"The Hit" Historicon TCW AAR

Finally got time to get this written down; returning home from Historicon was just an onslaught of farm work, relatives coming in from out of town, college visits, new customers for horse feed, soccer starting up again, my D-Day Conneaut event, etc. etc. etc. Apparently no one knows how important this hobby is for my sanity :)

Here is a quick recap of the two games I ran at Historicon - originally I was only scheduled for one game, as I'd never ran a game before and was pretty nervous. I didn't want to commit to two games with the possibility of the first being a disaster.

Turns out that the first game Thursday evening was fantastic, and I had talked to so many people about the game, the rules, the table, the buildings, and the figures throughout the day, as well as Friday, that I decided to do another one Saturday night.

The game was a variation on "The Hit" scenario in the rule book. For each game I had 4 players in teams of two; the old classic 'good guys versus bad guys'. The good guys (two gangs of police, 4 figures in each gang - red and blue striped bases, and 1 car per gang) were tasked with protecting the new mayor from getting from one side of the table to the other. The bad guys (two gangs of gangsters, with 4 figures each - green and clear striped bases, and 1 car per gang) were tasked with eliminating this new mayor who is campaigning to rid the city of the violence and corruption that is running rampant everywhere; certainly not the kind of mayor a gangster wants :) .

4 cards were dealt for each players hand and the photographer was used as a bonus to the gang who was fortunate enough to play the highest initiative card to start the game. He turned out to be quite useful in the second game, saving gangsters twice from being eliminated if I remember correctly. The first game, unfortunately the player who controlled him really only remembered to use him when I reminded him that he could be helpful.

Each side started on either end of the table, leaving the middle third empty for the moment - initiative was normal with high card going first. To simplify things, all figures were allowed 4 under fire markers before they were eliminated and no bonuses whatsoever were given to any figures; this meant we didn't have to keep track of who was the boss, low level figures, etc. I feel there are enough modifiers in the game and with the cards that this isn't an issue.

For the first game the police and the mayor deployed on 1st Ave; the mayor in his red 1926 Rolls Royce Phantom 7 right in front of Brooklyn Antiques (above, and below on the right side of the photo). The gangsters deployed on the opposite side, at the intersection of Main and 2nd Ave (below on the left side of the photo).

The first game I unfortunately didn't take any photos except for one near the very end, and that was a bit blurry, top above. I did steal some photos from various miniature pages that posted pictures of my board and also got quite a few photos from one of the players, Kalissa, and also her husband David, who joined our Facebook group for the game, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1163599090331477/1224017584289627/?notif_t=group_activity&notif_id=1470194000043592 so full credit to them (and a big thank you!) for the photos.

She and her partner played the gangsters and they immediately drove their cars straight ahead to make a sort of road block; this was going to make it quite difficult for the mayors car to get through that part of the board and to the edge he needed to get to for a victory.

Lots of action took place around the Wrigley's Building and just outside it in the street.  A frightened citizen card was played to try to deflect some of the flying bullets around the fight on the loading dock, above.

I found it interesting how quickly the other gangster player (apologies I can't remember his name - something I'll be sure to remember in future games as you'll see below) figured out how brutal hand to hand combat is in this game. He ended up running through the back alleys behind Main Street taking out 2 police officers, and then another one when he came out onto 1st Ave. I wish I had a few photos of those sequences. Hand to hand combat is easily my go to combat option in this game!

The police gang ended up getting the mayors car around to the intersection of  Main and 2nd but the blue car above wasn't going to allow it through. Lots more gun fights happened around this intersection with the police finally making a run towards the blue car, getting in it and running it straight ahead into the window of the Union Market! This cleared the road for the mayors car to make its escape off the board straight ahead.

But this is also where the gangsters final plan came to action. This particular figure was pretty much in a solid observation position for a good portion of the game, waiting and watching for his opportunity. And his opportunity came when the path was cleared for the mayors final push to clear the board.

Again, I wish I had some more photos of these last two turns, because it was real Hollywood type stuff, but unfortunately don't :( . This gangster with the tommy gun, who was positioned initially on the roof of the Klapp Electric building, ended up sneaking down through the roof hatch and placing himself in a perfect ambush position next to the front door. This gave him the ideal spot to get to the mayor as his car attempted to exit the board. To start the very last turn of the game Kalissa ended up getting a high initiative card with this figure and used 1 move action to get within point blank range of the mayor's car and used her final two actions as 'shoot' actions to fire point blank at the mayor. This meant that a total of six 20 sided dice were going to be rolled (firing a tommy gun at point blank range gets you 3 shots per action, so depending on the situation you could potentially take 3 shooting actions at point blank range getting to roll a total of 9 dice - easily the most brutal weapon in the game!). Needless to say, those six shots easily took out the mayor, giving the gangsters the victory. The good guys were really close to getting the win though too, and had better initiative cards been flipped, who knows what may have happened!?

For me, my second game Saturday night was even better than Thursday. I learned a lot, especially what not to do, to make the game easier for the players. I did get extremely lucky and 3 of the 4 had experience with Dead Man's Hand so that made things even easier :) Something I made sure to do this time was use each of my players names as we went through the turns; calling their name when it was their turn or when actions came up. For me this created a real sense of just a bunch of friends playing a game at the house and something I will absolutely continue to do in the future.

This time I was hoping the Sinclair garage/gas station could get some action happening around it, so I flipped the starting sides for the good guys and the bad guys from the game Thursday night, meaning the mayor needed to exit the board right there for a victory. Turns out that didn't do anything to get figures battling it out around the building though :( . Someday maybe I'll get a good battle at that intersection!

I had Dave and Richard running the gangsters and Rosalyn and her partner (because I've waited so dang long to get this written I've forgotten his name, which is extremely frustrating, because I see him every year and have even played in games with him... grrrrrrr. So the pro tip here is don't wait so long to write AAR's and take some notes!) took control of the good guys and the mayor.

Both gangs pushed forward in their vehicles, making the run of Main St. in front of the Wrigley's Building full of guns blazing and general chaos!

Some very Ivor-like rolling of the dice came from Richard early on in the game; this was a tommy gun burst at point blank range! It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who rolls like this :)

Dave ended up using the Nitti figure (probably my favorite of the gangster figures) to jump into the vacated yellow agent/police vehicle, after a vicious firefight around the loading docks of the Wrigley's Building (two photos above), and tried to run over the agent on the loading dock by driving the car backwards! Luckily the height of the dock prevented the agent from getting hit, but great stuff none the less!

The first several turns saw the mayor's car slowly work its way forward and down 2nd Ave. only to end up reversing back where it came from, as Main St. quickly turned into total chaos.

Richard made a push towards the mayor in his green model "J" Duesenberg, stepping on the gas and speeding forward. He crashed into the mayor's car head on! The damaged caused meant the car was out of action, and no longer a viable option to get the mayor off the table. This really put the mayor in a precarious position - essentially he was trapped in his car, because exiting the car at that moment would have more than likely meant an easy victory for the gangsters.

Richard started to bring the remaining members of his gang across the intersection to finish off the mayor - at the same time as this was happening, Rosalyn and Richard were battling it out in the alleyways behind Main St. They had some pretty brutal hand to hand fights as well as some Mexican stand-off type gun fights! But this is really the point of the game that turned it back to an even match; Richard really put himself into a great position to win the game, but Ros charged back, much like the cavalry, to rescue the mayor from certain doom.

Richard had positioned his gangster right against the mayors car for the final hit when Ros and her police officer saved the game - photo above. That's the gangster out of action on the ground, leaning against the car!

Ros had her Eliot Ness figure also finish off any further threat that Richard posed by taking out the gangster above in the intersection of Main and 2nd, despite the photographer being able to help a few times through the whole sequence!

This final turn put us right at our three hour mark - we certainly could have continued on as the game had turned and could have gone either way, but by this time it was 10pm on Saturday night, after 3 days of 12+ hours of gaming everyone was pretty much whipped, so we all agreed to call it a draw and end the game.

Overall I was really pleased with how everything turned out. I got to talk to a lot of great people, had lots of positive feedback on the table and buildings (someone even said my table was better than the one used for the Wargames Illustrated feature of TCW rules, as he was there for that demo and photo shoot), had absolutely fantastic players for my games, and even made several new friends. I know a ton of TCW buildings and figures were sold over the event, and know for certain that all rules for TCW were sold out completely! So if I helped in the least with that, I couldn't be happier - Stuart and Mark put out a fantastic game that is great fun and really easy to play, so it was great to sort of represent the GEG guys in a small way at Historicn 2016 :)

As always,
thanks for looking!

Ivor

Another Year, Another Historicon...

For those of you who are lucky enough to experience Historicon, you know how fantastic of an event it is; and for those of you not lucky enough to experience it, all I can say is if you do have the opportunity (even if it is if the slimmest of chances) you have to try to go at least once.

This year saw me officially run my first ever convention game, and though a bit nervous about it, everything turned out brilliantly - so much so, that I was talked into running another game on the last night of the convention, which ended up being even better than the first (the first was great too - very simply, I learned a lot with the first on what to do and not to do with the second). We'll definitely be running more games next year.

It was great to see and talk with old friends, and really great to meet and create new friendships. I think that is really what I love about Historicon the most - being with so many people who have a common interest and passion for the hobby. That's what is really missing at home; I can count on one hand (and use only two fingers) the number of friends who share the same interest in miniature gaming as I do.

Above and below are photos of Miles Reidy's (one of the old friends) excellent table for his War of 1812 game. I've played in at least one, though usually more, of Miles' games since I started to attend Historicon and he continues to set the bar each year, and I try my best to copy his philosophy for con games. He also won an award for this game; three years running with an award I believe! Well done Miles!

Each year there is the usual rumblings about "historical" games going by the wayside at Historicon, and I certainly didn't help that by throwing up my Ghostbusters figures and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man for a few hours while I waited to run my second game of The Chicago Way on Saturday.

I did this purely for fun. It was great to see people pass by and smile or laugh a bit, and it certainly was neat to talk to people about it and to see so many people take some photos of them. As the below chart indicates, those purists who fear us pulp, fantasy, sci fi, horror, etc. game masters are taking over the event, clearly you can relax. For me personally, I will always be first and foremost a historical gamer, but I also absolutely love the pulp era. I could easily see me creating a game for the Scooby Doo gang, Jonny Quest, or Ghostbusters (that would probably have to fall under 'other' for a category) for Historicon. Why? Because it would be fun, and that's why we're all there right?!

My overall photo for the purchases over the weekend. Each year, I've done better and better in regards to spending money at the convention. My first year it was sensory overload and I was mortgaging my house to buy more and more stuff!

This years two big purchases were from Bob Murch and Wargames Illustrated. First, Bob's Pulp Figures. This line of miniatures has so much character, it is an absolute must have for those of you into the Pulp era - https://pulpfigures.com/. I picked up six packs of figures - paying for 5 and my 6th was free. All from the Gangland Justice line, I got Bugs Malarachy's Mob, These Guns For Hire, Two Bit Hoods, Boys In Blue 2 (so now the Police will have a tommy gun!), News Hounds (more citizens), and Femme Fatales (my soon to be Agent Carter is in this group!). Can't wait to get these figures painted up and on the table.

My next big purchase was a year subscription to Wargames Illustrated. It's a pretty expensive magazine honestly, and I usually only do back issues because of this. The vendor hall is generally where I fill in all my missing issues, but this year WI had a one year subscription for $99 that included a $25 gift voucher to Battlefront Miniatures and also an exclusive figure of a young Winston Churchill. It was the $25 gift voucher that did it for me as I used that to pick up all my back issues, basically for free. I even had a money left over which I used to grab the WI exclusive High Tide At Gettysburg set. A pretty good deal overall.

Wally's Basement (the conventions apply named flea market) continues to be absolute chaos when it first opens, and I really stay away anymore because of that. It is shoulder to shoulder, and the aisles are just jammed. Maybe it would be a little better if there was a designated route everyone took around the tables to look at everything; everyone start on the left, work your way down and then turn right and come up the middle, the turn left and work your way back down the last aisle. I'm sure it would be impossible to do or police, but everyone going in opposite directions just causes chaos. I did manage a few bargain purchases. First was three bags of Zulu casualties for only $9 - I think casualty figures add a lot to a table, and always try to have some for whatever type of game I'm playing. My other find was 5 German figures (I'm going to rebase them as I like round bases for my skirmish games much better). The brush work is absolutely phenomenal on these, and can't wait to use them as objectives in a pulp style WWII game.

And my free figure from Warlord for attending the event - "Into The Valley Of Death" from the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Overall another absolutely brilliant Historicon! It was great to see and talk with Miles and Mike again, and also Rick Horner from last years DMH games. But it was even better to make some new friends through The Chicago Way game - Edward Bardill, David and Kalissa Skibicki (who had an absolutely amazing Bolt Action table which I took a lot of photos of and are in my other two Historicon posts), and Rosyln (who apologies I never caught her last name on her tag) who I spoke to a bit over the event about TCW and was able to get her in my game Saturday night - I know she told me she bought quite a bit of TCW items, so best of luck with the game! It was also really neat to see a lot of photos of my table on the HMGS Facebook page, miniature pages, as well as in several blogs.

I was able to get home just in time to feed the horses, who were quite happy to see 'the feed guy' back home by my reception when I walked in the barn.

So, next up... the Conneaut D-Day event in Northeast Ohio. This is the largest WWII living history event in the country, with this year over 2500 reenactors participating. It literally is like stepping back in time. This is my way of keeping the memory alive of my grandfather who served in the 82nd Airborne, 508th, D Co. and jumped on June 6th into Ste. Mere Eglise. My impression is exactly what he would have worn on that fateful day; I even had dog tags made that have his name (before he changed his last name) and serial number on them.

I'll be focusing on trying to get into some sort of shape for our annual Allied/Axis football (soccer you silly Americans) match at the event, ala the movie "Victory", as I haven't run or kicked a soccer ball since indoor finished about two months ago. But I'll also be chipping away at some painting and building as well, as I think I need to make The Chicago Way board more modular, with each individual building being based separately; this will allow me to change the layout and not have the permanent board get a bit stale with gameplay.

As always, thanks for looking!
Ivor