This weekend I made my annual trip down to Austin to play some games at MilleniumCon. This year was the 19th MilleniumCon. It is a convention hosted by the Lone Star Historical Miniatures group which has chapters all over Texas. I am a member of the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) chapter. I chose not to try to run any games this time, but instead just to enjoy my time as a player. A couple of my games ended up being cancelled, but I still managed to get in 4 games and observed a few others.
Here's some pictures of some of the games I got to play in...
"The Hunt for Moby Dick" - this was a pretty fun little game using Legos. Each player had a small boat with crew to hunt down the Great White Whale. There were plenty of things to consider like not colliding into other ships or the whale when plotting movement, having crew fall over-board, and sharks in the water.
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| I was in charge of the black boat. |
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| Thar she blows lads! |
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| Several boats have managed to harpoon the whale and are on a "Nantucket Sleigh Ride"... |
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| I still have all my crew, but at this point haven't damaged Moby Dick enough to have enough points to be anywhere close to in the lead. |
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| Finally the whale gives in this his wounds. |
Next up I played in a Napoleonic ship game hosted by the crew of Portsmouth Miniatures and Games. The game used their own miniatures and also their own rules called "Bloody Broadsides". I commanded a British 74 gun ship called the Leviathan. Having a crew with a high morale, my guns were ready to do some damage so I was put in 3rd in our line. We were going up against an allied fleet of French and Spanish ships.
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| The battle lines approach. French and Spanish on the left and the British on the right. |
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| Broadsides begin to be traded down the line. |
The French and Spanish fleet have the misfortune of having their lead ship the Bucentaure completely explode as it tries to snake their line behind the British line. So the French and Spanish try to reform line while changing direction. This is costly as the British hold a disciplined battle line and continue the pound the other fleet. For my ship, HMS Leviathan this was a difficult time because all the changes in direction left me as the prime target for several turning French ships. My crew, hull and rigging were taking a beating!!
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| The French and Spanish are trying to change direction and reform a line. |
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| The British line stays disciplined... maybe too disciplined? |
Here is the bright moment in the Spanish & French fleet's battle action. The British have been a little too cocky and tightened up their lines to try to focus their fire on the disorganized mass of Spanish and French ships. So when the lead Spanish ship (San Justo) decides to collide with the lead British ship (Brittanica) it triggers a rough series of collisions fowling several ships at the front of the British line.
It takes several turns for the Spanish ship and 3 British ships to get unfowled, but it's not enough for the French and Spanish to gain any advantage. The game resulted in a minor British victory (and a Major Morale victory).
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| The final picture has points were tallied to determine the victor. |
My next game was a wargame currently in development over at GMT called "The Last Hundred Yards". I've had a long time fondness for the old wargames with the cardboard chits. It is how my Dad and I got into wargaming so there's always a sense of nostalgia for me playing these games. The game was being run by the games designer, Mike Denson. So while I was playing the game I got to hear about his approach to the design of the game and what he hoped to accomplish. We didn't get to finish the game, because there was a lot of rules to cover, but I found it to be a pretty fun system. I'll be signing up to help this get published on their P500 program.
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| Start of the first turn, so most of the unit are still concealed so a marker is covering the stats. |
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| Thanks to my partner laying down a great smoke screen with his mortars, I was able to make a run at the German position with my infantry. My assault did not go so well, so most of my troops are disordered (the red band on the chits on the right of the map.) |
The last game I played was the "Battle of Plevna" from the Russo-Turkish wars of 1877-1878. This was fought in 10mm using the Big Bloody Battles rules. I'd been wanting to try out this rule set for a while, so was glad to see it offered. Unfortunately, I got a little to engrossed in the game and only realized much later that I only took one picture! Heh... oops.
Me and another guy named Bob played the Russian & Romanian forces, while the 3rd guy played the Turks. This was a tough siege because the Russians were very inept and not as well equipped as the Turks. Luckily we only needed to capture and hold two forts to win. Our strategy was to hit the flanks and use the forces in the middle to keep the Turks stretched out. In the end it worked out and we managed to win, but I can't begin to describe how much of a massacre it ended up being for the Russians in the middle. The plan worked but the costs were high! It's times like this that I'm glad it's all pretend and my decisions don't affect real lives!
Anyway, that was my weekend. I got away from it pretty cheap too. There really wasn't anything in the vendor area that grabbed my interest, so I only picked up a few Dust figures in the flea market. I had a lot of fun but was glad to get home today.
Rod
