Aachen Killing Time, Dreadnoughts, Shopping, etc.

I was cajoled into playing a game of SOLDAT Friday morning. The GMs.. Andy Turlington, Tim Goodlett, and Rich Low, wanted me to play the role of commando infiltrators trying to wipe out an enemy HQ dressed in German uniforms...

The situation was dire enough for me to make a comic out of it. Click on the following thumbnails to view, in a left to right sequence.

AACHEN KILLING TIME

This was a blast. If he wasn't camera-shy, I would have immortalized the expression on the commander of the bunker that I wiped out in the course of the game.. you mean, you weren't German????? I fear he didn't take it well.

As we were in the lobby, I had a chance to schmooze a bit while we waited on the turns. Here's our illustrious President doing the GM Help Desk thing that he does.



Some nice games were being run on Saturday, including large scale Star Wars (below)





And Demolition Derby.. who says this hobby is greying?



And a larger scale Guadacanal?? game



It looked too stodgy and dignfied for me.



... and a very nice "Sword in Africa" presentation.



I even bumped into some guys playing the new TIDES OF IRON by Fantasy Flight. It looks a wee bit TOO much like "Axis and Allies: Miniatures" or on of the Command and Colors games for me (all of which I have) for me to seriously ponder sinking any money into it.



It was nice to see the TRIADCON displays done by Otto Schmid. They stood out (and up) above the competing pile o' flyers. We have done right by the convention this year, when it comes to advertising in advance, I think. We also got into the Historicon and WBC books.



Young Dylan Schuler, who had given Brian Whitaker such a tremendous hand running pirate games for the Va. Rennaissance Faire crowd, now is running the game at Historicon! Mostly unaided! Sniff! Nice to see the youth of today taking up the torch from a previous generation. (F-688 Pirate Raiders, in the Lobby)






Speaking of passing the torch metaphors.. I really loved this game put on by the young Logan Weiss with some assistance from his brothers. It was a sort of pulpy King Kong game- Kong: the Ninth Wonder of the World! (F242), set up in the lobby. The Empire State building was very clever.







Our hobby is very fortunate to have young fellers like Dylan and Logan around to remind us stodgy older types about the good old days of Sense of Fun and Spirit of Play.

I went out to lunch (anywhere that wasn't serving pork, thanks!), and got back around 1430.. again, I seem to have missed a major shift change for games going on. Fine with me, I need to get some shopping done for my upcoming Gaming Camp at Saint Stevens and Saint Agnes School. I got some more lilliputions in the flea market.. I see a really crappy paint job coming on in the near future!!! I got into the Dealer's area about twenty minutes before closing and bought another pack of hex tiles for the Lilliput game.

Dinner was nothing-- just Lancaster Host fodder-- brisket right off of the grill. Yummy stuff, but the rain storm kind of ruined dining on the veranda.

Friday night at 7, I played in Leo Walsh's COLONIAL NAVAL ACTION (F-148), again in the show room, using Age of the Dreadnought rules. I teamed up with Mark McGlaughin (designer of Wellington, Kutuzov, and Princess Ryan's Space Marines), and we played our veddy veddy British fast cruiser section in grand theatric style.


Click on the picture above for a slideshow, then hit the back button to return here.

Mark and I posited the idea that there are three kinds of people in this world. The Good French, whom we are allied with, the Bad French, whom we are shooting at, and Britons. Harrumph! Hear Hear! Have some port. We did rather well-- I was in the lead heavy cruiser. We closed with the enemy, got pounded by shot, but managed to get a torpedo into the head of their dreadnoughts squadron, sending it to the bottom. The fellows out in the middle made a giant of cha cha line of naval gunfire but somehow, our side sank more than their side. Rule, Brittannia!

Friday night was my one night to stay up late and drink beers. The bar seemed subdued, and clearly more people were interested in playing games in the bar than the usually boozy blarney. Another 3AM bedtime. Oy!