GZG ECC VI AAR [long]

Friday night: The Taxman Cometh [CineGrunt, Stuart Murray] Saturday morning:
Convoy Attack [StarGrunt, Adrian Johnson] Saturday afternoon: Interrupted
Negotiations [Full Thrust, Noam Izenburg] Saturday evening: Found Me A Sheep
[FMA Skirmish, Tom Barclay and Chris DeBoe] Saturday midnight: Formula De
Sunday morning: FMA Frag [FMA version of SJG's Frag, Mike Hudak]

----Friday night: The Taxman Cometh [CineGrunt, Stuart Murray]
Poor Adrian.
   One of his characters, Leftenant the Rt Hon D'Arcy Yeatman-Briggs,
was
desperate to evade the attentions of the Colonel's daughter--he ended up
proposing to her and having the Regimental Sergeant Major carry out the
ceremony right there on the battlefield. And Nick caught it on video...
   One of his other characters, Major Isaiah Ferris, was gong-hunting
(trying to earn--or at least get--a decoration such as Victoria's
Cross). He bumped his artillery piece on something and rode on for several
hundred meters before noticing he'd lost it. The Pathans then leapt out and
captured the gun, despite a spirited defense by the Ladies' Temperence
Society. The Pathans also captured eight of the ten mules in the baggage
train, then ran off and escaped before a Brit infantry company could catch
them. The Major realized that, as the ranking officer present, he was going to
have to tell the Regimental Sergeant Major that they'd just lost the
regimental silver; about a minute later, he heard the RSM bellowing at the tax
man, "Why, you 'orrible little man, how dare you question me! Of course I know
where every ounce of the regimental silver is, it's in strongbox in
the right saddle bag of number two mule inthe baggage train--right there
where Major Ferris is, he'll show you!" So the tax man (Egbert Wapple, CPA)
went back to Major Ferris and demanded an audit ("close assault, causes terror
in friend or foe"). The Major broke and fled through Pathan infested mountains
and attacked a column of Pathan horse with one artillery
piece, in hopes of salvaging something out of the debacle--he survived,
but his career prospects looked pretty dismal. As Adrian said, "Both my main
characters not only failed to achieve their objectives--they failed
catastrophically." But that's what makes it fun, right? Other high points were
Rick Rutherford preaching (as the Ladies' Temperance Society) to the Pathans
and even managing to convert one; the Bengal Lancers charging to rescue the
Colonel's dog from the clutches of the wily Pathan; and of course Indy's Great
White Hunter getting eaten by the tiger. As always, Stuart's game was a blast.

----Saturday morning: Convoy Attack [StarGrunt, Adrian Johnson]
A version of this is, IIRC, on www.stargrunt.ca; I commanded the ambushers
(with assistance from, IIRC, Tim and Robert) and TomB took the convoy
(assisted by, IIRC, Lee). My job was to capture supplies and do damage to the
escorting troops; TomBs orders turned out to be to trap the
ambushers by running a "Q-ship" convoy.
The ambushers announced their presence with a GMS shot that killed the lead
GEV APC, which sank into the river. Another GMS shot went in through a truck's
windshield and out through the side window, doing no damage but scaring the
daylights out of the driver. The driver pulled off to the side, parked the
truck and fled. One of my squads was hidden in the woods right next to the
truck, so they captured the truck, hotwired it and drove off. TomB's tank
tried to pursue the truck but couldn't catch it. The surviving APC unloaded an
infantry squad, and so did another truck. Along about this point I realized
that this "convoy" was not as advertised, so I instructed my units to destroy
any other trucks and break contact. Our HAMR marksman did a mobility kill on
another hovertruck, which grounded in the river's shallows and disgorged
another infantry squad. The HAMR unit was then taken under fire by an APC SAW
and a couple
of infantry squads, including one at point-blank range--they only took
suppressions but it was obvious that they were going to get chopped to sushi
sooner or later, so I ordered them to surrender. The remainder of my forces
continued to withdraw, occasionally throwing smoke and taking pot
shots.  TomB's units fired blanks back at us--his dice really sucked.
Then TomB called in an airdrop of a powered armor squad, which landed all too
close to my command squad. I crossed my fingers and ordered an artillery
strike despite the high risk that it might very well land on me instead of
him. It did deviate, but not enough to matter, and then my dice
caught fire--TomB's six man squad lost four killed, one wounded!
Meanwhile TomB's tank was pursuing one of my squads along one board edge and
two mounted squads were getting much too close on the other side. When time
was called, I'd say I was slightly ahead on points, but another turn might
easily have seen things go the other way. A very close
match, and very tense despite the low casualty count--the first shot
(which sank the APC) and the last shot (the arty strike) did a total of seven
KIA, one WIA, and there were zero casualties in between! My side lost the
marksman and his spotter (who I'd ordered to surrender) but no
blood--appropriate for the merc unit I was commanding.
I'd like to play this one again, with Opportunity Fire rules; if Tom
remembered to take his dice out of the freezer, it'd probably still be an even
match.

----Saturday afternoon: Interrupted Negotiations [Full Thrust, Noam
Izenburg] Noam is going to post a full AAR on this, so I'll just add my
comments. Yes, the Islamic Fed was on the board, and no, I didn't play them, I
took the New Israelis. The IF player said that he felt the IF ship designs
(Hattin CH and Said ed Din BB) were very effective. Two of the three KV
players decided to aim at me, so I prudently ducked behind Jim Bell's ships
and let the UN get mulched instead of me. After that I wandered around the
battlefield, maneuvering incompetently and plinking at whichever KV happened
not to be in my A arc that turn. Fortunately the IF was able to get into knife
fighting range, and their firepower combined with abysmal KV threshold rolls
managed to save the day. The KV withdrew and the IF FTL'd out (presumably with
the saboteur, who I'm betting was aboard one of the Hattins), leaving me in
undisputed possession by default. I found the NI ships a little tricky to work
with but a large part of
that was probably due to my inept maneuvering--I need to brush up on
cinematic. However, the IF player said that he felt the IF ship designs
(Hattin CH and Said ed Din BB) were very effective, so I was happy.

----Saturday evening: Found Me A Sheep [FMA Skirmish, Tom Barclay and
Chris DeBoe] If there had been an event, it would have started with a legal
disclaimer and finished with the conclusion that several players would have a
good chance of recovering well enough to be able to function in society again,
if they had enough therapy. Notable events in between might have included the
resurrection of Stuart MacMurray, smelling of lambchops and mint jelly; an
attempt to herd sheep by throwing dynamite at them; a duel with one
participant using Scots
Kiss/Head Butt and the other using a Swiss Army lightsaber; the gallant
defense of... no, I'd better not mention that; Jerry's French Foreign legion
trooper shooting through his own sergeant to hit a Fierce
Multi-Armed Sheep; Allan MacCajun playing bluegrass music on his paisley
bagpipes; the attempted...no, I'd *definitely* better not bring *that* up; and
of course the use a tactical nuclear weapon in a skirmish game. However,
everyone agreed that there was no event, nothing happened, move along, move
along.

----Saturday midnight: Formula De
TomB rammed me on the starting move and destroyed half my car; despite this, I
made it to the finish line and didn't come in last. I probably had
the worst overall performance--I started in second position, I think I
finished sixth of eight--but I survived!

----Sunday morning: FMA Frag [FMA version of SJG's Frag, Mike Hudak]
A good, simple Sunday morning game of unmitigated mayhem. Move to point blank
range with someone, fire your heaviest weapon at them, loot the body and move
on...

Kudos to Jon, Indy, Jerry et al for putting this together--I'm already
making plans for next year!