Din of Battle: JJ Con 2016

I had the pleasure of attending a mini-con at my friend's house.

Jim and his friends put on several fun games and I took some photos of the event.

I arrived on Friday morning to join in an ACW Ironclads game. I'm not a big fan of naval wargames, but did like these rules and game mechanics. The rules were Sail & Steam Navies, and each ship had their own laminated card. We used dry erase pens to change the speed of the vessel and to take damage. The Union with their six monitors, one triple turret, 2 single turret, and 3 double turret badasses were tasked to destroy the Confederate fortifications, while the CSA was just trying to do anything to stop these low silhouette monsters!

In the photo below, the monitors are on the top right of the table, while the rickety CSA navy is to the left and bottom left.

This is the Roanoke(three turrets) that drove into the mist of the CSA navy, took incredible damage, but managed to stay afloat and disable several CSA ships.

Partial shot of the QRS for Sail & Steam.

Main Confederate fortress.

Wooden CSA ship.

Two of the CSA ironclads move into action

I commanded the Fredericksburg and Atlanta. The Atlanta had a poor crew and was eventually disabled in the water due to long range but devastating fire from the Union double turreted monitors.

Desperate Confederates try to ram the disabled Roanoke and almost did as much damage to themselves as the big three turreted monster! The CSA had caused massive delays to the Union navy on this day, but tomorrow they would likely return and finish the job.

Our second game was called "1812 Free for all" using Blood and Swash rules by Buck Surdu. I really didn't like this game for several reasons.

1. The rules were designed for barroom brawl type games, and there can be a lot of abuse of the rules.
2. The rules didn't lend themselves to this large open game.
3. Half the players never fired a shot in anger due to position on the table.
4. The game played extremely slow as you turned two cards, and only one figure could action on each card. We had 48 figures on the board.

I did like the corn fields, figures, and wagons. Below are my American Riflemen

My US Regulars

We had to go plunder the supply column. Wagons had to use the road to get off the board, while the mules and whiskey girl could be captured and taken off the board anywhere.

Chase down that wagon!

The wagons got as far as the first corn field and then they were all captured by one faction or another.

My leader hopped on this one. (note, two of my figures in this four figure command never moved or fired the entire game, because the rules don't reward players that move all their figures)

Here Jim attacks the mule drivers.

Here I'm going cross country to try to turn around my wagon to get back on the road, with everybody taking pot shots at me.

My Rifleman commander says "Go this way"!

One of Jim's characters jumps on my wagon and attacks me.

Last shot of the game. I get my wagon off the table below, but had to share the spoils with Jim as I couldn't seem to push him off the wagon or kill him after several tries. One wagon off is better than no wagons off.

Third game of the day\evening was Chariot Races!! I have to say this is one of my favorite games to play when Jim gets everybody together. Really solid set of rules and lots of cinematic flair.

I sprint out to the lead

White horses pull my chariot!

Taking the first turn. I'm still leading through the back stretch, but the young son of Jim came up and whipped my horses and crashed my chariot. So, unfortunately, I was out!

Honey Bear and I did some playtime! She is such a sweetheart.

After a delicious dinner we jumped into a game I have never played or heard of: Steampunk Rally.

This is where you build a Victorian Era Steam machine and race other scientists through the countryside.

Here was my original two pieces of my machine.

Everybody at the start of the race track

Side of the box lid

My machine at the end, after losing 5 pieces to a well played death ray card.

Next we played A Union So Tested (Look Sarge, no Chartes (LSNC) for the ACW). I really enjoy this rule system and I have now played it in ACW, Fantasy, and WW2 games.

This scenario was based off a map exercise by cadets around the real battlefield of Antietam. This time the CSA was on the attack with a 3:2 advantage in men. Think of the original battle, but swap the armies' locations and the action concentrated around the final hours of the original battle.

Burnside's Bridge area

Yanks on the move

10mm Confederates, awaiting orders

My Yankee division holding the hill with a truck-load of Confederates on the way.

View from the Confederate lines (left wing) looking at my tiny division on the hill. I'm going to need more bullets!

Central CSA corp, awaiting the attack.

With the LSNC series of games the label for all the unit stats is on the actual unit. There are pros and cons to this. I prefer the charts rather than tiny print on the units.

Here they come!

The dice are a mechanism in LSNC to make commands move in random order. There is some flexibility in that upper echelon commands can swap dice with lower command structures provided that number has not been activated this turn. This allows for more coordinated attacks.

Love this shot of a Confederate regiment!

The Center CAS mass of troops advancing

Engagement all along the line. The read pipe cleaners indicate hits on a regiment. each regiment only takes 3 hits before it is remove and can only fire with even hits when damaged.

Below shows what is left of my division. My front two brigades where fairly damaged, but gave the CSA a bloody nose which they were not likely to overcome in the battle.