GZG-ECC IV summary

My experience: 1) Good drive down from Canada with Adrian and Jim. We ended up
being the Canadian Contingent.

2) Pod Racing: Fun. I'd like to have lived longer. From live to dead in 1
attack roll isn't too much fun. But we talked with Mike about ways to deal
with this. He indicated no one in playtest had thought to unload MULTIPLE junk
fragments in one shot (Mr. Davis died this way too). Super cool board, super
cool game with a few tweaks. Thanks Mike.

3) Carnage Con Queso: Fight for the cheese. Mr.Hudak, you're on my list. Not
only did you try to shoot the crap out of my Gurkha force BEFORE their second
activation, but you then dropped artillery on me... (I guess in all fairness,
I got my own back by massacring your nuns at then end of the day when you
charged the news crew and my guys in the Med Tent). I was happy to come 3rd
and be awarded a minor nobility on Frommage III. Adrian, the sneaky News
Weenie, became Queso King (obvious comments about the power of the media and
spin control come to mind). Neat game. I think Pat got utterly blown out by
Aaron's PA. Ouch. And I briefly debated attacking Joel's crew, but something
about attacking a Jedi Master with a lightsaber seemed kinda risky. Superfun
game, though I look forward to Adrian running it (as is the reward for being
Queso King) next year.

4) Hotspot: My FIRST game of DS2. Wow. Lots of fun. And I got to put Rebel
Scum to the Sword. What more could you want? The TOG Emperor will be pleased.
Lava and hostile Rebel Scum could not stop the TOGs righteous advance. Though
apparently Mr.Sarno and I should buy laser targeting systems from Mr.Bell's
supplier...... Nice game, Mr.Davis. Good fun. Nice defence layout to the
"Rebel Scum":)

5) FMAS (Me and Los): An interesting playtest of some later generation FMA
rules which will feed input into the playtest list. Some bizarre dice action
resulted in the grenades mostly killing those with die shifts for cover while
not harming those in the open (D12 vs D6 or D8 (upshifted for cover) and the
smaller dice won pretty consistently). My AAR has already made the list, but
let us just say it was a good game despite some kind of bizarre die rolls. I'm
not in favour of making grenades so dangerous you can't advance against
them... otherwise the game devolves to grenade chucking matches. But they
should probably be slightly more lethal.

6) Formula De: CanAm race.... declared so after Canadians placed 1st, 2nd and
3rd. Magic was doing well, but poor quality control in the engine system
caused him to fail out of the game allowing Jim and Adrian to run away with
the game. Imala is a neat track, glad you brought it guys! (and the
micromachines were Tres cool). This should be a yearly post-game event!

7) CanAmFT: Well, I was the fleet architect and director, so Mea Culpa. We
brought a knife to a gunfight. We were not ready for fighters in that
number. I bet the yanks would have enjoyed a Komarov-E with 70 dice of
PDS.... (next time!). Hopefully next time we won't have all the fiddling with
dice that fall off and fighters that either regenerate or explode
spontaneously because numbers change... the planet was cool and I got to make
Titan's Turn as I slingshotted around it. Sadly, too many missiles and
fighters arrived on my position, but it was fun. Next year, let's run this one
on Saturday when I'm more awake too (we should have started faster and lower).
Anyway, thanks to Jim and Adrian for helping out. I mostly just joined in here
to give the US team a game... I wanted to be playing in Stuart's game (I'm a
groundpounder at heart). And Adrian was very game to pickup the game on the
spot. Good job to the US team.

And I owe Mr.Riddle $5.00 US. He took Mr.Davis head (well, nuked him anyway).
He left before I could hand it to him. So, if he wants to email me his
address, I'll send it to him. It was worth it. I didn't get to be in the game
to shoot Jon, but a proxy death will do.....

Lastly, I'd like to thank Adrian for coming to his first ECC and Jim for
driving down. The trip back was just wonderful... (NOT). Worst so far. But we
made it by 3 am Monday morning (4 am for Jim by the time he got home I
imagine).

I've got all the pictures onto a zip disk, but some need reduced in size to
be web-useful. I'll do that tonight and post the URLs. Some good shots
to be
seen! :)

> "Barclay, Tom" wrote:
[...]
> And I owe Mr. Riddle $5.00 US. He took Mr. Davis head (well, nuked him

Is that American or Canadian $5?  ;-) ;-)

Tom, I noticed 2 overhead shots of last year's "Grey Day" in the ECC photo
album. You want me to scan both?

Mk