Hey folks,
Another AAR, this time by me. Run away. (8-)
JGH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
GZG ECC XII - After Action Report Jerry Han
This year was an odd GZG ECC to get ready for, because of Real Life issues in
terms of having even less time than usual to get ready. So, when picking
events, I pretty much stuck with the FT side of things, since I didn't think I
would have the energy to keep up with rulesets that I didn't know all that
well.
This was also an odd GZG ECC because my wife wanted to come with me down to
Lancaster, to see just what the heck it is I do at these conventions. The
committee also wanted to do some filming to try and put together a short
introduction / documentary video about GZG ECC, so, I also packed a
bunch of equipment that I wouldn't normally bring, and spent a good bunch of
time taking pictures and stuff for the website.
Everything was thrown together at the last minute, we loaded up the car, and
headed down to Lancaster.
Friday Evening I was scheduled to run an event, but it only had a single
person signed up for it, so I ended up playing in the "What the
!@#$@!$!?"
event run by Scott Bishop, which was a multi-universe FT free-for-all.
On a single table were Klingons, Star Wars Star Destroyers, Stargate Taur'i
cruisers, Babylon 5 EA destroyers, and a pair of Battlestars, all engaged in
a free-for-all. I had the Klingons, Indy had the Taur'i cruisers, Ken
Wang had the Battlestars, Aaron Newman had the EA Destroyers, and Tom McCarthy
had the Star Destroyers.
The first turn went well. I didn't die.
The second and third turns didn't go so well. I died.
I discovered that a squadron of Klingon ships (one D9, three D7s) against
three Taur'i cruisers (two Daedelus class, one 'Achilles' miniature from
Studio Bergstrom) doesn't really work, as my entire squadron disappeared in a
two turn firing pass. Tom got clobbered when Aaron and Ken ganged up on him,
and it was pretty much over by Turn 5, two hours later.
It was a fun idea for an event, but, (as Scott later admitted) it probably
could have used a little more playtesting for balance.
Afterwards, Mark and I played a short "Full Sail" duel, which was fun,
especially since I got a small measure of revenge for what he did to my
Klingon squadron. (8-) Mark did pull off a beautiful move, getting a
ship in position to rake my squadron early on, but his squadron dispersed into
General Chase early in the engagement. Thus, I was able to engage him
piecemeal, and take his ships one by one.
Saturday Morning After the standard breakfast at the rennovated Zimmerman's,
and going with Indy to the Central Farmer's Market on a doughnut run (with a
sidetrip to try and find a geocache), I played in Jon D.'s "Arena Deathmatch"
game. It was the best event at the convention for me, from a sheer silly fun
standpoint. FT rules again, except with cars in an arena, running in two man
teams, each with a single vehicle. There were 12 of us, and I ended up paired
with Ken Wang, forming the team "Asian Mafia."
It's important to note, for the record, that no Asian stereotypes were
exploited during the game. Absolutely none. Perish the thought.
I got killed in the second half of the game, but I managed to machine gun a
bunch of vehicles (stupid "Jerks", why don't you die already?), and I went out
in a giant blaze of glory when my gas tank exploded. Kudos to Ken for
demonstrating the glory of the Rising Sun by being hit with a flamethrower on
Turn 2, and staying on fire for the rest of the game, culminating in the
ultimate act of selflessness by running from his exploding car, on fire
himself, saluting his sponsors, before collapsing in a pile of ash on the
arena floor.
The best moment for me may have been when my wife got involved; she just
wanted to check up what I was doing, and Jon got her to pick a car out of the
mass of cars left in the arena. She was reluctant, and finally went,
"oh,
this one." Jon then told her that she had picked out a car to be targeted for
Audience Rocket Launcher attack, which resulted in a giant ball of flaming
debris, and Damond Walker looking at my wife with a hurt expression of "Why
did you pick me? WHY? What did I ever do to you?"
So, for a single turn, my wife played the Arbitrary Angel of Death. Neat.
Saturday Afternoon Lunch was sandwiches for us. I had a turkey sandwich from
the Farmer's Market, Sarah had leftovers from House of Pizza. Sarah and I then
took an hour to wander around downtown a bit, including popping our heads into
the used bookstore just around the corner from the hotel. (A
suggestion for convention goers -- take an hour or two if your event
ends early and look around Lancaster downtown. There are some pretty neat
little shops and things around. There's more choice available than House of
Pizza.
(8-) )
After I got back, I played in Mark's "Trouble with the Neighbors" scenario,
which was a FT3 playtest scenario.
In this case, it was a SFB themed game, with Hydrans, Lyrans, Klingons and ISC
all coming together, with myself and Ken Wang as Lyrans, Scott Bishop and
Jerry Cantrill as Hydrans, Mike Hudak as a Klingon, and Noam and Ben Izenberg
as the ISC. Esentially, the theme of the game was Lyran squadron attacks a
Hydran Space Control Ship and supporting squadron, while the Klingons and the
ISC come along and take a look.
The first turn went well. I didn't die.
The second and third turns didn't go so well. I died.
I had two surviving destroyers when I threw in the towel on Turn 3 and
declared I was warping out (which didn't stop Scott and Jerry declaring they
were going to blow me to smitheereens anyway) while Ken's squadron was wiped
out by the end of Turn 2 by the single SCS. Meanwhile, Mike Hudak's squadron
ate a full plasma bombardment, and was off the board by the end of Turn 2 as
well. That's when we stopped the game, as the ISC and the Hydrans had declared
a truce. The game lasted about an hour and a half, if that.
Once again, I think there were some balance issues in the scenario itself, but
the FT3 rules worked fine. We used the 'roll dice for shields' mechanic, and I
fell in love with it, especially since it got rid of all those special rules
that people had to write when dealing with FT 2 screens and
non-battery
weapons. Didn't really get a chance to try anything else out, since I got
killed before I could do anything else except fire some beam dice and some
disruptors. Loved the concept of the scenario though, and, with some changes,
I'd be game to try again.
I also learned that I never, ever want to play Klingons. It seems that in
every space scenario I've participated in, the Klingons met a very bad end (as
shown in the next scenario.)
Saturday Evening There were some beautiful miniatures entered this year in the
mini's contest. You'll want to look at pictures in the gallery. And a shoutout
to Stuart Murray, Jim Bell, Mark, and Jon D., for being the last four people
to have attended all 12 GZG ECCs. As a reward, Stuart, Jim and Jon were given
dinosaurs, in front of an appreciative crowd. (Mark, sadly, only got applause,
since he was the person giving out the dinosaurs. Next
year people, give Indy something. (8-) )
I played "Emergence Point", continuing the FT3 play test theme. This was Mark
Kochte running a John Lerchley scenario, which was morphed into a FT3 playtest
when John had to cancel.
This time, it was a NAC / Pirates scenario, with the NAC engaging in a
warp point assault with Pirates defending the warp points and trying to load
enough stuff to get away. I played the Pirate Bases and the freighters, and
spent three turns loading cargo and using my fighters to shoot at ships that
came out of the Warp Points. I was with the Johnstons, while Kevin Chase, Jon
and Greg Davis, and Stuart Murray played the NAC.
For those who play Starfire, or who've read the books, you know what a Warp
Point assault is like -- absolute massacre for the first several waves,
until you can achieve a breakthrough, at which point the defense either
concedes the points or is destroyed in place. Well, what we saw was the worst
of ISW
1 - we didn't have any fixed defences, but the other side didn't have
any SBMHAWKs or recon data. They just came in, and our pirate vessels
(equipped
with large amounts of EMP - think non-targetable needle beam), just
lashed them with fire as they came across and they couldn't respond while
their systems stabilized. With the EMP weapons creating large amounts of
threshold checks (including firecons), the NAC forces couldn't get
established. By the time we decided it wasn't fun any more, we'd destroyed
several NAC light and heavy cruisers plus a battlecruiser, in exchange for one
large pirate raider.
The FT3 rules seemed to work well here too, but, once again, scenario balance
really limited what you could do with it. In the debrief afterwards, we
learned that the trick was to emerge from the points at a much faster
velocity; that way, it would spread the pirate fire more. I think this is a
case of where, because of John L. having to bow out at the last moment, and
Indy having to parachute in, things got kind of confused and that's where the
scenario balance got out of whack (we weren't even sure if we were using the
EMP weapons properly, they seemed to be pretty gosh darned powerful) --
plus the fact that these types of assaults are always pretty hard to balance
as convention events (because it's hard to stay upbeat when you know that,
even if you successfully carry out the assault, you're going to lose 50% of
your fleet. Nobody likes getting pounded without being able to respond, even
if you're eventually going to turn things around, especially in convention or
tournament settings.)
Afterwards, Stuart and Mark organized a quickie cruiser engagement, 12 ships
on 12 ships. I sat out this part of it, as I wanted to take the time to take
more pictures and video (and get to bed somewhat early, as I was absolutely
exhausted by this point) - but it looked like it went a lot better, and
people had a bunch of fun.
This was also the only event out of the entire weekend that I actually managed
to kill something, when my fighters smacked down a cruiser. At
least, I think my fighters smacked down a cruiser - as I said, I was
absolutely exhausted by this point, and my memory might be playing tricks on
me. I hope I smacked down a cruiser, because, otherwise, I didn't score a
single kill in a convention event at this con. Whoops. (8-)
Sunday Morning Sunday was breakfast at a small place called "Wish You Were
Here". I liked it, though it was a little more expensive then what you would
have gotten at Zimmerman's. Never did try the hotel breakfast.
For the event, I played the final FT3 playtest, Noam's Di Persano Wieder.
(Mike Hudak didn't have the minimums for his Beer Run game, and so we all
decided as a group to play Noam's event.) Thus, we ended up with Scott
Bishop, Jerry Cantrill, and Mike Hudak as NSL, with myself, Indy and Ben
Izenberg as FSE.
Noam used a slightly different version of the FT3 playtest rules then Mark did
(differences in the way damage was allocated, and the way ordnance moved), and
he stated up front that this event was to playtest the 'small target' rules in
a large fleet combat setting.
And boy, did we see small targets. It was a straight up NSL / FSE
battle,
with massive fleets -- the FSE side had a SDN, a BDN, a CVH, a CVE, some
BBs and BCs, and a dozen escort ships, while the NSL brought in a CVL, a SDN,
a couple of BDNs, the combination of BBs and BCs, and the escort ships. At one
point we had probably close to 20 fighter squadrons in play, and at least 30
SM salvoes. Once again, we ran into scenario issues (there really were too
many ships for the time alloted), so, we ended up calling the game on Turn 3
(when we were getting close to 1pm), and just ran the attacks around ordnance
(fighter furballs, ordnance defence/attack) to see how things worked
out. A lot of dice were rolled, and everybody seemed happy with the results.
And then we packed everything up, and drove back home. The End.
(8-)
Thanks to everybody who came out, thanks to the people who run their events,
thanks to the people who made me laugh and made me smile, and reminded me why
it's worth giving up a weekend to do this, and thanks to the Jon D. and Indy
for being great people to do stuff with. I hope to see people next year!
Addendum: Full Thrust 3 Playtest Summary Indy and Noam have done a wonderful
job integrating things. What they've got now feels very polished, in terms of
basic mechanics. There's still work to be done in terms of detailed balancing
and integrating into a single ruleset all the 'commonly accepted' systems out
there. And there was considerable discussion about certain mechanics,
especially the old argument of complexity vs playability vs time. However,
there are always discussions like this, and always will be, and so I don't
think that's a major impediment, given how finicky FT2 could be sometimes when
people forgot to play the game and started playing the rules. (One of the
things I always liked about FT2 is that it assumes that its players are mature
human beings, who are smart enough to play fair. FT3 continues this, and
that's great.)
Give Indy and Noam extra props for working hard on this -- FT3 is going
to be great, I think, and that's because of what Noam and Indy have done.
Kudos, guys!
I noticed the word Geocache in there. I had my GPS with me the whole con! I
hit a few around Lancaster on Sunday after we closed up.
Bob Makowsky
----- Original Message ----
From: Jerry Han <jhan@warpfish.com>
To: GZG-L Mailing List <gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 6, 2009 11:31:52 AM
Subject: [GZG] GZG ECC 12: Jerry's AAR
Hey folks,
Another AAR, this time by me. Run away. (8-)
JGH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
GZG ECC XII - After Action Report Jerry Han
This year was an odd GZG ECC to get ready for, because of Real Life issues in
terms of having even less time than usual to get ready. So, when picking
events, I pretty much stuck with the FT side of things, since I didn't think I
would have the energy to keep up with rulesets that I didn't know all that
well.
This was also an odd GZG ECC because my wife wanted to come with me down to
Lancaster, to see just what the heck it is I do at these conventions. The
committee also wanted to do some filming to try and put together a short
introduction / documentary video about GZG ECC, so, I also packed a
bunch of equipment that I wouldn't normally bring, and spent a good bunch of
time taking pictures and stuff for the website.
Everything was thrown together at the last minute, we loaded up the car, and
headed down to Lancaster.
Friday Evening I was scheduled to run an event, but it only had a single
person signed up for it, so I ended up playing in the "What the
!@#$@!$!?"
event run by Scott Bishop, which was a multi-universe FT free-for-all.
On a single table were Klingons, Star Wars Star Destroyers, Stargate Taur'i
cruisers, Babylon 5 EA destroyers, and a pair of Battlestars, all engaged in
a free-for-all. I had the Klingons, Indy had the Taur'i cruisers, Ken
Wang had the Battlestars, Aaron Newman had the EA Destroyers, and Tom McCarthy
had the Star Destroyers.
The first turn went well. I didn't die.
The second and third turns didn't go so well. I died.
I discovered that a squadron of Klingon ships (one D9, three D7s) against
three Taur'i cruisers (two Daedelus class, one 'Achilles' miniature from
Studio Bergstrom) doesn't really work, as my entire squadron disappeared in a
two turn firing pass. Tom got clobbered when Aaron and Ken ganged up on him,
and it was pretty much over by Turn 5, two hours later.
It was a fun idea for an event, but, (as Scott later admitted) it probably
could have used a little more playtesting for balance.
Afterwards, Mark and I played a short "Full Sail" duel, which was fun,
especially since I got a small measure of revenge for what he did to my
Klingon squadron. (8-) Mark did pull off a beautiful move, getting a
ship in position to rake my squadron early on, but his squadron dispersed into
General Chase early in the engagement. Thus, I was able to engage him
piecemeal, and take his ships one by one.
Saturday Morning After the standard breakfast at the rennovated Zimmerman's,
and going with Indy to the Central Farmer's Market on a doughnut run (with a
sidetrip to try and find a geocache), I played in Jon D.'s "Arena Deathmatch"
game. It was the best event at the convention for me, from a sheer silly fun
standpoint. FT rules again, except with cars in an arena, running in two man
teams, each with a single vehicle. There were 12 of us, and I ended up paired
with Ken Wang, forming the team "Asian Mafia."
It's important to note, for the record, that no Asian stereotypes were
exploited during the game. Absolutely none. Perish the thought.
I got killed in the second half of the game, but I managed to machine gun a
bunch of vehicles (stupid "Jerks", why don't you die already?), and I went out
in a giant blaze of glory when my gas tank exploded. Kudos to Ken for
demonstrating the glory of the Rising Sun by being hit with a flamethrower on
Turn 2, and staying on fire for the rest of the game, culminating in the
ultimate act of selflessness by running from his exploding car, on fire
himself, saluting his sponsors, before collapsing in a pile of ash on the
arena floor.
The best moment for me may have been when my wife got involved; she just
wanted to check up what I was doing, and Jon got her to pick a car out of the
mass of cars left in the arena. She was reluctant, and finally went,
"oh,
this one." Jon then told her that she had picked out a car to be targeted for
Audience Rocket Launcher attack, which resulted in a giant ball of flaming
debris, and Damond Walker looking at my wife with a hurt expression of "Why
did you pick me? WHY? What did I ever do to you?"
So, for a single turn, my wife played the Arbitrary Angel of Death. Neat.
Saturday Afternoon Lunch was sandwiches for us. I had a turkey sandwich from
the Farmer's Market, Sarah had leftovers from House of Pizza. Sarah and I then
took an hour to wander around downtown a bit, including popping our heads into
the used bookstore just around the corner from the hotel. (A
suggestion for convention goers -- take an hour or two if your event
ends early and look around Lancaster downtown. There are some pretty neat
little shops and things around. There's more choice available than House of
Pizza.
(8-) )
After I got back, I played in Mark's "Trouble with the Neighbors" scenario,
which was a FT3 playtest scenario.
In this case, it was a SFB themed game, with Hydrans, Lyrans, Klingons and ISC
all coming together, with myself and Ken Wang as Lyrans, Scott Bishop and
Jerry Cantrill as Hydrans, Mike Hudak as a Klingon, and Noam and Ben Izenberg
as the ISC. Esentially, the theme of the game was Lyran squadron attacks a
Hydran Space Control Ship and supporting squadron, while the Klingons and the
ISC come along and take a look.
The first turn went well. I didn't die.
The second and third turns didn't go so well. I died.
I had two surviving destroyers when I threw in the towel on Turn 3 and
declared I was warping out (which didn't stop Scott and Jerry declaring they
were going to blow me to smitheereens anyway) while Ken's squadron was wiped
out by the end of Turn 2 by the single SCS. Meanwhile, Mike Hudak's squadron
ate a full plasma bombardment, and was off the board by the end of Turn 2 as
well. That's when we stopped the game, as the ISC and the Hydrans had declared
a truce. The game lasted about an hour and a half, if that.
Once again, I think there were some balance issues in the scenario itself, but
the FT3 rules worked fine. We used the 'roll dice for shields' mechanic, and I
fell in love with it, especially since it got rid of all those special rules
that people had to write when dealing with FT 2 screens and
non-battery
weapons. Didn't really get a chance to try anything else out, since I got
killed before I could do anything else except fire some beam dice and some
disruptors. Loved the concept of the scenario though, and, with some changes,
I'd be game to try again.
I also learned that I never, ever want to play Klingons. It seems that in
every space scenario I've participated in, the Klingons met a very bad end (as
shown in the next scenario.)
Saturday Evening There were some beautiful miniatures entered this year in the
mini's contest. You'll want to look at pictures in the gallery. And a shoutout
to Stuart Murray, Jim Bell, Mark, and Jon D., for being the last four people
to have attended all 12 GZG ECCs. As a reward, Stuart, Jim and Jon were given
dinosaurs, in front of an appreciative crowd. (Mark, sadly, only got applause,
since he was the person giving out the dinosaurs. Next
year people, give Indy something. (8-) )
I played "Emergence Point", continuing the FT3 play test theme. This was Mark
Kochte running a John Lerchley scenario, which was morphed into a FT3 playtest
when John had to cancel.
This time, it was a NAC / Pirates scenario, with the NAC engaging in a
warp point assault with Pirates defending the warp points and trying to load
enough stuff to get away. I played the Pirate Bases and the freighters, and
spent three turns loading cargo and using my fighters to shoot at ships that
came out of the Warp Points. I was with the Johnstons, while Kevin Chase, Jon
and Greg Davis, and Stuart Murray played the NAC.
For those who play Starfire, or who've read the books, you know what a Warp
Point assault is like -- absolute massacre for the first several waves,
until you can achieve a breakthrough, at which point the defense either
concedes the points or is destroyed in place. Well, what we saw was the worst
of ISW
1 - we didn't have any fixed defences, but the other side didn't have
any SBMHAWKs or recon data. They just came in, and our pirate vessels
(equipped
with large amounts of EMP - think non-targetable needle beam), just
lashed them with fire as they came across and they couldn't respond while
their systems stabilized. With the EMP weapons creating large amounts of
threshold checks (including firecons), the NAC forces couldn't get
established. By the time we decided it wasn't fun any more, we'd destroyed
several NAC light and heavy cruisers plus a battlecruiser, in exchange for one
large pirate raider.
The FT3 rules seemed to work well here too, but, once again, scenario balance
really limited what you could do with it. In the debrief afterwards, we
learned that the trick was to emerge from the points at a much faster
velocity; that way, it would spread the pirate fire more. I think this is a
case of where, because of John L. having to bow out at the last moment, and
Indy having to parachute in, things got kind of confused and that's where the
scenario balance got out of whack (we weren't even sure if we were using the
EMP weapons properly, they seemed to be pretty gosh darned powerful) --
plus the fact that these types of assaults are always pretty hard to balance
as convention events (because it's hard to stay upbeat when you know that,
even if you successfully carry out the assault, you're going to lose 50% of
your fleet. Nobody likes getting pounded without being able to respond, even
if you're eventually going to turn things around, especially in convention or
tournament settings.)
Afterwards, Stuart and Mark organized a quickie cruiser engagement, 12 ships
on 12 ships. I sat out this part of it, as I wanted to take the time to take
more pictures and video (and get to bed somewhat early, as I was absolutely
exhausted by this point) - but it looked like it went a lot better, and
people had a bunch of fun.
This was also the only event out of the entire weekend that I actually managed
to kill something, when my fighters smacked down a cruiser. At
least, I think my fighters smacked down a cruiser - as I said, I was
absolutely exhausted by this point, and my memory might be playing tricks on
me. I hope I smacked down a cruiser, because, otherwise, I didn't score a
single kill in a convention event at this con. Whoops. (8-)
Sunday Morning Sunday was breakfast at a small place called "Wish You Were
Here". I liked it, though it was a little more expensive then what you would
have gotten at Zimmerman's. Never did try the hotel breakfast.
For the event, I played the final FT3 playtest, Noam's Di Persano Wieder.
(Mike Hudak didn't have the minimums for his Beer Run game, and so we all
decided as a group to play Noam's event.) Thus, we ended up with Scott
Bishop, Jerry Cantrill, and Mike Hudak as NSL, with myself, Indy and Ben
Izenberg as FSE.
Noam used a slightly different version of the FT3 playtest rules then Mark did
(differences in the way damage was allocated, and the way ordnance moved), and
he stated up front that this event was to playtest the 'small target' rules in
a large fleet combat setting.
And boy, did we see small targets. It was a straight up NSL / FSE
battle,
with massive fleets -- the FSE side had a SDN, a BDN, a CVH, a CVE, some
BBs and BCs, and a dozen escort ships, while the NSL brought in a CVL, a SDN,
a couple of BDNs, the combination of BBs and BCs, and the escort ships. At one
point we had probably close to 20 fighter squadrons in play, and at least 30
SM salvoes. Once again, we ran into scenario issues (there really were too
many ships for the time alloted), so, we ended up calling the game on Turn 3
(when we were getting close to 1pm), and just ran the attacks around ordnance
(fighter furballs, ordnance defence/attack) to see how things worked
out. A lot of dice were rolled, and everybody seemed happy with the results.
And then we packed everything up, and drove back home. The End.
(8-)
Thanks to everybody who came out, thanks to the people who run their events,
thanks to the people who made me laugh and made me smile, and reminded me why
it's worth giving up a weekend to do this, and thanks to the Jon D. and Indy
for being great people to do stuff with. I hope to see people next year!
Addendum: Full Thrust 3 Playtest Summary Indy and Noam have done a wonderful
job integrating things. What they've got now feels very polished, in terms of
basic mechanics. There's still work to be done in terms of detailed balancing
and integrating into a single ruleset all the 'commonly accepted' systems out
there. And there was considerable discussion about certain mechanics,
especially the old argument of complexity vs playability vs time. However,
there are always discussions like this, and always will be, and so I don't
think that's a major impediment, given how finicky FT2 could be sometimes when
people forgot to play the game and started playing the rules. (One of the
things I always liked about FT2 is that it assumes that its players are mature
human beings, who are smart enough to play fair. FT3 continues this, and
that's great.)
Give Indy and Noam extra props for working hard on this -- FT3 is going
to be great, I think, and that's because of what Noam and Indy have done.
Kudos, guys!