[Wargaming] Last weekends con; DBMM and Fighting Battleships.
So Lincon came and went as it does every year. Myself, not a regular attendee by any stretch of the imagination. I went back hard into wargaming again during the pandemic, and between my health issues and other engagements in life, it was my second time going there since the late nineties. While the playing in the DBMM tournament and hosting a Great War naval scenario were the main things I experienced, it's always a nice feeling to wander around a bit on cons.
Aimlessly strolling around the Uni where it's held on Thursday evening, peeking into the different rooms filled with gaming of all kinds, the shops and their displays and the general bustle and hustle of people sitting everywhere in the corridors playing (mainly) board- and cardgames always bring up mixed feelings in me.
On one hand, it's heartwarming to see all the "striped elephants and spotted bunnies" gather together to find their tribe and be around people that share their interests and in general have a good time. Perhaps making bonds that last a lifetime, perhaps just to create great memories with people they never meet again. I tend to walk around smiling, happy to see all the odd characters that make up our wonderful hobby have their own little space in the world. On the other hand there is always that nagging feeling of being the Little Matchgirl, sitting on the outside looking in. Having jumped around between cities, hobbies, friendships and living a vastly different life from one decade to the next comes with its drawbacks. No roots at all is one of them. Becoming older and realising that the nagging feeling of alienation and being an outsider is valid has been a blessing. Even though it has run like a common thread through my life, it no longer causes angst like it used to, just a sense of longing for something I never had coupled with a softness that I need to comfort the sorrow-filled child within.
Bittersweet is the word, said Jack.
Don't traumadump on your readers, said the inflamed colon.
However it might be with my personal development throughout the years, I had a blast playing in the DBMM tournament on Friday. What a difference a day makes in the life of a squirrely-brained person, especially so after waking up next to my very own spotted bunny who gave me a good-morning kiss and sent me on my way for a playdate with the boys so to speak.
Doing a pivot at the last moment, I decided against the 3/11 Avar-list. In the end, I would love to play them at 400AP, but for 220AP they are too hard to play for me, due to their high cost units.
Instead I brought my book 2/71 Gepid Kingdom. Johan, whom I did a couple test-games against in prep for the event, had the idea that I should leave the Bw at home and bring a Kn+Wb army with a sprinkle of Ps to hold the flanks. Maybe a bit boring, but I went for it anyway just to bring something I was a bit more used to instead of scores of CvS and LhS.
'Lo and Behold; I fucking won the whole thing!
With one of the (objectively) worst armies of book 2 to boot!
Now, I will be the first to say that luck had a part in it as I rolled high when I needed to and low when it didn't matter.
I did however manage to use terrain to my advantage, creating corridors that fit my commands snugly while being able to run the Ps into the terrain, while also avoiding fighting against troops my army was bad at handling. Tactics I guess it's called, a previously unknown factor in wargaming in the Skaldo-sphere.
First game was probably the tightest in a sense. It could have gone either way in the first few bounds as I faced Johan’s 3/18 Breton. The terrain was not perfect, but as he said himself "My viking allies always underperform". Yeah, I feel ya. Quick-kills all around chopped them up good and even though the game was even at a start, when it went south, it went south fast.
VP-score: 20-5 in my favor.
Against Samen's 3/18 Franks I managed to get a really good deployment both in terms of the army and more importantly the terrain. I split his army into two and destroyed them piecemeal, aided by good dicerolls. I was a bit worried about his Bd-command for the first bound or two until I realised they were BdI. The plan was to hold my Wb back on that flank and keep them in some terrain to aid me, but once it dawned on me that they were poor quality, I let slip the dogs as it were.
VP-score: 22-3 to me.
At table 1 for the final (and the previous games by luck of the draw), I met Daniel and his 3/44 Tribal Mongolians. Again, I had good terrain placement that mostly stopped his ability to run amok with the Mongol LhS, while my KnF smashed into the Cav and made mincemeat of them. It was the longest game of the day, and it could have easily gone the other way with different dice rolls or if he had managed to get around my flanks. When it dawned on me that I was winning, I actually became a bit nervous and made a couple of silly errors with poor movement for an element of Wb and its Ps flank protection. Thankfully, Daniel didn't have a chance to capitalize on the poor tactics (or he didn't put enough weight into the blunder) before I could shore up the battle line with some reserves, and the game was effectively over. I forgot to take a single picture..
VP-score: Another 22-3 to me.
With a total of 64 VP over 3 games it's by far the best results I have had in any tournament previously, the previous record was 8 (!!) points.
On Saturday me and Andreas hosted our Battle of Jutland-scenario using the Fighting Battleship ruleset. At this point I was kind of beat after the physical toll from the previous two days, and in the end we only got one player for the whole event. Previous times we ran the Jutland scenario at cons, we had 4 and 8 players respectively. Probably that's about the number interested in playing Great War naval gaming in all of Sweden.
We decided that for next year we are putting on something different, and I have started writing a ruleset for fantasy naval battles in Man o' War-esque style, but brought into the modern gaming space with mechanics to boot. I'm thinking card activation, command friction and dice pool mechanics with no modifiers for everything, including magic. Watch this space for the upcoming year.
I also managed to re-read Count Zero by W. Gibson during the week (and listened to metal, more on that in a later post). While Neuromancer kicked everything off for him, CZ is a much better book when it comes to penmanship. It's maybe not as grandiose as the previous book in the series, but has a better narrative flow and especially dialogue between the different characters. 8/10, would read again (in 20 years).
After CZ, I started reading Bog People: A Working-Class Anthology of Folk Horror by H-Starling and am so far on the 4th story. Dark, a bit cozy, a bit sad, a bit mysterious and so far an easy read. A lot of small bits that strike the right kind of nerve with themes of loneliness, thoughts of suicide, sorrow and fighting against your whole world.
These are common thoughts and feelings at the core of the human experience. They bubble up at one point or another, and we actively need to work on not drowning in them.
Work on, not against.
Sometimes, by winning a tournament against your friends in a game that you all love.