I had a little time after my third game and went to check and see how I'd done on the silent auction. There were tons and tons of board games and fantasy/scifi supplements with a decent smattering of painted and unpainted figures. Reported over 700 auction items. I bid on a Vauban fortress in 15mm and several groups of 15mm painted Italians for North Africa. Although checking it with two minutes to go to see that I was still on top I won nothing and sold little. According to a friend, there were several instances of boorish behavior by bidders. Probably the same SOBs who run bidding programs on eBay to snipe you in the last two seconds. We also had a fellow take Peg's chair when we got up to look at the 1/2000 Trafalgar diorama:
Even though we were only about 12' away and I told the guy he was taking her chair! He seemed very pleased with himself. What a world we live in! Thankfully the people I played with were all gentlemen.
The last game Saturday had slim pickings for me but fortunately Battlefield Hobbies were running another game so I got in it. They had three guys working and even though they had to be ready to drop they still ran great games. I was really impressed and that takes a lot these days.
The game was "Tankers Challenge" using the Battleground skirmish game system. Fourteen players (8 Soviet and 6 German) gathered to fight Kursk. Sort of. The idea of TC is to run one tank till it's destroyed, then get a new one, and just try to kill enemy armor. The one with the most kill points at the end "wins." Everyone drew a random vehicle to start and I got a captured T-34.
Here I play hidey looking for flank shots with my less effective Soviet gun. The guy next to me hardly ever left the table edge. He just shot and got shot. In the end he killed five Soviet tanks to "win" and lost eight German. Mind you, out of the 11 total we lost. The game had a lot of goofy fun stuff and the players were extremely supportive of each other, even the enemy. We always applauded when someone killed an enemy tank or themselves. We had a tank on each side blow itself up on special event cards when they rolled a jam on the their main gun firing attempt resulting in a catastrophic internal explosion. I got one enemy T-34:
Pictured here burning after I maneuvered some; then I had two KV-1s start hunting me. The "Hero of the Soviet Union" next to me took one out before himself being destroyed and the other Ruskie and I stalked each other for the rest of the game, each getting chances. I finally immobilized him and moved away but missed on my final shot. A goofy game but good fun. Peg was meanwhile playing in a "B-Movie" game, also with three refs which was reportedly really great, goofy fun.
Sunday we slept in a little because Rock-Con, while officially a three day event, is really a Friday night and Saturday convention. Very few games on Sunday and nothing that appealed to us. So we shopped some, got a couple of Sunday bargains, painted a figure each at their free "paint and take" tables and came home.
There was apparently some scandal in the vendors area regarding tables and pre-registered sellers. Other than that it seemed to go very well with lots to do for most people, readily available food at reasonable prices, clean restrooms and a friendly staff. This was just our second year but I expect to go back again next year. Who knows, maybe I'll offer Sunday morning game?
No comments:
Post a Comment