I could only do two days, despite the location being about an hour’s drive. Typically I drive in/drive back (arrive early morning, back way too late). But my wife and I had some credit card rewards built up, and used it to spring for Friday night stay— she got a relaxing hotel room with no pressing household necessities, and I got to sleep in a little later and not fight Nashville traffic (which is horrible).
But y’all don’t care about that— y’all care about the games!
SO without further ado…
A FIGHT SO NICE I RAN IT TWICE
As in previous years, I ran the classic Games Workshop game The Battle of Five Armies. It is, of course. based on the eponymous concluding clash in the world’s greatest novel ever— The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien. (I will die on that hill.) (And yes, fellow fans of the book will note that it’s not “The Battle of Five Armies,” but “The Battle of the Five Armies.” For whatever reason, GW left off the second “the.” Frankly, it’s the one mistake in the game, and we can ignore it.)
The figures are 10mm, molded as strips, and mounted on 20mm x 40mm bases. And they are fantastic. From a dragon’s eye view looking down over the battlefield, you will see two armies maneuvering about, not just a handful of men. My personal collection, consisting of two of the original game boxed sets, totals around 2,000 individual figures on over 200 stands. Yeah, baby, that’s a battle.
I ran this twice, divided over the two days. Next time I think I’ll try to back-to-back this sort of game over two sessions in the same day— 200 elements (not counting terrain, dice, etc.) takes a lot of clean up and repacking— by the time I was finished with the take down, I was too late (and too beat) to join in any last session gaming.
And the eye candy:
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| The Battle of Five Armies: Wargs and Warg Riders advance on the eastern mountain spur, where the Dwarves and the Men of the Long Lake prepare their defense. To the west, the Goblin Infantry is entering the battle, piece meal, to approach the ruins of Dale and the Elven host on the western spur. |
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| Same scene, from the east. |
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| The fearsome warg cavalry advance! |
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| On the east, the Dwarves and Men have taken a beating, but still hold the spur. To the west, elven archers have moved to protect the ford, while the goblin horde has moved into combat range. |
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| Beorn arrives on the goblin flank! The elves join in with a massive assault on the goblin forward line. Elven archers block the ford to the east— and Thorin has joined the fight. |
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| Ouch. The goblin line is hard pressed, with heavy casualties, |
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| On the east, the Dwarves charge the wargs— the archers hold the hill. |
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| There are a lot of wargs on this side… who will win? |
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| The penultimate turn (battle ends on turn 8): The goblin horde is crumbling, and the dwarves and men still hold the heights. The battle has tipped towards the Army of the West. On the next round, the Eagles arrive on their World Tour. The Free Folk triumph. |
NEVER SHOOT THE BEER TRUCK, aka LESSONS LEARNED FROM FULL THRUST
Despite being wiped for the evening games, I did play in other morning games.
The first was a Full Thrust game of spaceship combat. Now, obviously, I prefer G.O.B.S.! (My own spacefleet game https://thegobspage.com/ ), but I know of FT as a classic in the genre, and have read the rules. So I thought it would be fun to give it a whirl. Finding the table, I was impressed. There was a nifty little collection of ships— some from the defunct Cold Navy line, some from Brigade Models, I believe (I didn’t ask), and others I recognized but couldn’t place a manufacturer. All were terrifically painted, making for a stunning array. The host had created some excellent space terrain bits, including a massive asteroid complete with mining structures, and a “MI6” “listening post” consisting of a converted golf ball (you really had to look closely to realize that’s what it was). The most impressive element, however, was the space station. Awe-inspiring enough on its own, it was mounted on a motorized base that slowly spun the station throughout the game— an effect reflected in the scenario as a difficulty for the attacker in aiming on any specific system.
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| The end of the battle. My forces and allies circled in blue, enemy in red. |
And so began the Attack on Redback Station.
As a somewhat latecomer, I entered the battle in command of a rag-tag fleet of Not Supposed To Be In This Fight craft consisting of “Hef’s Seventh Heaven” (a pleasure yacht), a cargo hauler, a tug manning the Shell Fueling Station, and two luxury cruise liners just passing through. I also had command of the HMS York, a battle cruiser who could be summoned later to the fight by the listening post (enters on a die roll— I lucked out, and it entered fairly early).
The scenario involved some angry German vessels (“Neu Swabian League,” aka NSL), swooping in to take out the central “Redback Station,” a quasi British station built in a galactic “no go” zone.
The battle got bloody quickly— my freighter was promptly destroyed, which angered the station as this ship carried their much longed-for beer supply (bonus for defender attacks). The Germans followed up by going after a cruise liner— though the latter surprised its attackers by shooting back with a forward torpedo system! (Alas, to little avail; she got obliterated the next turn.) You’d think Germans would remember the repercussions of attacking a passenger vessel, but it appears historical habits die hard.)
Much shooting back and forth, and the fortuitous arrival of the HMS York and three destroyers, set the Germans on their back feet, with some smaller ships destroyed and one of their heavy cruisers forced to withdraw (pursued by the remaining cruise liner!) The game ended for time, but the victory was awarded to the station defenders, as the Germans were rapidly becoming outgunned, despite inflicting damage on the station.
I thoroughly enjoyed the scenario— lots of Love Boat themed jokes got made when the cruise ships wound up in the fight!
MARTIANS AT THE… MARNE?
My second outing occurred on Saturday morning, where I joined a game of All Quiet On the Martian Front (modified first edition in a second edition European Great War setting). Another impressive table, this one featured a long battlefield with German and French entrenchments/fieldworks facing each other across one half, while a suitable tri-division force of Martian tripods arriving to attack them both. This was purported to be an “early war” battle, despite the presence of French and German tanks!(?) But hey, there are giant Martian walking machines, so it would be a bit hypocritical to play the “real life”card on the tanks…
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| Hang on… somebody is “doctoring” our completely made up history! Will the abuses ever stop? |
I joined the Martian forces, in command of several unusual tripods and an assortment of “lobotorans” (or something like that), which are essentially zombies controlled by a tripod— some had short range blasters, some had nothing but giant blades for arms. (How these were supposed to fare against the approaching line of German armor, I have no idea— I never got to find out, as they either got blown up or had their controlling tripod destroyed before they could shoot. So “not well,” I guess…)
This one turned out to be quite an interesting fight, especially with the arrival of an Apparatus of the Kwalish (a D&D armored submersible mechanical crab), recast as an American submersible, and the French getting a number of lucky strikes on the Martians approaching their side. (One caused the tripod to explode, taking out fellow nearby tripod).
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| Mmm… wiener schnitzel in convenient cans! |
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| KABOOM! Oh no! Those French canned hams took out a buddy! We’re supposed to be cooking THEM! |
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| All lined up— let’s cook some Germans! |
Another Martian commander and I teamed up on the Germans, with far better luck. Again, time ran out on the game, but the French commander was awarded the victory. (The French and Germans were not considered allies, and would have won points for kills against their opposite, but instead ignored each other and went after the tripods. Not that one blames them… primates before aliens, as it were.)
MY IMPRESSIONS
(In which I ramble on about rule systems)
I came away from Full Thrust with mixed feelings. The scenario and set up were fantastic, but the game itself I found overly complicated in how combat was conducted. Too many things to determine, especially in how damage is conducted. The threshold checks across multiple systems I found tedious. Roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, mark off, roll, roll… it just took too long. But that may be a curse of tabletop wargames.
I never did quite figure out how the order and movement system were supposed to work, and as far as I could tell, everyone pretty much ignored it and just moved their ships without referring to the control sheets at all.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed the feel of the evening, despite not really having a satisfying conclusion to it all. A fun element (which I don’t recall from the rules) was the introduction of special fleet cards that could be played at points during the game to alter what was happening. I played “Traitor” to steal a card from an opponent, followed by a card that let me repeat the Traitor card and steal another one, and then a “Picard Maneuver” to bring the York in more quickly, and lastly a card that let me randomly move ships a random distance— it turned out to just be one, so I advanced the York into missile salvo range. I think these cards were homemade, or found on the Internet, as the images were all stills from Star Trek or Star Wars films (hardly licensed). Official or not, these were a fun addition.
The Martian game was more straightforward on movement— just measure the distance and move. Easy. Initiative was from drawing random chits out of a bag, which could be boosted by a side giving up special tokens for a turn. Slip a token into the bag to increase your chances of winning initiative, or keep it for an opportunity to move again after shooting (or for the Germans and French, rally a routed unit).
Combat was again too complicated. Roll to hit. Roll to damage. Roll to see result of damage (if Martian). Roll morale (if German or French). It doesn’t sound too bad, until you consider that the German and French forces each had about two or three dozen individual units shooting at the Martian foes. Sit back and wait while they roll, roll, roll… I felt this could be simplified considerably.*
Compared to the novel (or any movie based on it), the military forces were far more effective against the tripods than one might expect… but then, it wouldn’t be much of a game if they couldn’t win, would it?
Despite these minor grumbles, it was a hoot to see and command the tripods.
( *Yes, I know. Nothing says “roll lots of dice, over and over again” like a Rick Priestley game, which Warmaster/Battle of Five Armies are. But I still feel that Warmaster offers more player involvement— both sides are rolling dice for combat at the same time, which removes the “wait and see” aspect which I think hampers AQotMF— or at least the 1st edition. 2nd may have changed things, so I can’t comment on that.)
FINAL THOUGHTS
Rule critiques not withstanding, I had a great convention. Nashcon is extremely well run, and keeps growing every year (I have heard that attendees topped 600– pretty awesome for a local convention!). There is always a variety of games, and I am forced to pick and choose between some fun sounding games, as well as some old favorites. The tables were impressive throughout— I saw a 6mm Roman game featuring a full scale Mediterranean fortified city— alas, I did not recognize the battle, and it wasn’t listed in the PEL, nor was the system, but what an absolutely gorgeous board! Likewise there were battles from all eras (and genres), too many for me to even cover.
So a hearty “Thank you and well done!” to our convention organizers and HMGS-Midsouth.
Now, time to plan for next year…
— Parzival
