Last Stand Dan: Recruits

Showing posts with label Recruits. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

World War One Bolt Action at Recruits

I just wanted to post this up for my good friend Bill of Bill's Gamer Garage. He put this on at our club a few weeks ago for the big play test. He will be putting this game on at Recruits this coming weekend.

Using a modified WWI variant on this professionally done board was loads of fun! I hope you get to play it this weekend. Definitely, visit Bill's dealer table if you get a chance. He will have some very nice terrain features for your table. He will also have some of my boats there as I will have some of his terrain at Recon in Orlando.

Have fun,

Last Stand Dan

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Bolt Action at Recruits 2013

This was the Field House where the convention was held at Lee's Summit High School

If you read the previous post you would have seen that Jim Finneran and myself both ran Bolt Action events at Recruits. It worked out great where we could help each other out. We were both bouncing off rules questions, game situations, etc. between us. This really helped me out. I also got great tips on how to build a better board next time thanks to suggestions and ideas from Jim. Can't thank him enough.

Anyway, Jim ran Bolt Actions sessions 1, 2, 3 and 4. I ran Bolt Action in sessions 1, 2, 6 and 7. Jim had this great idea to have a log in sheet which I will incorporate into my next demonstration games. Just by the pictures below you can see that we both had a great turnout.

I ran an Italian scenario pitting squads of American GIs against smaller Veteran Squads of Germans. The first scenarios we only used infantry units. Then added a vehicle on each side later. The rules are very easy to learn and everyone was pretty much moving on with minimal questions.

We covered all of the basic functions of the game. Moving, firing, Hand to Hand, vehicles, etc. We were at first a little weak on using HE but I think we have it worked out. Many of the players had purchased the rules but have either never played or maybe played once.

Some comments that I will send off to our friends at Warlord Games:

Can you give an advance order then have the unit Fire and then Move? If it was legal I would enforce the move penalty (non USA). I did ask Andrew at Warlord and got the answer. But wanted to let my NCO Warlord Brothers know about it if it came up in their game. Answer: Currently that is not allowed. The unit must move then fire.
If a unit runs or advances into a building our of LOS of an ambushing unit, can the Ambusher fire on them. So it seems if the unit advances into the building they can elect to fire. Then I would allow the Ambusher to fire first. If the unit ran into the building they would not be sticking their necks out anyway so I would not allow the Ambusher's to fire at them since they didn't see them enter the building anyway. Any comments would be welcome.

So here are some pictures with captions explaining the action.

Jim's Demonstration Table. 2 x 4 foot with room for troops and
dice rolling. A small 2 x 2 gaming area in the center. Perfect for a quick lesson!

Jim's other table for his "students" to play in an actual battle.
This was his Tarawa board placing Marines against a couple of
squads of Japanese Troops, MMG, pill boxes and a tank.

Here is my BA Battle board. It is collapsable. One side folds on
top of the other. We of course remove all of the terrain except
for the walls around the house and other field.

We had 6 players in the American/German battle.
Everyone had a great time.

Another view of my battle board.

Marines taking the beach. Jim made these palm tress from scratch.
His board texture is made using Durham Rock hard water putty.
The sea wall was made with wooden dowels. It all looked great!

Jim providing another taste of Bolt Action.

Soon Jim had players jumping on his Tarawa board playing by themselves.

Jim going through the rules

Americans and Germans fighting it out.

All three Bolt Action tables in action.

We took this picture because because it was an excellent Bazooka
shot on the Pz III coming out of the woods.

Once the Pz III went down, the Sherman was free to roam.

Americans moving quickly to take that house.

Germans moving through the woods.

Americans getting into position

RECRUITS - Great time!

Lee's Summit High School - Recruits!

Doug and I just returned from Recruits in Kansas City. The drive took a little over 9 hours but the I70 drive as you may know is pretty straight and flat. Doug brought along an Audio book about the Mongol Empire. It really made the time move along. A couple of fuel and food stops on the way and we were in Kansas. We stayed at a Fairfield Marriott about 2 miles from Lee's Summit High School. It was a very nice place to stay with everything you needed between us and the School facility, i.e., restaurants, stores, markets, etc.

We were more than pleased with the whole trip. This Con felt larger than our local events here in Denver. I have to say what really made this Con was the hospitality of the Staff and all the people we met. I can't wait to go back.

Nick Wilkowski coordinates Recruits. Nick and his staff were so helpful. The whole event was very well coordinated. By the way, signing up games for the event was effortless. Whoever handles their website and signup forms needs a pat on the back and our event leaders here in Colorado should take note. Besides the registration staff they had members on the floor making sure all of the games were moving along and the Game Masters were taken care of. They also had a snack bar at the Gym entrance which served up pizza, hot dogs, cookies, drinks, etc.

Nice Snack Bar

Entrance to Gym straight ahead

Recruits is scheduled in 3 hour sessions. So they had Sessions 1 through 7 from Friday Evening to Sunday morning/afternoon. They suggested that if your game took more then 3 hours simply sign up for the next session to make sure you had enough time. So Doug and I ran Bolt Action in Sessions 1, 2 and 7 and an SDS Napoleonic in 5 and 6. Well we did one SDS in 5 and Bolt Action again in 6. Everyone had a blast.

Surrounded by Dealers

Friday Afternoon setup

The entry fee was $5 for the entire weekend. There was no fuss with tickets and what events were open of closed, etc. You simply showed up at the event and played. I didn't see many people held out of any games. The whole process was well coordinated.

The gaming tables took up the entire Basketball Gym with the dealer tables all around the edges. It was a perfect setting playing your battles and able to get up between turns and walk up to a local dealer. I was looking for the 40k guys so walked around a bit. I noticed people going down one floor which basically is below the floor we were on. Well, there they were, the 40K tourney in all its glory. A very large space and couple of dealers that focused on Sci Fi were also there. Very nice setup.

Tables starting to fill

As you know they used to have Spring and Fall Recruits but have decided to makes this a larger event and concentrate on the one. As this event gets larger they will probably invite more Dealers to attend. I know Bill Daniel and John Wharrier have been trying to get more of us from CMH to attend and now I can see why. I mentioned to Nick that I would definitely be coming back and hopefully in force with more CMH and CSGA players playing and putting on games. He also mentioned to bring stuff to sell. He had a good point because he mentioned that they see a lot of the same stuff year after year. We have the same situation so it would be great to inject different items for sale and trade from our clubs.

We did run into Bill Daniel and Todd Pressley. It was great seeing them there. And I met many new friends! Dave Franklin, Bill Cauble, Larry Armin, Geoff McHarg, Phil Flores, Conrad, Mark Lueckenhoff, Jim Finneran to name a few. It was so good to meet all of you! I know we will be in touch and will be throwing dice with each other again soon.

I put on a Bolt Action Demonstration Game. The board build was on my last post if you want to check it out. We had a lot people interested in playing Bolt Action. Jim on his demonstration boards and my battle board always had players throughout the Con throwing down dice, asking questions and really, everyone picking it up pretty fast.

So that is it in a nutshell. Hope you enjoy the pictures.