All the King's Men, Friday night game.

Looking to be our regular thing, Friday nights are wargaming night for Spencer and I. Last night we had another rousing game of All the King's Men. Figure are 54mm (aka 2 inch) figs, the kind you can get 36 in a bag for $9. Spencer painted them all. We're playing 7 Year War era stuff here.

 



I chose to play France while Spencer chose The Allies (Britain and all). I like playing France when given the choice. I had the advantage of being able to set up all along my side of the table (south) while The Allies only had about 2/3 of the north side to deploy.

 

France's battle line.

Ally's battle line, boxed in on one side due to the hills and woods.

 

Knowing the Allied restriction and how important it is for infantry to be moved into a position to bring their muskets to bear I set up my infantry in column, thus they moved quicker than in line formation (10" move in column, 6" move in line). I had 2 infantry units in column and my first few moves were getting them to the middle of the field and formed in lines up against the Allies.

 

I immediately lost an cavalry unit on my left flank from Allied cannons. I accidently moved my skirmishers too far but, fortunately, that misstep was not a game changer. The Allies also moved skirmishers into the woods and they took pop-shots at each other. Than we both decided to move cavalry into the woods and a bloodbath ensued resulting in The French holding the woods with the aforementioned skirmishers.

 

Princes of The Woods of Death!

 

French lines holding and bearing fire upon the Allies in the middle of the field.

 



 

A slug fest ensued after the brutal fight in the woods. We exchanged fire and adjusted lines where needed. In the end the French came out the victorious ones. Moves were being made by both sides to take the town in the middle but all was for naught as it was too late. Heavy casualties resulted in The Allies withdrawing from the field.

 

French units moving towards the edge of town, anchoring the right flank's pincher move.

 

Spencer set up the table before I got there, and he drew up maps so that we could do a "blind" deployment prior to coming to the game. The big lesson of this game, for me at least, was how important infantry are. Bravo!

 

Edit: Not 30 Years' War - 7 Years' War.





OryCon35 is done, and it was very fun

We had a great time at OryCon. On a Zombie Squad level and on a personal level.

The fantable was run well by my wife Gretchen, Media Officer Tifni, Vice President Nate, Financial Officer Jane, and her husband Michael. We had a ton of visitors and got plenty of information out. We even held a raffle that was a success and raised some money for the Susan Petrey fund.
http://www.osfci.org/petrey/

The panels I was on went well. Some I spoke a lot in, some I did not. All was good. I go where needed.

The Game-anon panel (gamer lifestyle) centered on nerds bullying nerds. Jason Andrew (White Wolf) was the moderator and he focused us well. Rhianon Louve was a panelist, as was I obviously, and she was a perfect representative of the female aspect of gamer culture. We talked about bullying within the gamer community, touched on gaining the skill to determine what is and is not bullying, hygiene, women at the gaming table, delving out of the gamer culture a bit, ... and stuff like that. A really good talk in my opinion.

The Comics to Movies panel also went well. I did not bring much to the table as some other heavier industry people took over and that was fine. Other than "Avengers was cool..." I was able to bring up The Walking Dead comic to The Walking Dead TV show and how i felt about it (all good, my favorite TV show right now).

Saturday was the Practical Preparing for the Apocalypse panel. I sat on it with Karen Black (not the actress that just passed away this year but the writer and modern pioneer), Roget Rothferd and Rory Miller who moderated. It went well and was well-attended. We seemed to focus on defining what your "apocalypse" is, infrastructure, and the kinds of things one can do now in case there is a major disruption of life as we know it.

Jesse and Chin Chin from Heroes of Cosplay hung out with us a little bit at our table too. Good couple of folks and a lot of skill there. Hoping to work with them in the future some.

We had a room for Saturday night, it ended up being on the party floor, whoops. Anyways, we ended up partying a bit Saturday night. First we did a podcast via our friends Mathew and Brandon from The Orcbelly Inn. Brandon is Brandon Weaver and can be seen this December as Warbucks in the Annie production going on out in Forest Grove:
http://theatreinthegrove.org/wp/

After the podcast recording Gretchen and I, Nate, Brandon and Mathew set out to party and we did. By midnight it got a bit much for us old kids (Gretchen and I) so we went to bed.

We got up and had a delightful breakfast in Hospitality after a good shower and packing up some. We had great conversation with a lady dressed as a Jedi Knight and a gentlmen dressed like... well... a guy from the Pacific Northwest with his fleece vest and flannel shirt.

Some things to remember for next year:
1) Bring some healthier food. Like healthy meals.
2) Wash hands more often - I caught the Con-Crud.

I did get some good deals in the dealer room:
Shane Harris of Redwulf  http://www.etsy.com/shop/RedwolfLtd  gave me a discount on some "early period" brooch pins and hair pins for my wife. I've known the guy for almost a few decades via the SCA.
Red Castle Games  http://redcastlegames.com/  gave me a little some-some of a discount on a Pathfinder map. I'm addicted to those laminated maps for my RPG table. Love those things. Then we talked about my opinion on new RPGers playing Pathfinder. I'll get into that in another blog post.
Guardian Games  http://www.ggportland.com/  gave me a little some some of a discount with some wargaming dice. Always appreciate that. Then we talked about maybe hosting a Saga demo in the future.

Next year we plan to work with The Orcbelly Inn to bring a great party to the Con.

Going to OryCon this weekend

Not that I am a big con-goer guy, I go to them when I can but it's not imparative I go, I will be at OryCon this weekend.

First and foremost I will be representing Zombie Squad Oregon (ZSC011). I am president of the chapter and am on the "Practical Survival of the Apocalypse" panel Saturday afternoon. Also we have a fan table and manning that will be me, my wife Gretchen, ZSC011 vice president Nate, media officer Tifni, and Financial Officer Jane. Also in attendence for us will be varying members of ZSC011. Further, we are hosting s small room party Saturday night. On top of all that we are holding a raffle, funds will be donated to one of the OryCon scholarships, prize being a backpack and some bug out bag goodies.

Adding more to my plate (and thus other ZSC011 officers) I will be paneling at 2 other panels - Comic book and Movies Panel and Geekanon - gamer geek lifestyle panel. It's a long story how I got on those. Jist of it: I filled out a panelist interest survey, they used that to volunteer me on 3 panels. It's all good and I am honored to have been considered for the other 2 panels. I'm just some shlub... a fan... a consumer. The others on the panel are creators and known people in the industry.

After all that it's back to work on Monday, Veteran's Day, and a bunch of "thank you for your services" and back patting... which I don't care much for. Oh well, it's how it is for some of us vets and if that makes people feel better than so be it.

My fantasy at the con is to find a great deal on some gaming stuff that I want or could need in the dealer's room. One time at a comic con, one of them small ones at the Memorial Coloseum, I found two boxes of GW Lord of the Rings figures - Riders of Rohim, orcs with sword and shield, orcs with long spears, goblins, Gondorian soldiers - and the dealer was letting them go for $16 a box. I'm still using some of these minis on my gaming table today. I had also found some Elvgrin pin up reprints and a box of Bettie Page trading cards for cheap. This was back in 2002 and the only time I ever found such deals at a con of any kind.

Anyways, I should also see a lot of old-timey friends and acquantices there so looking forward to the weekend.

In other news - finished my Saga Warlord and 3 points of hearthguard - Vikings!!!:

A-frame viking longhouse I made and some wattle fencing.