GZG ECC XIX - AAR (long!!)

Ground Zero Games East Coast Convention XIX – April 1-3, 2016

[Note: This covers pretty much the entire weekend convention, so it
is…long. Read at your own peril :-D ]

It’s been 19 years since Jon Davis and I first conspired to organize a small
gathering of folks who like to play GZG rules (Full Thrust, StarGrunt,
Dirtside, etc). We weren’t interested in the large
multi-hundred to multi-thousand person conventions, where a myriad of
games were played, and GZG games were lost in the noise. We were interested in
a
like-minded set of folks who wanted to play GZG games and not be
distracted by other things.

Over 19 years times and outlooks can change, and the GZG ECCs opened up to be
inclusive of other game systems, to the benefit of the convention. 19 years,
and the convention is still going strong, albeit still small
(20-30
persons on average attend). We’d like a bit more, but, we don’t want to
become the multi-hundred large convention either. It’s nice to be able
to know everyone’s name at the con, for there to be few, if any, strangers
amongst the group. And we’re small enough that when new folks do come to
attend, they are welcomed with open arms, rather than the “register here, go
find a game, play and have fun, then go home” feel that larger, less
personable cons seem to exude. It’s like…we’re a family of sorts.

So, here we are, 19 years later, and we have moved the con from February to
March/April in hopes of having better weather, so people would not be
hampered dealing with blizzards and ice and other rotten winter conditions
that have prevented more than a few folks from being able to attend on some
years.

This year would be my shortest time attending the con. Typically I come Friday
afternoon, and stay through Sunday afternoon when all is said and done. This
year, however, with so many other irons in the fire (among them working on a
new starship combat game system called Emerging Suns, and working on updating
my climbing guidebook to Maryland), I would find myself having to leave early
on Sunday. But that still gave me Friday evening, and all day Saturday, to
just be at the con. Whether or not I got to play (which I rarely do, given how
busy I am with everything else during the con) was moot. I was enjoying the
comaraderie and company of friends whom I only get to see once a year.

This year we had a handful of new faces. Among them was Ken Burnside of Ad
Astra Games, who came as a vendor, and also was demoing his 3D starship combat
game Squadron Strike and playtesting his generic campaign game, Stars At War.
Also attending were Ben and Nathan Bentley from Wash,
D.C.,
who were demoing their new game, Silent Fury, which will be published through
Ad Astra Games. Plus a few others whom I really didn’t get to meet, what
with everything else going on.

Friday evening Noam Izenberg was hosting a scenario for our game of Emerging
Suns: Starship Combat Manual (ESCOM for short). His scenario, “Eye of
Orcus”, is becoming our showcase testpiece for illustrating boarding action
combat in ESCOM. He had a full table of players, and while the humans ended up
mopping the floor with the alien Udrenu, everyone seemed to have a great time.
My role was to be an assistant to Noam should the players need someone else to
consult for rules questions, but after Noam’s masterful explanation of how
the game played, no one really needed me to be there, which freed me up to do
prize distribution to the various games
being played (including a pick-up game of Tomorrow’s War), shoot
photos, and socialize a bit. And sit in on the Squadron Strike demo (which I
wanted to do anyway, since I had picked up a copy of it from Ken that
evening). We did get some additional feedback thoughts from the players on a
few things, including some considerations on tweaks to be possibly made to the
boarding action combat.

Ken had warned me a couple months back that Squadron Strike is pretty much on
the other end of the complexity scale from Full Thrust, and he was very right.
Also, since I don’t do higher level math in my head like Ken can, I’d
probably not play this during a convention when I am
time-constrained,
but rather at home or at a game shop with friends when I have more time to
relax about it. (but not distracted with other stuff – okay, so maybe just
at home instead of the game shop, knowing how the “oooo shiney!”
distractions can pull players away, even when they are fully engaged in a
game).

The other thing I wanted to see in action was Stars At War, since Ken wants
Noam and I to work up hooks to it for ESCOM. I’ve read the SAW rules a few
times, but reading rules and seeing something in action are sometimes two very
different beasts, and this was no exception. I picked up a lot from just
talking with Ken and watching the intermittent turns being played over the
weekend vs. sitting at home trying to read the rules. Now I’m on the hook to
work up the ESCOM links to SAW, but I’m actually looking forward to seeing
what I can come up with for him.

Back to the con! There were several other games being played Friday evening:
Bolt Action, StarGrunt (based in the StarGate universe, and devolved into a
Cinegrunt game very quickly, allowing some science types to
b!tch-slap some attacking aliens to goo), and Tomorrow’s War (giant
mechs vs infantry and tanks!). They all looked fun, and all were pretty full
with players.

Saturday came all too quickly after the late night Friday, and Jon Davis,
his son Greg, and I hiked up to the nearby hole-in-the-wall diner for
breakfast. It was a chilly but pleasant morning that promised to be a nice
day, despite the forecasted threats of rain-to-snow said to be coming
that
afternoon/evening. After breakfast, back to the convention room!

Bunch of games being run this morning: Tomorrow’s War (nice to see multiple
instances of this game being played, even if I didn’t get in on any of
them), Gruntz, Pulp Alley, and an actual Full Thrust game! This latter pitting
a fleet of Klingons D7s against a fleet of Federation heavy cruisers. All
games were pretty full up from what I could tell. I did my usual prize
distribution thing to the various games being run, then bounced between tables
taking photos and chatting with Ken about Stars At War. Then I got pulled into
the Full Thrust game, as Noam was running four ships, covering for someone who
hadn’t shown up yet (everyone else was running two ships), so I got to get
in on the game with two Klingon ships (ironically, Noam would soon be pulled
away to resolve a tactical battle using Full Thrust for the Stars At War game,
and I would end up running his ships in
addition to my own :-D ).

Now the Klingons were armed with Beam-2s (phasers) and Grazer-1s
(nominally
disruptors). The Feds with Beam-2s (phasers) and pulse torpedoes (photon
torps). Those who know me historically from Full Thrust know I can’t hit
the broad side of a barn with p-torps. Moreso than most any other game
where rolling high is good, low is bad, in FT I often roll low. When it
comes to p-torps, I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve
actually HIT with them in the past 20 years. (even at point blank range, where
you only miss on a ‘1’, I will invariably roll that ‘1’). Now
grazers…I haven’t really played much with grazers since they were in
playtest mode, and even then my involvement was minimal short of just
exercising the mechanic. Today I would get the opportunity to fire some
grazers.

Only, ‘today’ came right quicker than I thought, as we finished the
movement phase of the turn I joined the game, there were Fed starships RIGHT
IN FRONT OF ME!! Oh, and though we (the Klingons) lost initiative, when it
came to us (after I survived against the first pitiful salvo from one of the
Fed cruisers), I let loose with one of my Klingon D7s. Beams sliced and diced,
but the grazers…well, burned the ship from stem to stern with the repeated
rerolls I was getting! Scratch one Feddie! The next opportunity I got to fire
my other ship put some serious holes in the other
Fed ship before me. Yeah…I like grazers.  :-D

Now, that said, I missed with several grazer shots later in the game, and some
hits were minimal damage, but more often than not when I hit, I hit hard.

In the end, however, the Feds were able to win the day, as at the end of turn
10 they still had four cruisers (one pretty crippled, the other three in
various states of light to moderate damage) left on the table to two Klingon
ships (both damaged to some level, one of them mine). Ahhh, but it was not an
easy victory for them!

During this time submissions were coming in for the miniatures painting
contest which I also oversee, so I periodically had to step away to attend
those. After the game most people had their minis submitted for the contest,
and that meant a quick lunch run to Subway before the afternoon games kicked
off. This afternoon I was running another ESCOM game, this one “The Martians
Are Coming”. The Silent Fury brothers had their game going as well. Heck, we
had I think five of the six tables of games running, all mostly full up with
players. I originally had six signed up to play ESCOM, but two dropped out to
join another game (some ‘kill all monsters’ game, iirc), but one new
person signed up to play so I ended up with five players. Of the five, two
(Steve Barosi and Martin Connell) were veterans of past ECC playtests, one
(John “Red” Connelly) was a new veteran having played his first game the
evening before in Noam’s scenario, and the other two (Aaron Newman and Jerry
Acord) were totally new to ESCOM (and as I understood it, neither had actually
played FT or Babylon 5 in a few years). As a lot had changed with ESCOM from
the 2015 ECC, I went over the rules again with everyone so they were up to
speed. As Aaron and Jerry HAD played Full Thrust before, they picked up the
nuances of ESCOM very quickly. Red was very familiar with the rules from the
night before, and Steve and Martin were familiar with the rules from the work
they’ve been doing with their Victorian Age SciFi gaming, adapting ESCOM to
that era. Still, they were a few versions behind so had a few new things to
pick up, but the whole group grasped everything very quickly, and after the
first turn or two, my presence was mostly superfluous. They pretty much ran
the game themselves.
:-)  Which freed me up to go off and do photos and coerce people to get
up when they had some downtime in their games to vote in the minis contest.

Still, I kept tabs on my game, to see how this crop of players would play it.
Everyone who has done the scenario has had different tactics and ideas on how
to best achieve their objectives. Sometimes they work…sometimes not so much.
On this day, despite the valiant single ship stands against the incoming
United Mars Provinces squadrons, the German fleet could not stem the tide and
protect their freighters. The Marsies stomped on the Neu European Union combat
line (though not without getting bloody noses themselves) and dissected the
freighters in short order. In this game, the UMP won a fairly decisive
victory.

After the afternoon session was over most people went off to get dinner. For
me, I spent my time tallying up the votes for the minis contest and chatting
‘shop talk’ with Jon Davis and Jerry Han, my other two con conspirator
organizers. So, no dinner for me. Half an hour before the evening events were
to kick off, we (Jon and I) did our usual thank you talk to the attendees
(most of whom were back from dinner). We reflected briefly on the passing of
Ron Walls, who started coming to the ECCs a few years ago and always ran some
great scenarios, sometimes two or three over the course of the convention! In
Ron’s words, “You know, when you go to [a gaming convention] you realize
that there are givers and takers. I want to be a giver." (Ron was lost to
family and friends last August to a rip current during a vacation trip to NC),
talked about the future of ECC (next year is our 20th!!), solicited input from
the attendees what they would like to see or have done in celebration of the
20th ECC, and then it was over to the prize winners for the minis contest. We
had some very nice prizes to give the winners, our prize sponsors being GZG,
Brigade Models, and Tactical Games Systems (a newcomer to the miniatures
industry, they have some VERY nice 3D printed starship and 15mm SF vehicle
minis! tacticalgamesystems.com).

To expand on how the voting goes for those who don’t know, I do not
participate in the voting. Rather, I encourage the con attendees (players and
vendors) to fill out the ballot papers to what they think is best in each
category. I tally up the votes, and if there is a tie, only then I will then
step in and cast the deciding vote between the entries. Otherwise I stay out
of it to maintain impartiality. This year there were two
categories which had ties (the 25/28mm and 15mm scale categories) that I
had to cast the deciding vote. The decisions were tough, as all the entries
were high quality, but in the end, the winners podium broke down like so:

Scratchbuild (2 entries):

Dave Hornung (2nd place)

Scott Howland (1st place)

6mm/Dirtside (7 entries) :

Noam Izenberg (3rd place)

Steve Barosi (2nd place)

Martin Connell (1st place)

15mm scale (7 entries):

Dave Hornung (3rd place)

Steve Barosi (2nd place)

Martin Connell (1st place)

25/28mm scale (12 entries) :

Steve Barosi (3rd place)

Aaron Newman (2nd place)

Jeff Aubert (1st place, with this piece, which some people might recognize
from the cover of the old ADnD Player’s Handbook:
http://otherworldminiatures.co.uk/shop/demons-devils/dd1-the-demon-idol/
)

Starships (7 entries):

John “Red” Connelly (3rd place)

Steve Barosi (2nd place)

David Skelly (1st place)

After I handed out the prizes and certificates, Jon Davis then brought out the
special raffle prizes he had for the attendees. When one registered, they were
asked to pick their favorite category. Jon had four prizes, one
for each category (starship, 25/28mm, 15mm, and 6mm). We drew the names
(I
don’t remember who all won what, but I do remember JP Fiset got the 3D
printed Mars globe, which was AWESOME!
https://www.shapeways.com/shops/yo3d).
We then did a quick photo shoot of all the winners, then on to the evening
games!

This evening one of the games I was keenly interested in participating in
was Steve Barosi and Martin Connell’s ESCOM-Victorian Age Sf Aeronef
game. I was very interested to see what direction they had gone with our
rules. One of the things they had retained from an early version of ESCOM
(back when it was SMITE) was the opposed roll mechanic (attacker rolls attack
dice for the ship’s weapons, the defender rolls defense dice from the
ship’s defense level; die rolls are compared and any attacking roll that
beats an defending roll gets to do that many points damage to the defending
ship). Though we liked the mechanic when we came up with it, we had dropped
this a while back as it noticeably slowed the game down. That would be telling
in this evening’s “Falklands 1889” game as well, but otherwise it worked
as originally conceived. Another difference they had was character cards. The
character cards gave the ship with the character on it certain abilities, but
only a limited number of them (like, three times it could be used in the
course of the game). Said abilities were ‘increase defense die
by one die type’ or ‘perform a free, unscheduled/plotted 3
clockfacing turn during any movement phase’. I was concerned that these
might unbalance or be something players would abuse, but over the course of
the game this concern did not bear fruit, and I am considering perhaps our
adopting it to ESCOM (although Noam and I are already talking about crew
quality levels and legendary officers; the character cards could easily be
those legendary officers). I was on the side of the British, and we had to
travel over to the Falkland Islands and bomb an aeronef base the Argentinians
had put in place after they overran the islands. Between us and the island was
a line of Argentinian (and a few allied Brazilian) ‘nefs. We came on in a
line and fire was exchanged early on. The Argentinian ‘nefs had some very
heavy guns, but when they took damage, they tended to crack very quickly
(fragile buggers, they were). We managed to break most of the defensive line,
but never got to the island before the game was called due to the lateness of
the hour (and the tiredness of many participants ;-) ). The Argentinians
also had a reserve of four Brazilian cruisers coming in, but it was likely
they would be too late in preventing our bombing of the aeronef base had we
played out a few more turns.

After we wrapped the game I retired for the evening. As snow was falling from
the skies.

The next morning I looked out my hotel window and saw the ground was covered
with a blanket of snow. About an inch and a half or so. I packed
things up and went out to my snow-covered car and had to laugh. Only on
Friday, when I was packing for the weekend, I had taken out my ice scraper.
When I brushed the top inch layer of snow from the car, beneath it was a half
inch of frozen ice snow. Seriously, I had JUST taken the ice scraper out on
Friday! Note to self for next year: keep the damned ice scraper in
the car! :-D   Ah, well, what’s an ECC without a little snow? I
managed to borrow an ice scraper from Jon Davis later and got the car cleared
off. But first some breakfast in the hotel, then in to the convention room to
finish packing things away. Distributed the last of the prizes to the final
games being played, then I had to take off, as I had to get back down to
Maryland to do a climbing photo shoot for the upcoming guidebook at one of the
crags while one of our local climbers tackled one of the harder routes in the
state.

All in all it was a great convention, even if I had to leave early. Next year
we will have it on the weekend of March 24th, so if you want to attend, mark
that on your calendar now!

Photos: none posted yet. Jerry Han will get the whole kit and kaboodle
uploaded to the ECC site when he has a free moment to breathe, and I’ll
probably post a small selection of mine to the GZG ECC group on FB as well.

Looking forward to next year. Hope to see some new faces and games! J

Mk