Historicon happened, as you probably already knew.  I am still sore from it.

Thanks to the new job, I wasn’t able to get down Thursday to check in/check out the vendor hall (which I did last year and strongly recommend).  Instead, I went down early-early Friday, stuck around through Saturday, and headed back Saturday night. I’d say it was something like 24 hours of standing on concrete and leaning over tables. It’s possible I’m too old for this.

Painting Competition

In the interests of not further burying the lede, the painting competition was very, very kind to me.  Four entries, four awards plus Best of Show.

I’d entered Tercio Creativo’s Zurraigo.  I love this mini and how it came out.

I also entered my A7Vs into the Flames of War platoon category.  I’m extremely pleased with how these came out, and I’m looking forward to continuing to apply these techniques.

I entered a different set of Maquis than the set I entered into the Capital Palette last year. This batch (in fact, every Partisan model I painted after that batch) benefited from the seminars I took at NOVA.

I’d brought these in, not because I thought they’d all that well (there are more half-assed things about them than I can count), but because they were a breakthrough for me. I’d also planned to enter them into the Historical Unit category, not realizing that it was 1 entry/category (I got my wires crossed with the Capital Palette) , so I dumped them into the Open category.  I can only presume there was no fourth entry into the category.

In front of us in the mini pickup line was a young girl: probably in her early-mid teens.  They handed her her figure and a plaque for 1st Place, Youth Category (I think?) , and she literally  just started screaming “YES! YES! WOO! YES!” and literally ran off, holding her mini and award over her head.  I know how she felt: I might be a miserable, crabass, and this might not be The Crystal Brush, but it’s immensely encouraging and thrilling and an honor to win one of these, nevermind Best of Show.

Gaming

I really sucked about taking pictures.

I’d been really looking forward to The League of Augsburg‘s Battle of Pennyburn Mill game for quite some time.  I had no idea Clarence was not only in the US, but is (relatively) just down the road.

It was a lot of fun; strongly recommended.  I hope they run another game next year; I’ll make sure it’s on my schedule.

I cruised by the Bolt Action tournament: I was disappointed that one wasn’t being run on Saturday… I’d have been all over it.  With my game scheduled for Friday, I couldn’t commit to playing in the Friday BA tournament.

I did grab a photo of this amazing Home Guard army:

I watched some of John E’s Strange Aeons game, which I really need to make time to play:

I’d signed up to run my Amien, 1918 game; the only TGS game in attendance. It went less than smoothly: only one person who’d signed up showed up, though I was able to dragoon someone who’d been chatting with me about it into playing as well.

The scenario… might not be a great one for a con game.  For the Germans, the first 1-2 turns are just about waiting.  The Brits show up, they shoot, they kill next to nobody; repeat.  The Germans… sit there. There’s not a lot of agency at the beginning.  I could tell it was frustrating the kid playing them.  Once the rolling barrage has moved on, that totally changes: the Germans have just as much control over what’s happening as the Brits, and are (potentially) in a stronger position (since they’re entrenched)… but that’s after.  Nobody wants to wait to play a game after, they want to start playing the game, you know?

Also: it’s worth noting that it was kind of a huge hassle. Not only did running a game prevent me from participating in the BA tournament, it imposed a lack of flexibility over my Friday evening. In terms of saving $25 on the GM Badge: I don’t think was worth it.  Heck, I took a day off from work, my first week, because I’d been committed to running a game on Friday. At that point, I’d assert that it definitely wasn’t worth it.  If I’d had participation in the game, I might feel differently, but I’m not sure I’m going to run a game again next year.

Saturday, most of my day was spent in the By Fire & Sword tournament. I came in last. This is entirely because 1) I don’t play the game enough and 2) need to build the rest of my models.

The game can kind of be a little incoherent: the layout doesn’t put rules where I expect them, and between the core rulebook, The Deluge, and the revised rulebook the inconsistencies can be maddening.  I’d love for a native English-speaker with time (so: not me) to literally just rewrite the rules in a more straightforward format.  There was noise about a revised rules-only book coming out: maybe that’ll be it.  Anyway: it’s not like BA or even 40K where you can not play for a year but just pick it up and go.

By limiting myself to the models I have assembled/painted, I’m pretty cramped in what I can run, and that doesn’t do me any favors.

I’m sure they’ll do one next year: if I’m going to play in it, I’ll have to better prep for it.

Shopping

I was pretty good this year.  I picked up a bunch of stuff for WWII Flames of War: got a lot of good deals at the swap meet.

Importantly, I’m still at the “I have painted more than I’ve bought this year” level, though I’d kind of expected it to be the other way.  What’s really encouraging is that last year, I was good up until Historicon and on contact with the vendor room everything went up in smoke.  This year, I’m still on point with tracking purchased/painted/sold data.

(again)

At one point last year, I rattled off a stupidly overly complicated set of alternate rules to “fix” Indirect Fire in Bolt Action.  The confirmation that templates are going into BA 2E has prompted me to reevaluate that problem.

Templates work OK.  In a lot of ways, they’re kind of elegant in how they handle hits against a unit and missed fire scattering into other things.  But they’re also not great: they force you to think too much about how you position your models from a mechanical perspective and not a scenario perspective. The way they work in 40K, for example, they push out models to the edge of coherency… if you’ve got a bunch of Ork Boys, you’re penalized for not carefully spreading out and positioning them.  And, frankly, that’s a waste of time.

One of the things about Bolt Action I immediately cottoned to in Bolt Action was the lack of templates.  It took the weird concern about how many models are within in a 3″ bubble out of the game.  That said: existing Indirect Fire rules suck, for reasons I enumerate in the above link.

Here’s another, better (simpler) cut at addressing them:

Revised Indirect Fire

• The roll to hit remains unchanged (6+ the first time, then 5+, etc).
• If this roll is failed, it may be rerolled a number of times based on the experience level of the shooter: Inexperienced-0, Regular-1, Veteran-2.
• For each reroll, reduce the HE level by one for the initial hit.
• Once a shooter is zeroed in, rolls may not be rerolled and further shots are not reduced.

Examples:

A Veteran Unit firing a Medium Mortar on the first round gets three chances to hit on a 6+. If they roll that 6 on the second roll, it hits as a D3, on the third it’d hit as a D2. If they don’t hit at all, the next round they’d have three chances at a 5+ and so on.  Once they’re zeroed in, the unit would get a single chance to roll a 2+ and those mortar shells would hit as D6.

An Inexperienced Unit firing the same Medium Mortar would get the one chance at a 6+. then the one chance at a 5+ and so on.

I’m feeling pretty confident about the rule.  It removes the swinginess of the existing rule and replaces it with something that rewards the experience level of the unit by putting it on a bit more of a curve. The reduction in HE is key, though, because otherwise veterans are hitting with mortars 42% of the time, which is insanely too good.  This steps it down the hypothetical Veteran Medium Mortar to 17% @ D6, 13% @ D3, and 12% @D2.

(Worth noting that this is pretty much just cribbed from Flames of War.)

On that note, one comment I got in the TGS group was a desire to share fire control.  I’m less confident about this, but I might as well share it here:

An Officer given a Fire order to order any and all Indirect Fire units within command range to fire together that have not already received an order. Pull an order die from the bag for each unit and give them a Fire order.

Make a single To Hit roll (as above) using the highest HE value and experience level in the salve.  For each additional HE weapon, increase the HE by a single step.

Like I said: less confident of that one, but might as well pass it along.

Thoughts?