MAG CON

This has been a really great weekend!
First things first, I want to give some 'atta boys to some guys who made our Con experience great.  First off, Justo gets a huge pat on the back for putting this thing together.  He did a fantastic job and is a truly pleasant person.  There is absolutely no way you cannot love this guy, I really look forward to any future event that he has a hand in.
Ed Teixeira and his wonderful Wife from Two Hour Wargames.  What a cool dude.  Lots o' patience and a great sense of humor always rates highly in my book.  Ed ran two games of ATZ and a game of Nuts! while we were there and a great time was had by all.  All the games were loaded out and he kept them running smoothly.  Most importantly, the excitement and laughter coming from his table was a testimony to the great rules he produces.  I will never miss an opportunity to game with Ed.
I'd also like to give special thanks to Gary Denton who was running some games of "Pirates".  My kids saw the little ships and fell in love at first sight.  Thanks Gary, for being so patient with them and I'll have you know that they still have not come down from their buzz.  They told me to tell you thank you very much.
Lastly, thanks to all the other guys who gamed with us.  Everyone was pleasant and made the games really enjoyable.  This is what it is all about!

In my opinion, the mark of a great game, and of great gamers is the ability to simply have a great time.  One observation I made during the Con was the mood and "fun factor" at the different game tables.  I've already mentioned how much fun we had playing with Ed and Gary, and there were some other games where the players were animated and looked to be having a wonderful time, but I noticed that at some of the games the mood was quite different.  Things like arguing about a half a mm of firing distance etc.. and rigid adherence to mechanical rules and this reminded me why I set out to find something new in the first place.  If you ever find yourself in this type of game go check out games like Two Hour Wargames or something similar and have a go.  It might just change your gaming world, it did ours.

Unfortunately I was unable to do any Batreps because there were simply too many players and it was too fast and furious to even attempt.  I did manage to snap some pics.


Friday night I brought the kids out to the Con and we had a nice game of ATZ.  The mission was to find a dog who was lost in the mall.  Of course, the Zeds were going to make this a darned tough proposition.

At one point, Dad found himself in a very tight situation but managed to survive.  It was very exciting.  Dad is the little bitty guy in the white shirt with the shotgun slung over his shoulder.  His poor partner didn't make it out of this one.  Eventually, later in the game Dad went back to try to help a companion who had been knocked down and wound up being Zed chow himself.  Did you really expect anything different?

The good news is that both Nick and Maggie survived.  They did not complete the objective but they did manage to get off the board alive and this turned out to be an accomplishment in itself.  In this pic we see the last couple of players trapped in the alley between the malls with Zeds closing from all sides.  They put up a valiant effort but you know what eventually happened don't you?

In the game of Nuts! I commanded a squad of British regular foot and Nick as always played the bad guys.  He was a Kraut grenadier squad.  The Allies started very cautiously and so of course Dad got things kicked off by running across the frontal fire zone of a MG42 but miraculously I got off really easy.  That was pretty much the story of the entire game.  The Germans were just snake bit on their rolls and we steadily worked away at them.  Even so, the first half of the game saw the Germans inflicting some fairly heavy casualties on the Allies, and I think we were even a little worried for a short time but not for long.  Once the Sherman got into action and knocked out the STG it was game over.  Just a matter of rounding up the stragglers.

I did not get any shots of the second ATZ game that LTL Mom participated in as I was tied up with the kids in their crazy Pirates game.  I understand that she did pretty well though, and that she OOF'ed another player that fired at her.  What was he thinking?  You never, never, never mess with LTL Mom, she's a Witch with the dice man.  I also understand that she went down to the Zeds after a hell of a fight at the end of the game.  This makes me feel a lot better because I was beginning to think she's not Human.  I'm not going to count it against her campaign though because it was way out of her control.

While talking to her about the game she told me something pretty funny.  She said she was kind of surprised at how cautious many of the players were.  She wanted to set an attack on the other group when the conditions were amiable but her team mates were a bit apprehensive of firing on the other players.  She also conveyed that she was really surprised that her teammate was wanting to stop to help trigger happy team members who were getting what they deserved.  She just wanted to leave them for Zed chow and get after the business of assassinating the other players while they were occupied with Zeds.

This was all new insight to me on the mindset of LTL Mom when she's playing ATZ.  If you get in her way, your simply going down.  Apparently she has no qualms whatsoever at eliminating anyone or anything that gets in her way.  I'll have to remember this..

Oh, and she called me a dumb @ss for going back to help Brian in my game. :)

I am now going to have a nice relaxing day at the house and play something with the kiddos.  The rest of you need to play ATZ today!