Skirmish 2023 Pictures and Recap

 The inaugural Skirmish game con in Jacksonville, Florida has come and gone. I enjoyed it and look forward to returning in a year. I got in a handful of games and only had one unpleasant experience.

Some Wings of Glory to start the weekend. I resolved, years ago, to always take this game to cons; it is easy to set up and you can always find an opponent.

Some sweet classic Battletech.

"Above the Clouds" WWII aerial fighting. I was on the American side who handily sorted out their Japanese opponents. 

My flight

He got me! Just a nice shot. The gimbal mounts made for neat poses.

The French / Indian Canoe race. A lot of fun. The French trappers must ROW ROW ROW their boats laden with pelts to get away from the Indians.

The river. Any French canoe making it off the end would result in a French trapper victory.

I made the bold decision to spin it sideways with one of my two boats to give the Indians a bit of an obstacle. 

4-Siders represent tipped over boats and crews. The number indicates how many turns it would take before righting and re-boarding would occur.

Lots of cute scenery.

This big ol' crybaby named Steve blew a gasket when I was jinxing his dice rolls. You'd have thought I had just stolen his best gal. Apparently some guys really believe their opponents' voices can control dice results. He was also accused and found guilty of power gaming and rules-lawyering during an obviously silly casual game. 

But at the end of the night, Mark managed to get a canoe off the end securing a win for the French!

Saturday morning I woke up hungover as all get out and hosted a game of Dragon Rampant.

Only had three players but they all enjoyed it and the result was a victory for the good guys, even though Good Ash was run off in shame and Bad Ash was a complete killing machine.

Next up was Jim's Ronin game. Peasants and Bandits vs some priests.

Twas a very pretty table.

My rabble. I was on the side of "peasants and bandits."

Our enemy. The guys in yellow, not the pig!

Get 'em! BANZAI!

Nearly Naked Niko goes mano y mano with one of the better-trained priests.

In the end, it was a win for the rabble as the priests were overwhelmed. A great game with great players and game master.

Played some more WoG.

Saturday night Battletech Alpha Strike! Six player mayhem. This was a really good game to end the con with - low complexity, lots of loud boisterous characters and giant killy things. 

Lining up some shots

The goal was to dominate objectives (the orange spots) at the end of turn 6. Each objective had sleeping Planetary Defense Force units nearby.

My cross-table opponent had a very big stompy that could unleash an obscene amount of firepower. I was fortunate that my two mediums opposing it were a close match for it and my dice were interested in winning for a change.

But at the end of six, the Liao unit controlled the objective. Curses!

But it wasn't all bad news. I had some elementals capture the next objective over, that's one for the good guys!

The other two objectives were contested, so the result was a draw on VPs. Either way, a very enjoyable fight and hard-fought one.

Skirmish 2024 is on my to-do list!

Saturday Gaming - A Two-Fer!

Wayne, Mark and I got together Saturday for a day of gaming. We got to play the Halloween-themed Batman scenario and we took Wings of Glory out because it's always a good time.

Batman featured the three monsters I painted for Wayne a little over a month ago, plus a couple of zombie assistants versus the GCPD, Green Arrow and Black Canary. 

Our cemetery - shenanigans are underway. Some teenagers and their pet  opened a door they shouldn't have and read something better left unread. When will these kids learn?

Gordon and three SWAT officers pull up outside Griffin Park Cemetery. The Commish got a tip that there was quite a disturbance.

It took no time for Man-Bat to locate Green Arrow and swoop down on him! Oliver Queen managed to evade the monster's claws.

Scarecrow moved to assist Man-Bat, running into Black Canary.

At the same time, Solomon Grundy and one of the zombies moved to confront the cops. The hail of gunfire from the police was already proving to be quite severe.

Oliver and Dinah put some distance between themselves and the monstrosities, while protecting "Sgooby-goo."

Man-Bat and Scarecrow rush at Arrow who is injured quite severely! 

Commissioner Gordon radios the helicopter which puts a spotlight on the monsters in the back corner of the cemetery. A hidden SWAT sniper looses a round which takes down Scarecrow!

Back over at the entrance, Solomon Grundy is finally taken down by the police who had been fortunate to suppress the beast before he'd been able to start smashing cops in close combat. 

For some reason, I stopped taking pictures late in the game and that's it for Batman. In the end, the good guys lost Green Arrow and the bad guys lost Scarecrow, S.G. and two Zombies. I played Green Arrow and Black Canary, Wayne ran the cops and Mark was the bad guys. Final score was 9-4 in favor of the good guys, Man-Bat did make off with one of the teenagers! Fun game for sure. We had a bite then set up for game 2.

Wings of Glory was set up for game 2. The Americans (Mark) has two B-25s with a P-47 escorting and two bombing targets. The Japanese (me and Wayne) had four Nakajimas intercepting. 

The targets are circled in yellow.

Mark attempts a serious face, while Wayne stares into the distance... the thousand yard stare...

My planes for the day - Spotty and "Heigh Ho" Silver.

Wayne and I utterly botched the initial contact as the bombers trundled past. The Thunderbolt flipped over to harass us.

Blue Angels  eat your hearts out! Four Jap interceptors perform quite a display of aerobatics to the dismay of the Yakatori Stand and Field Hospital about to get shellacked!

But as it turns out, the Americans have a nearly identical amount of trouble and whiff their bombing runs, overflying the targets!

The Jug takes out Silver!

Moments later, the Thunderbolt and one of Wayne's planes plummet to the ground! It's a terrible crossfire between those two bombers.

The final turn. The bombers have again fouled up their bomb runs, Wayne's second plane is taken out. 

WoG was a hoot. The game takes some real experience to fly planes well and judge your position. We all had difficulty piloting but it kind of added to the fun. Need to put it on the table more often for sure.

Weekend Gaming

I actually got it a good amount of gaming on Saturday after what's felt like too long. Two games of X-Wing got me started. I was mercilessly beaten in both games by a couple of regulars at Savannah Lions game store. The two players who taught me a thing or two are both big into the competitive X-Wing scene out there. A learning experience for me to be sure but it was fun nonetheless.

After X-Wing, Mark and I got in a couple more game! First up was Dragon Rampant. I pulled out two lists and set up the table. Mark chose a force  (Time Travelers) and we played the Sacred Mole of Ukkert scenario.

The Time Travelers had to transport the Sacred Mole from corner to corner while my Dark Elves were tasked with stopping them and taking the Sacred Mole for themselves!

Witchy-Poo gets a bit froggy and decides to take the fight to the enemy. The impetuous Raveners stayed back in the woods.

The enemy. Roman cavalry, Amazons, Musketeers and Dr. What.

The spellcasters lob spells back and forth. My crossbowmen and Executioners advance. Witchy has retreated to the woods - all that standing out in the open nonsense is for the birds!

The Executioners and Amazons catch up with each other. It's an excellent matchup - my elite foot versus heavy foot with mystical armor! A few combat rounds later though, the Amazons' nerve breaks and they quit the field. 

The cavalry quickly take their place and smash into the Executioners! They wipe each other out. A good trade I think for the Dark Elves - one unit for two?

The Reavers break out of the woods to threaten the Musketeers. Time to start applying pressure while the Time Travelers are on their heels!

But before long, the crossbowmen and Witchy drive off the gunners leaving just the time traveling Dr. What alone with the Mole. A few hits later and What fell back. We ended the game there.

A lot of fun! It was great to play a straightforward swords, bows and spells battle. I really must put DR on the table more often.

Since that was a relatively quick game, we went in for another, this time Wings of Glory WW2.

A very ahistorical match-up, but who cares, right? Mark was on a bombing run with a B-25 and P-47 escort while I tried to intercept with an FW190 and Bf110. I also had a Bf109 as a reserve.

This sums things up tidily. I drew every single "special" damage chit in the dadgummed cup. Within the first three turns, the 190 had a wounded pilot, engine damage and could only turn right. The 110 could also only turn right and was smoking. The Yanks on the other hand were in the catbird seat.

The 109 made an appearance since I was getting my ass handed to me. It quickly also took a rudder hit and could only turn left. 😖

Eventually the game came to an end. I set the bomber aflame, then continued to hammer it with gunfire sending it earthward. The godforsaken Thunderbolt finally put the 190 out of its misery. 

Aside from or perhaps due to the atrocious chit pulls, it was a memorable, hilarious, wonderful game! I decided back in February at Rapier that I'll never go to another game con without taking the WOG stuff and this game is exactly why. It's an excellent, easy system that anyone can learn in about 120 seconds. So glad I've splashed the cash on my collection over the last few years.