehicles were not 3D prints and were simply toy cars with extras.

Many thanks to the IPMA for inviting and hosting us, Caesar for helping run the game and to June and Daniel for providing terrain pieces, play-aids and vehicles.

I didn't get many photos of the models on display. I meant to do a circuit of the hall, but the game occupied all of my day and I never managed it. Still, here's a few things I snapped at the start of the day.

Russian ball-tank.

Felixstowe F2A. I feel that I really need to add some 1/600th flying boats and float-planes to my WW1 air collection.

Fokker EV.

This year a few members of the club decided to enter some models in the competition so we were taking a more active part in the show itself. Caesar's WW2 armoured car won best in category.