From: John K Lerchey <lerchey@a...>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 21:38:22 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [GZG] ECC X AAR
Hi All!
Despite the fact that Yerin and I left Pittsburgh about 2 hours later than I
had planned, we had absolutely NO trouble with the drive across PA to
Lancaster, and made it in plenty of time for my participation in Friday nights
FT game, "Old Foes, New Horizons" hosted by Indy.
The game (see the descirption on the ECC website!) held a few suprises. I
played the NSL.:) We got two squadrons, one having a SDN with some supporting
ships, and my squadron having 3 BDNs with some supporting ships. We started on
opposite ends of the table, with 3 groups of NAC ships between us. The NAC, in
this alternate verse had the new Delafield ships (Joel Frock sculpted them for
the con, and every
participant got one!). Each force had some non-standard kit.
The NAC had 3 ships with advanced drives, AMTs and K-guns!
The NSL had 3 Cold Navy Terran ships, each fitted with Grasers
(2 lighter ships with a G-2 each, and one with a pair of G-3s). The
game was pretty fun, but the NSL die rolls were not quite up to snuff, and the
potential effect of the Grasers was offset by most of the NAC ships having
level 1 or 2 screens. (Grasers do not like screens and level 2 screens
*really* reduce their effectiveness). OTOH, the K-guns DO
like to rip huge holes through NSL ships. Big holes. Though we didn't
explicitely know it, we had to stop one of the Delafields and two freighters.
We killed the two freighters easily, but
failed to kill ANY Delafields, and handily lost. Still, it
was a good game!
Then I went to bed.:)
Saturday I ran a DS3 game, "Broken Contract". A lot of the new rules I was
testing worked really well, and the players seemed to have a pretty good time.
There was lots of violence, and the attackers pulled off a marginal victory.
I tookd Saturday afternoon off to reset my head, make sure (with Yerin doing
most of the work while I played!) the Decals Express table was up and running,
and just resting.
Saturday evening Grant LaDue, as he did last year, snagged me and asked if I
wanted to join in on an FT game in need of a warm body. I said, "Sure!" and
jumped in. We were going to finish the final battle of Mike Hudaks "Squabble
in Sector Six", but everyone decided that it was just a slugfest and that we'd
have more fun starting something else and having Mike play. Ken Wang came up
with the idea of playing "Assassin". We each (Ken, Mike, Myself, Jerry
Cantrill, and Grant) took a small task force of 5 identical NAC ships (SDN,
BB, BC, HC, CE - I think). We then pulled names out of a hat
to determine who our "contracts" were on. The Rules of Engagement stated that
you could not fire upon anyone unless:
- They were your target
- They were a target that you acquired by destroying
another players fleet
- They fired upon you first
- They were within 6mu
Both Ken and I pulled out our own names making us "free agents" able to fire
at anyone we wanted. I honestly can't quite remember how the other three
mapped out. In the beginning we were kind of feeling things out and mostly
moving in a clockwise cirle. Mike started hammering Jerry, who valiently
fought back. As their fleets passed through each other, they both got heavily
damaged and Mike killed a ship.
We kept killed enemy ships as trophies. Grant, meanwhile, was heading off to
my right, with my fleet following at very long range. Ken was running right up
our center, and Jerry broke through and started moving in to pass through our
lines.
Grant was sure that I was after him and that Ken was after me. Boy was he
wrong.:) Ken took a pot shot at grant, but lined
himself up so that I was full-fleet to his broadside. I tore
into him pretty heavily. Jerry passed through while Grant pulled away, and
Ken, Jerry and I did some shooting at each other with my fleet mostly in their
rear arks, giving me the opportunity to "cherry pick" kills. All the while, I
took long range pot shots at Grant. Grant had figured out that I was a free
agent, and tried to persuade others to fire at me, but for the most part, I
managed to keep my positioning such that I was never the optimal target. By
this time, I was pretty much behind Grants fleet, and since our ships were
identical with mine being mostly untouched, he had little option but to try to
run while I cut inside of his circle and tore into his fleet. Jerry escaped
with 2 ships, but still had 2 fighter squadrons on the table! Everyone else
had taken pretty significant damage, but I had only taken 1 threshhold on 1
ship, while having 4 trophys. Regardless of win or loss we had a great time
and it was a really fun game for a con!
Time for sleep again!
Sunday morning I played in Indys "Castle Wolfenstien" FMA
game. This was a follow-up to the earlier FT game wherein the
NAC sent a unit back into time (1944) to stop the NSL from helping Germany to
win WWII. Forces consisted of a squad of US Rangers, a squad of NAC, a squad
of NAC infantry, and a squad Powered Armor vs. a squad of German Infantry, a
squad of
NSL "advisers", and a pair of tanks - a Mk IV and a Tiger.
The German infantry bravely stood against a combined attack by all 3 "Allied"
squads while the NSL advisors (me!) set up on the other side of the bombed out
town to provide cover fire and prevent any advances on that side. The tanks
set up with the Tiger supporting the Germans and the Mk IV supporting the NSL.
The Germans had a rough time of it, being vastly outnumbered, and occasionally
moving into areas with no real cover. Still, they killed or wounded a good
number of Rangers. The NSL infantry provided cross fire and helped to keep the
US forces from advancing. Meanwhile, we learned, much to our despair, that an
88 on a Tiger was barely a match for the NAC PA, and that the Mk IV with it's
75 was inferior! The only thing we had that had a decent chance of stopping
the PA was my ONE trooper with a plasma gun. The Tiger did hold up the PA for
a bit, popping 88 shells off of one poor troopers forehead, knocking him down
a few times, but never hurting him. The Mk IV did about the same thing, but
less so, and was close assaulted by a PA guy! The melee lasted a looooong
time, mostly with each combatent hurting themselves. I *should* have had a
nice overwatch shot against the PA when it charged the Mk IV, but I was
mistaken about which of my guys was on the first floor of a building and which
was on the second, and lost the shot 'cause I thought that the guy with the
clear LoS was a rifleman who could not damage the PA. D'oh!
Eventually, the PA sent a guy into our end of town and into the building we
were trying to protect! I had to activate my plasma gunner using my commander
to climb down the building, run into a sandbag position and fire on the PA! He
caused some stress, but that was it. The PA squad leader moved up and looked
around the corner of a building and shot at my plasma gunner, cleanly missing.
I then had to activate my plasma guy, taking one shot at the PA on the
obejctive, scoring a wound! and then snapping a shot at the PA squad leader
causing another wound! An NAC trooper with a plasma gun fried the Tiger, and
the PA fighting the Mk IV pulled away from it, breaking it in the process to
charge my plasma gunner! Luckily for me, he had no actions left, so I got two
plasma shots off at him wounding him twice! (PA get 3 wounds). The PA in the
building, by this time, along with the PA squad leader had also been wounded
twice (go plasma
gunner!) and had a ton of Stress - enough so that the one on
the objective could not activate!
It came down to my plasma gunner and Steve Barosis PA. If he won initiative
and activated, my plasma gunner and our defense was doomed. We rolled and
Steve won initiative! Praying for a 1, I watched as Steve attempted to rally
his stressed and wounded PA trooper. He rolled a 9 and squashed the only guy
we had left that could damage the PA like a bug! The game was over and the NAC
managed to correct history and restore order to the future!
What a great game! And what a truly cinematic cliff-hanger of
an ending!
After that, it was time to do final sales, clean up, and head for home.
Oh, did I mention that my freshly painted Hard Kill terran Storm Tanks took
first in the painting contest for DS minis?
Noam and Benjamin Izenberg took 2nd and 3rd. Nice job guys!
It was an excellent ECC as always and I'm already looking
forward to seeing good friends, playing great games, and generally having a
blast next year!