A Gathering of Friends

Last year, my friend Brian organized a game weekend at a small inn on Lake Huron to replace crossing the border to attend Fall In.  

International relations being what they are, it was repeated again this past weekend and 16 of us gathered for a weekend of games, food, comradarie, and cheer.

The gang, 8 of us are on the Hotlead Team.

Most arrived Friday night and left Sunday. With beds being limited, and only living an hour away, I drove up Saturday morning and left after dinner. 

Big Dave does a good charcuterie board, which is my favorite board game. Sadly missed it.

Table from Friday night game of When Nightmares Come

There were a bunch of games put on. Here are photos from the other table.

What a Cowboy

Great Helm, Medieval skirmish 

Something in Vietnam 

One of Big Dave's trees

Devilry Afoot, with characters from Black Adder S2.  Lord Flashart saved Queenie from the werewolf. 

The tea lights providing atmospheric illumination are there because the overhead lighting was nonexistent 

Some more supernatural shenanigans 

I played in a game of Nimitz, with Keith's lovely 1/2400 scale collection. He'd forgotten his sea mat so instead of Mediterranean blue, we sailed on Reflecting Pool green.

Donski and Brian commanding the Regia Marina 

We had the Italians on the ropes, but I got too aggressive with our cruisers trying to bag one of the Italian battleships, leaving a light cruiser division isolated. As the RM were withdrawing they sank HMS Ajax, which gave them the tactical victory 39 points to 35.

Brian then set up a scrumptious 15mm game of Big Chain of Command 2nd edition. Set in Normandy, Don, Keith and I ran a German kampfgruppe with 2 grenadier platoons, supported by a StuG III, 2x PzIVh, and a Jagdpanther.

US objectives are the closest farm, the crossroads, and the road bend behind the furthest farm.

Facing us was a reinforced US rifle company. 3x infantry platoons, with a platoon of Shermans, and attached M10 and M18.

The Americans also had a preparatory barrage, hampering our deployment in Turn 1. German armour couldn't arrive until Turn 2.

So we were naturally eager to end Turn 1 and spent our first CoC Die to end the turn. 

Turn 2, American player Joseph promptly rolled 4x 6s, ending that turn!

Brand new, just painted, M18 advancing 

I deploy a section to cover one of the US objectives in the building 

Don deploys a section to cover the other flank and ambushes the M18, blowing it up in spectacular fashion. 

A Sherman advances up the center. I try to deploy 2 sections. 1 is held up in the barrage. 2nd section fires a panzerfaust and misses. 

Americans approaching on left

I deploy another section in my next phase and manage to blow up the Sherman. 

It was late so I handed my troops off to Keith. 

German armour arrives to engage the American armour 

The Americans bring down a mortar barrage pinning Don

Smoke from a fire, which started end of Turn 1, is spreading merrily 

The Americans pushed me off the left hand objective,  starting the Countdown Clock. American player Joseph then rolled 3x 6s ending the turn and the game! 

So German victory with us holding 2 out of 3 objectives. 

Good day out and it was a pleasant drive in lovely fall weather. These were games 39 and 40 for the year!

Momos? Good Oh!

I took Snorkers! (Good Oh!) down to Chatham for KEGSCon this year, naval games being very light on the logistical burden and I wanted to promote it a little. I stayed Friday night at the Comfort Inn and while doing a route recce noticed that The Gurkha Restaurant was very close by. I didn't want to dine alone and Keith and his wife Tam volunteered to join me. It's tucked away in a rental hall on a small industrial road and needs better signage, but it's worth the adventure to find it. Service was very friendly and we shared a platter of steamed momos as an appetizer and then I had a positively gianormous bowl of shrimp biryani, which I took half of it back to my hotel for next day's lunch. The hostess was very nice and packed me some plum sauce to go with it, I guess that is a traditional way to eat it cold.

Saturday arrived bright and early and I set out a scenario from the Rising Sun Over Java far east early war supplement. I modified it for my Mediterranean fleets and used the standard card deck so new comers would have a better sense of the rules, but pointed out that modifying the card mix was a useful scenario building tool.

In the morning I ran it with 4 players. The Italians were trying to intercept a Malta convoy.

Italians moving from left. RN is pushing forward with destroyer flotillas.

Italian and British destroyers clash

First kill. HMS Kipling is lost to torpedoes.

HMS Kashmir from the same flotilla is limping off table with flooding damage, lower right corner. I had the player do some damage control checks and she eventually sank.

After getting heavily embroiled in the center and drawing off the RN Covering Force, but losing the Zara (she ate three torpedoes!), and a Condotierri CL, the Italian DE flotillas dash forward on either flank.

Convoy successfully attacked. All four targets sunk. 

So that was a rather pyrrhic RM victory. They lost the Zara (CA), the Luigi Cardorna (Condotierri class CL), and two DEs (Lupo and Sagittario). The RN lost two destroyers.

After my lunch of left over shrimp biryani I reset the table and had the RN attacking a convoy running from Sicily to North Africa.

RN advancing from the left. The RM still arriving from the upper right, although the Zara has pushed ahead to engage the British. She's going to keep all four RN cruisers busy until she goes down flaming.

RN destroyer flotillas breaking left and right to try and get to the convoy. RM units trying to cut them off.

Bottom of photo flotilla of J class DDs getting intercepted by the Condotierri CLs and some Navigatori DDs.

Js dieing bloody but putting a bit of hurt on the Italian CLs.

RN player remembers his objective and pushes forward on his left flank, eventually sinking all four transport ships.

A bitter victory for the RN. They successfully attacked the convoy but lost three DDs doing it. Although killing an Italian CA and seriously damaging a CL was perhaps a fair trade.

In both games the RN didn't lose a single CL.

I managed to do a quick survey of some other games. There was quite a variety.

Pillage

Midgard. I think the skulls are Keith's measuring sticks.1 spear throw x 2 spear throws. 

General d'Armee in 15mm

Xenos Rampant

The Full Nelson

something with pirates

Sharp Practice

I didn't get a pictures of some Check Your 6!, Chain of Command, and more Xenos Rampant. In total there were 15 games and 50 or so people.

After I packed up,  I headed home, giving Big Dave and Son a lift to London. Big Dave offered to buy me dinner and while talking food, and how much I enjoyed the momos the night before, he mentioned there was a place near his that he went to all the time. Fortunately, I was still full of shrimp biryani, so we eschewed highway rest stop burgers and pushed on to Hakka Momo House. I let Big Dave guide me and had a sumptuous meal of Malai Momos, Hakka Chow Mein Noodles washed down with Massala Lemonade. He insisted I take the large quantity of leftovers home to share with Mrs. Rabbitman for Sunday (and Monday's!) dinner.

Another picture of the really lovely 1:700 scale ships in The Full Nelson game.

A pretty good adventure all told. Hakka is my new favorite ethnic cuisine.