Siege Of Augusta 2021

     Well, I cannot say that 2021 has had a great start by any means, but with a new year, this is always hope for more gaming than last year. For our first event, Kalissa and I went to this year's Siege of Augusta 2021. It is one of the only conventions that was not cancelled by Covid-19. We were happy to attend, even if the crowd was much smaller. I think we had roughly 80 people and about 7 vendors. There were three tournaments, though, I do not consider the 40k one as counting, since it was held down the road at a brewery. Otherwise, it was a Kings of War tournament and Kalissa's Bolt Action one. Games were light as to be expected with a lot of room to free game. Kalissa had even numbers for both tournaments she ran, so I was left free to my devices, which might be scary to the public for those who know me. I did find a way to occupy my time by playing four games at this convention. There might not have been a lot happening, but it was a nice relaxed atmosphere of happy gamers. Here are some photos. I will have to note that I forgot to take pictures of some airplane games like the Korean War one, some Napoleonic Naval, the Kings of War tournament, and a Judge Dread game. I hope they can forgive me. Either way, enjoy!

AAR: Black Seas: First Contact British vs. Spanish.

 

    Kalissa and I tried out our first Black Seas game the other night, since flooding was interrupting travel to our local game store. We both had three ships and duked it out against each. It was a great learning game. And I am not just saying that, because I won! Kalissa had great fun. She was rather sad that one of her ships passed a fire test instead of an exploding ship. Also, I like that my bad rolling of "ones" is a good thing in this game. I rolled a lot of "ones"! Any, enjoy the photos of our game.

Naval Combat Games and the Board I Made For Demos.

 

   It just happened that before the year of 2020, my wife, Kalissa has been getting more into being an unofficial/official Warlord Games Raider. I am not sure what her title was or is, but this means we would be demonstrating other games. In this case, we have looked into the naval games of Warlord. Now, it is not a secret that I am not that much of a fan of most naval games. I think I have more or less been burned by bad rule sets or ones that just seem like work. There was one naval WW2 game I saw at Historicon that I decided to watch a turn play out. Kalissa left before the turn was other to see more interesting stuff. While I am sure the players ate up what they were playing and were having a blast I can see why she left. One round of shooting took 30 minutes to resolve. The one battleship fired a volley to the other side of the table at 20 feet long with ships the size of my finger. At the point of hitting, the receiving player open a 3" three ring binder with pages of information that he rolled on. Each page was sections of the ship form the kitchen to the bathroom to the engine room where he rolled for damage and fires. After all that rolling, the player said I am good. I still have no idea what happened in that round of shooting. 

   Now, grant it, I know there are way less complex naval games. I had played two games of Warlord's Cruel Seas game when it came out. I, thought, it was an interesting game, but I did not buy into with the exception of the German Faction, because I thought of maybe doing an aerial game for Dunkirk. It did not help that Kalissa was not into naval games, so I did not have much invested. Having a game we can play together makes things easier.  

   Because we have a little more commitment to Warlord Games as volunteers, I figure we should demo games on our terms. I needed make an ocean board. That is what this post was about anyway. Blood and Plunder may have given me some ideas, because that is a dangerous topic for myself I will not talk about. So I made this board with my so-far knowledge of terrain making. 

   This project did turn out rather when despite many mistakes. They are not much for anyone to care about other that I was going for a little more North Atlantic than Sub-tropical. It is not like I am not going to make another one! Anyway, enjoy!

 

First Game of Bolt Action in Forever! Warsaw Poles vs. Germans.

 

   This is from a game that was in mid-October. Since we have been so busy, Kalissa and I took the opportunity to travel and visit my In-laws. Of course, that was not the originally reason. We were actually going to a Bolt Action Tournament at the Hobbytown, USA near Kennesaw, GA. This was the same store that my wife and I started wargaming together at. What started it all! More important, this was a tournament that was not cancelled due to Covid-19. The players decided to be adults and take the normal risks that have always been around since the beginning of time. Sure, we took measures that were still under the guide of local state rules. It was nice to gather with a group of gamers again. Grant it, if this event was cancelled, I would have been able to meet up my local gamers. 

    Anyway, I was there for support with terrain and to be an alternate player. As it turned out, I was need for a game. One of the players showed up late, so we played more of a demo game. He was a new player who happened to have German forces with all of the equipment they would have had for the Warsaw Uprising. This gave me a chance to try out how my Polish would fair. I made them out of interest for a force and an escalation league that I was suppose to have started playing already. I have quite a few games to catch up in. However, the Polish had a great first game. The game ended as a "Draw", but it was interesting to see how the AK Militia fair in squads of 20 riflemen. Assaults and close combat are what my list seem to fair well with. I just need a lot of terrain to pull it off. Here are the few shots I had taken from the game. Enjoy!