Hurricon 2024: Friday

Stayed home Thursday due to 30+mph gusts on the highway. Made it to the con today despite low-pressure tires (and help from a kind gas station attendant despite our lack of a common language) in time for a 2pm game.

Magnetized planes on collapsible antennae.
The green Fokker is in a spin.

The first was Aerodrome, a remarkably simple WWI air game with an absolutely magnificent presentation:

It looks like a plane's dashboard but neatly shows every move required to play. There was even a little electronic switch with a light to show when we had completed our "orders."

To left and right, .22 shell casings to denote ammo.

Around the dials, movement orders - three per turn. Wooden dowels are placed here.

Above the dials, the number of shots we chose to take.

Below, damage points and height levels - ground, low, medium, high, very high (which neither the DR1s or Camels could reach). Colored plastic dowels denote these.

Movement is simultaneous, but you must plan three moves ahead, with little certainty of having an enemy in your sights. So fairly strategic, as you must anticipate enemy moves. Maneuvers include sideslips, Immelmanns (really Split S's), ordinary turns, stalls, and double right turns (aided by torque). Hits are automatic, provided you chose to fire during that segment - I was advised by a veteran player to always do this even if you weren't sure of a target, because the "field" was small enough that we were close in. A firing table cross-references range, crossing targets, height difference and whether you fired one burst or two. When hit, you roll a D20 against the number of hits you took, and if you fail, D10 on a crit chart that may set you afire, knock out your guns, screw up your steering, etc. The rate at which we were hit meant this was unlikely - you need to roll pretty low to take a critical but you only need to be hit two or three times to run out of basic HP.

A typical turn. On the first segment, I move forward two hexes
at medium height. In my second, I turn left and fire (If there are
no Germans in my line of fire, I'll be out of luck). In my third,
I move forward one hex. I have 12 hp and 20 bursts of
Vickers fire, four of which I'm using this turn.

A Belgian Camel.

My own ornery steed.

My Camel and a Fokker, one hex apart at the same height
with no deflection, automatically do 8 damage to each other.
Behind me, two planes in the same hex. (No chance of collision
unless you meet in cloud.)

Me spinning after an ill-advised attempt to turn in place.
That's a stall, and it's a 30% chance to fall into a spin.
One of my partners, last convention, had failed every single
stall he tried; this time out he passed them all.

After five 3-on-3 games, I'd been shot down four times, but gotten five kills (three of them shared) thus gaining the coveted title of ace and a few nice badges. I ran out of ammo during the fifth game, then escaped off the board.

The second game was the much-anticipated Quar: Clash of Rhyfles, which I'd spotted on the Quar Discussion Facebook group. There were two 1-on-1 games played simultaneously, with six or seven Quar a side.

Michael, who thus far had played two games but was not that familiar with the rules was running the game but had brought only one Rhyflers' handbook, so I had to take over with my experience of Youtube battle reports and Stew's sample AAR, but nothing else.

And I got it badly wrong, confusing activations with actions. We took each "leaf" of the activation cards to mean that one figure could take two actions, which stretched out the first turn to the point that it was effectively two turns. But the game was quite friendly, and we quickly got the hang of shooting. However, we also missed the Gobsmacked rule for much of the game - it's quite easy to get Gobsmacked but it took a while to get used to how it affected the Quar.

It didn't help that we didn't have activation or Gobsmacked markers.

My board.

My side - the dastardly Crusaders.

My opponents, the dashing Coftyrans.

A poor wounded Quar has been dragged into cover by his buddies.

Two of my chaps garrison a house.
(It was solid)

... beleaguered by advancing Coftyrans.

... ending with a climactic hand-to-hand brawl
inside the house.

End result - I had three dead Crusaders and two seriously wounded, and had killed only one Coftyran and seriously wounded another. It didn't help that a grenade had gone in through the window of my impromptu redoubt.

That said, it was a fun game that is clearly best played in a spirit of friendship and roleplay, and we both enjoyed ourselves. As we were cleaning up and talking with and buying from the GM, we had a few drop-ins curious about wargaming and had a welcoming little conversation.

A few other games:

Pete Panzeri's 80th anniversary Market Garden game.
Like the D-Day game he ran at Krieg Haus recently, it
is operation-scale with each base or vehicle standing in
for a company.

A colonial game - Russians vs Persians.

A display of the new Bolt Action set.

Vietnam air war.

A lovely WWI Middle East set up - Brits vs. Turks in the town.

See you tomorrow! (or rather today...)