I Have Been To....Historicon 2024

 

"Wait for the Wagon" Regimental March of the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps...

I have been remiss, no, actually I've just been bloody lazy, when it comes to reporting on my time at Historicon this year. It was the usual mix of feelings and emotions for me. Mostly good, some negative, but certainly better than no wargaming at all. 

Work meant I was under the gun to prepare for the four games I ran. I managed, though, even if I did detail my last terrain pieces the morning of their game... I ran four games, played in one, failed to make a second game (my apologies to the GM), bought some things and talked to a lot of friends I only see a couple of times a year. 

The game I did play in was run by Jim P. and assisted by my friend Bill M. It was a re-fight of Pickett's Charge from Gettysburg and consisted of around 1200 (yes, that is indeed twelve hundred) 54mm figures spread over three six foot wide by twenty-four feet long tables. 

Jim carted all of this from his home in Illinois over a two day drive, just for this convention. He made up a set of rules, built the terrain, including several scratch-built buildings, and tested his more than once with friends in the Midwest before bringing this amazing game to Lancaster. 

The Bliss Farm that Jim modelled in memory of a friend of Bill's and mine, Elwood "Woody" Christ

The dastardly Confederates have gained the Emmittsburg Pike. 

The brave Union boys in blue awaiting the Johnnies. I commanded Stannard's Vermont Brigade on the lower right-hand corner of the picture. 

The game was simple enough, the Confederates attack and try to take the Union position, the Federals must try to stop the Confederates. Regiments were five stands of six figures...all in 54mm! Batteries were two or three gun models with four crew each. Six sided dice were used. Movement rates were big, naturally. 

My opponents, Nate and his son. A very nice father-son team. First class, all the way. 

Wargame Rule #27: Never play against anyone under 12, because you will lose...

Stannard's boys standing firm, like the Green Mountains. 

Jim was generous enough to paint up a couple of units for me to represent the 13th and 14th Vermont Regiments. The 1st USSS replaced the 16th VT for the game. I was very thankful to Jim for being kind enough to do this, it meant a lot to me. 

The Maestro himself, before Thursday's game. 

And there's Bill M. getting ready to broadcast via his YouTube Channel, Bill's Wargame World...

To be fair, the game was huge bags of fun. We played 12 turns in four hours, including the briefing and we had at least 14-16 players. It wound up being a Confederate victory, but it was a nail biter all the way. The Union and Confederates went back and forth in the middle and even on the far end of the table. But my end held firm, until the very end. 

"There stand the Vermonters! Standing like a Maple Wall! Rally on them!"

"Maple Wall" Stannard? Hmmm....

One thing that was truly nice to see, was HMGS awarding Jim a PELA award for his game. PELAs are given to those GMs who go above and beyond to create fun and exciting games. And this was truly well earned. 

All in all, it was one of the most fun games I've ever played in and certainly ticked off almost every box in my mind. I would play in this again (no, Jim, I'm NOT asking you to run it again...). 

As far as the rest of the convention, more anon. 

Weekend Update

 The ridiculously hot and humid weather here in SE PA has made life miserable, especially since my civvy job is normally at -20 degrees F. Anything that involves me being outside for any length time literally sucks the energy out of me. 

Fortunately, I have chores inside for most of the day and an early completion of most of them (running low on coffee, so that's one trip that MUST be done) means I can take stock of this past week. 

Work has been quite busy, but I've managed to get in one game last weekend with the crew up in NE PA and get some work done on hills for my El Guettar game at Historicon. 

First up, on the 29th of June I was able to get to Kingston, PA and run my most recent test drive of El Guettar to fine tune some things for Historicon. 

John the OFM (left) and Roger B. (right)

Mike S. was our host (who provided very tasty and very LARGE sandwiches for our mid-game break) and we had John the OFM, Roger, Jim K. and Mike play the dastardly Germans of the 10th Panzer Division. For the Yankee Doodle Dandies, it was Darrell, JIM B., and Mark C defending the avenue of approach to the oasis and village at El Guettar. 

The objective of the Germans was to get off the road on the other side of the board. The Americans had to stop them. I gave each side four tanks. If you look closely, the tanks are highly accurate reproductions as per the movie "Patton", upon which this game is based. 

We used What A Tanker for the rules, but I opted not to use the infantry (with the rules mods) for this game to keep things simpler for the players. Which in the end was a Good Idea. 

Turn 2 and Mark went BOOM! 

As it went, the German struggled to hit anything after Mark's first tank went up in flames. And the Americans struggled to move. Darrell, in fact, rolled double ones on his first turn when trying to move, causing his to stall out and lose the rest of his turn. And he continued to roll about that same level for the rest of the game. 

The Immobile Farce...looking very...statuesque.

Jim the Paint Scratcher, make American Motor Sergeants mad with all the dings and dents

The game went 12 turns over three hours, not including a half-time break for supper. Eventually, the Germans were able to maneuver their tanks around the immobile Americans, who could shoot, but just couldn't get any Move dice. Ultimately the Germans managed to get two tanks off the board, with one damaged and one destroyed. The Yanks had one tank in flames, one badly damaged, one whose crew bailed out and were cowering somewhere waiting to be slapped by Georgie Boy Patton, and Darrell's lumbering tank that maybe moved 12 inches all night. 

Overall, things went well for what I needed to see in the game. I have a couple of more adjustments to make, but it's ready for Prime Time. 

And of course, it wouldn't be a PAWM club game without...

The flaming wreck of the tank commanded by Herr Oberst Johann von OFM (not shot in the back by his own side, but from the front by Darrell in his lumbering tank)

Nine Months to Gettysburg

Today is the 4th of July. Independence Day here in Doodle Land. 

It's also the day after the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the most written of battles of the American Civil War and, to my mind, one of the most interesting. If for no other reason than I live in Pennsylvania, and I've visited the place probably a couple of hundred times.

As a member of the Vermont Army National Guard, I have a particularly soft spot for the two brigades of troops from Vermont who fought at Gettysburg. 

The second of the two brigades that came from Vermont, under the command of George Stannard, was composed of men who enlisted for only nine months service. 

General George Stannard

The brigade consisted of the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Vermont Regiments and they had spent the majority of their time guarding places and things, instead of campaigning with the Army of the Potomac. 

The movement of the Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania changed that, and the brigade was attached to the I Corps instead. 

Detaching the 12th and the 15th Regiments at Westminster, Maryland, the rest of the brigade arrived late on the 1st of July. The brigade engaged in a small action on the 2nd of July at the Codori farm which resulted in the capture of approximately 80 soldiers from an Alabama unit and a cannon. 

The Codori farm in the distance. The barn is post-war in colour and size.

Witnessing the attack, one grizzled veteran asked the newcomers who they were. The answer was "We're the Green Mountain Boys!". The veteran shot back "I figured you were green. Only green troops would act so foolishly". 

On the 3rd of July, the men of the 16th Regiment were deployed as skirmishers across the front of one part of Cemetery Ridge. The other two were in reserve, resting. 

As the attack that would become known as "Pickett's Charge" unfolded, the 16th Regiment was pulled back and the three Vermont regiments formed up in line of battle. As the Confederates advanced, Stannard used the terrain to his advantage to gain the left flank of troops that were supporting the three brigades of Pickett's Division and catch them in the flank with withering volleys. He then wheeled those regiments to the left and fired into more supporting Confederate infantry, blasting the attack apart with a withering fire. 

The II Corps commander, Winfield Scott Hancock, was with Stannard and his staff when he was hit and seriously wounded.

The area where Hancock was wounded

Because of the actions of Stannard and his men, the Confederates were forced to divert forces to face the threat from the Vermonters, thus taking away combat power from the attack on what would be known as the High-Water Mark. 

After the battle, the brigade, less the 12th Regiment, took part in the pursuit of the Confederates, but were soon re-directed back to Vermont. Some took part in suppressing the New York City Draft Riots. 

The regiments of the brigade were all discharged by August. George Stannard himself continued to serve the rest of the war, being wounded a number of times and losing his right arm in the process. 

The monument to the brigade at Gettysburg has a statue of General Stannard standing atop. 

A Whale Of A Tale

When I started the blog, the intent was to average one post a week. As I have heard numerous friends with hobby blogs tell me, starting is easy, staying started is a little more difficult... 

My civvy job has been time consuming and this was added to by a four-day drill with my Brigade last weekend. Between normal staff officer things, the exercise we are using for staff training, and random events like a bear popping up in the barracks dumpster and a kamikaze fawn charging us during our morning run, it wasn't boring, just busy. 

But that's not the tale in the title that I speak of. 

In August I will finally (fingers crossed) begin my MS degree through SUNY Maritime College. The degree is in Naval and Maritime Studies and is very focused on history, literature, etc. 

My faculty advisor provided me a reading list and I purchased several books, including the one below. 

Dolin's book is about the overall history of whaling in America. And he states up front, there is no debate on the moral or ethical nature of whaling. It's just the facts, ma'am. The whaling industry is not something I've ever read about before, despite growing up in that area, and I am developing a whole new appreciation for how it impacted both the economic direction and social development of the English colonies in North America. 

The author does a wonderful job. His style is engaging and he doesn't overburden the reader with details or assumptions. The chapter he devotes to the sperm whale is fascinating. I did not realize how very little we know about whales in general and the sperm whale in particular. 

Concurrently, my good friend Mark N. had recently reported on a whaling game based on Moby-Dick at the HUZZAH! convention in Maine. You can read about it here:

My Brave Fusiliers!: Hunting Moby Dick or The Revenge of the Whale

I remember the original games done at Historicon years ago and I thought they were very clever, though I never did get to play in one. 

One thing I found interesting in Dolin's book, is that Moby-Dick was taken from an actual giant bull sperm whale from the Pacific, known as Mocha Dick. Named for the island where he was found, Mocha Dick was every bit the legend in real life that Moby-Dick was in fiction. 

As gamers, we sometimes may choose a period or scenario which may seem a bit on the edge or cause a raised eyebrow or two. But reading Leviathan, I think I now give the whale even odds when it comes to fighting the hairless monkeys in their little wooden boats. 

Anyway, more about gaming anon. I've got another test drive of one of my Historicon games tonight up in the wilds of Luzerne County. 

Hunting The Whale will have to wait for another time...

OttoCon AAR

 This past weekend, I trekked out to Carlisle, PA to the Comfort Inn on Hanover Street for the Society of Daisy's annual gathering, known as OttoCon. 

Founded as The Weekend, by Daisy founder, Otto Schmidt, after his passing it was named in his honour. 

All games, really, are welcome, be they miniature wargames or boardgames. But the focus is always to put on something different, unusual, and especially, fun. 

Tracy Johnson, our current Grand Pooh-Bah, is pretty much the entire staff, although I traditionally assist him (I'm the Volunteer Staff).  For 25 bucks for the weekend or 15 for the day, you get to play in anything and everything available. 

Sadly, circumstances beyond control (aka "Life") managed to keep some Daisys away and cause other to have to leave earlier than expected. Attendance was a couple of dozen, this year. Down from our peak of 90 +/- pre-COVID. 

But the stalwarts who came brought some excellent games.... 

Eric Ackermann put on an excellent Hordes of The Things (HoTT) game set in Barsoom on Mars, between two Martian forces. This was my first time playing HoTT and I loved it. He used 60mm-ish Dollar Store figures converted and homemade Airboats. 

This was a fun and creative game. Just as it should be for OttoCon. 

There were some other interesting games, some homemade, some using commercially available rules. 

Robert Ricigliano put on a Mid War WW2 meeting engagement in Russia with his homemade rules. I did not happen to get to play in this particular game, but the terrain looked nice and the miniatures were excellent. 

Keith Wyttenbach put on a very nice WW2 British Paras versus Germans in Arnhem game with A Fistful of Lead. The figures were absolutely stunning. Another game that I was not able to play in. 

My own game, The Battle of El Guettar, a la the 1970 movie "Patton". This was a test drive for Historicon and the feedback the players provided has been very helpful and much appreciated. 

The game is about 1/48th scale for the tanks and 1/32nd scale for the infantry. I used the Too Fat Lardies rules, "What A Tanker", which is a fast fun set. 

Another fun set of rules, and something I thought I'd never say about an Age of Sail set of rules, was Form On The Admiral's Wake. This was a 1/1200th scale game run by Keith. I led the van of the Royal Navy against the dastardly French and we gave them a solid thrashing. It was a very enjoyable game. 

My dashing ships beating the Frogs soundly! Soundly, I say! 

All in all, OttoCon was a very good, if sparsely attended, show. I brought a 28mm King Philip's War game that never left the box due to my own fatigue and a lack of players. Hopefully, next year the Steering Committee and Planning Staff will be able to reach more folks and we'll get a better turnout. 

Still, a couple of days in Carlisle playing games is not a bad way to spend the weekend. 

To Da Shores of Triple-Lee...

 Saturday night I played in a game pitting the might of the US Navy and US Marines against the unwashed hordes of a maritime commercial enterprise based in a Mediterranean clime. 

No less a personage than John the OFM played the part of Major Smedley O'Bannon Carroll, of the USMC Horse Marines, leading The Sultan to safety, away from the clutches of his rivals, El Kaboom (Jim B.), El Kabang (Mark C.) and El Kabong (Mike S, our host...). And if we happened to sink any of their ships that would be lovely... 

Major Carroll was ably supported by the NEPA Naval Squadron, consisting of the USS Berwick, USS Pittston, and the USS Kunkle. 

Above: The USS Kunkle, pride of the NEPA Squadron, riding at anchor, ready to "bash the Bashaw".

The rules were devised by Darrell, our GM, and the game was a Combined Operation, which really means that our die rolls sucked on ice, both on land and sea. 

In fact, the Pirates couldn't roll worth a damn, either, Allah be praised! 

El Kabong and El Kabang looking dejectedly down at their commands, in preparation for how sucktastical their dice rolling would be.

The mighty USS Kunkle fending off all comers! Which in reality meant that despite seven attempts to ram me, Mike couldn't do anything but scrape the barnacles off my stern. Neither of us could cause any damage with our cannon or muskets. 

Darrell, our GM, trying to comprehend how we could defy all laws of mathematical probability and screw up his perfectly crafted and well thought out scenario. I mean, there MAY have been a disturbance in the Farce, but we really set a new club low for wiffy dice. 

Somehow, Major Carroll and his Horse Marines managed to get The Sultan onboard one of the two locally hired D'hows. If they had performed any worse in their gunnery, they could have been called "D'ohs!", that's how poorly they rolled. 

The game also featured the improbably scenario of dismounted Horse Marines, in a whaleboat, trying to board one of Mark's feluccas to kill bad guys. As Darrell didn't have any dismounts, the stands of mounted Marines were left on the boat, and....yeah. 

Out of an abundance of caution for readers' sensibilities, I chose not to take electronic lithographs of said scene. Enough to say that we had a good chuckle and there were a number of inappropriate jokes made all around. 

A view of the action, with James, commanding the USS Pittston, in the corner. In the foreground, the USS Berwick cleverly uses the tactic known as "hiding behind your shipmate", as she skates behind the brave little USS Kunkle. 

Jim B and John the OFM staring at the disaster that unfolded on the table. John, in his guise of Major Carroll, managed to kill off Jim (as El Kaboom), when Jim tried a dashing and daring cavalry charge against a line of really cheesed off US Marines in line with supporting artillery. I mean, after all, what could go wrong, given how badly we rolled all evening....except this one time John rolled well....

As the various vessels sailed and rowed their way into a Schuylkill Expressway like traffic jam, The Sultan was aboard and trying to get away. Mark's double parked felucca prevented that, but then again, nobody could fire a shot that hit anything...somewhere there are a bunch of actuaries that are preparing to self-immolate over the Laws of Probability that were violated last night. 

In the end, Darrell called it, and in the post-game recriminations phase universally condemned the dice as the reason for failure. 

It was a great time, with good friends. I predict that the handling of the USS Kunkle shall be studied as an example of Littoral Combat Operations for future generations of Naval Officers. Praised be to him that saved The Sultan! 

And Yet More Gratuitous Tank Pictures

 Work continues apace on American armour for both Historicon games. 

So far I have completed the tanks for both sides in the El Guettar game. I'll run a preview game at OttoCon in June. 

The M41 Walker Bulldogs playing the role of Shermans in the movie "Patton".

For my other game, the "Road To Ambleve", a wind up of the 1965 movie, "The Battle of the Bulge", I finally finished the four M24 Chaffee light tanks. All of them have names, but I made sure to paint up Sgt. Guffey's tank (played by Telly Savalas). I just need to get some 1/48th scale stowage to tart it up. 

Between work and the garden, it's finding time to get the rest of the infantry for both sides completed, as well as two M5 3-inch Anti-Tank guns purchased from FUBAR Designs. 

Back to the painting bench.