Cold Wars 2017 Wrap Up

I apologize for the silence from Hanover the past six weeks or so. I was waiting on some purchases to arrive and was settling into a new job. This, I am glad to report, is at the Seminary Ridge Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. For those not familiar with the intricacies of the battle, the museum is house in the oldest building on the grounds of the Lutheran Theological Seminary, which was at the center of the fighting on July 1, 1863. The museum covers the events of that day, the building's use as a hospital for weeks after the fighting, and the role the seminary and surrounding community had in the development of faith and emancipation in the American Civil War. My role is largely managing the museum tour, but I also lead tours of the building's famed cupola (which offers a stunning view of the battlefield) and the seminary's campus. Though this position is only part-time and seasonal, it is a great fit for my interests and professional experiences and I have been enjoying it immensely thus far.

Schmucker Hall - The seminary's oldest building and my new workplace

Regarding my ongoing Chain of Command project, I finally received all the bits of terrain, extra vehicles, and accessories that I ordered after Christmas. Once I get the last of my 4Ground farm buildings assembled, I'll post a review. While I was hoping to pick up my infantry from my painter at the convention this weekend, but he's got a lot of other irons in the fire at the moment and will have them for me in a few weeks. I did however, get to pick up the rules and tokens from the Disposable Heroes 2 Kickstarter I backed in December (I had played a demo with the author back at Fall In! in November) and am looking forward to testing that ruleset out as well when the minis arrive.

Then came Cold Wars. One of the many advantages about being back in Pennsylvania is my proximity to the HMGS East shows, especially those at the Lancaster Host (located just an hour away). Just as in November, I was fortunate enough to get both Friday and Saturday off from work, and so was able to take it a good deal of the show. I was signed up for a participation game on Friday morning, but it was not what had been advertised in the Preliminary Events List, and instead utilized a set of homebrew rules that were terribly-written. As a result, I politely took my leave and killed some tiem walking around the gaming and tournament areas and grabbing lunch. Then, I moved onto the vendor area where I caught up with some friends and made some purchases. Once it opened, I made a pass through the flea market but didn't see anything that piqued my curiosity.

The vendor area in all of its glory

A photo from a Helm's Deep game in the main gaming area

More of Helm's Deep

A shot from the awesome World War II Burma Campaign game at the Wargames Illustrated booth (it won the best of show award)

After some more time catching up with my friend Chris from the Phalanx Consortium (a good friend from my Williamsburg days) in the vendor hall, I grabbed a quick dinner (from the awesome pig roast the hotel always puts on for the show in the lobby) and began setting up the participation game I was running that night. I had GM'd a few games back in high school but since GMs get free admission to the show and Chris was looking for someone to showcase the new Skirmish Sangin Platoon Plus rules (see my January 10 post), I was more than happy to volunteer.

The rules were originally set for release at the convention, but as I had said in some earlier posts, the preliminary playtests made us realize that the rules needed some more polishing before it would be ready for publication, so Colin (the author), Chris (the North American distributor), and myself decided that the participation games at Cold Wars would make for great blind playtests and would hopefully provide great feedback and constructive criticism for the game's development moving forward.

Taliban troops take cover behind a wall

The set up for Friday night's playtest

To my delight, both games had all their participant slots filled and I even took in a walk-up participant in each as well. Friday night's session began with a quick 10-minute intro to the rules and we jumped right in. I gave each side a basic platoon and the scenario up as a generic meeting engagement. This would be the quick of the two demos, as the British players spread their forces rather thin and kept allowing their fireteams to be caught in the open, resulting in horrendous casualties. After about an hour and a quarter of play, the British platoon was below half strength, while the insurgents had suffered only one casualty, so we called the game. Since there was still a great deal of time left in the time slot, the players agreed to stay on for a discussion of the rules - what they liked, what could be improved, and how we could make those changes. The consensus was that the biggest weaknesses seemed to be in the spotting mechanism and in the cover bonuses. We also discussed how the rules could better represent assymetrical warfare (for this we received some excellent invites from a convention attendee who had stopped and join the conversation and who had happened to work at ISAF air command in Kabul for the RCAF in 2008). The players agreed that the foundations of a good game were present, but it definitely needs some polishing.

Saturday afternoon's field of battle

A Taliban militia squad takes cover near a while, while the PKM team is shot up by British UGL rounds

Keeping these suggestions in mind. I made a few tweaks to the draft as it stands and prepped for the next day's game. I arrived at the show on Saturday morning, where I was joined by my father, who drove down from his place about an hour and a half away. After taking a walk through the vendor area and morning flea market, we took in a quick lunch and started prepping my second playtest. Set-up went much faster with a second set of hands (Thanks, dad!). This time around we had 7 players, most of whom were new to modern era gaming. Besides the minor tweaks to the rules, I changed the deployment a little bit from the previous evening's contest. Instead of a general meeting engagement, this time, I predeployed most of the Taliban squads to represent an ambush on the patrol. Overall, this game ran much smoother than Friday's - partly due to my edits and partly, I'm sure, to my growing familiarity with the rules. The players led their troops right into the fray and, for a time, it seemed that the game could go either way, but a few critical rolls went in the favor of the British troops (the British players used their support weapons with great success). After about two hours, it became apparent that the Taliban platoon would not be able to hold against the British and so we called the game a little early. We spent a few minutes afterward going over some of the points the other playtest group brought up and a few more suggestions were made for improvements.

Overall, it was another great show. Though I did not take part in a participation game as a player, the two games I hosted were well received and provided a lot of useful insight for improving the next draft of Platoon Plus. I also made out pretty well in the vendor hall and flea markets. I picked up some paint and flocking to spruce up my new 4Ground kits (more on that later), finally got the books and tokens from the Disposable Heroes 2 Kickstarter, and exchanged the "Mixed Ground" mat from Cigar Box mats for the plush version of their "New Grassland" mat. The colors of the new mat look march more realistic than the one I had picked up at Fall In and the plush pile of the mat give the ground covering some realistic depth. I also snagged an Army Painter Target Lock Laser Line, which will put an end to all line of sight debates in my future games. My favorite purchase, however, were some handmade trees and smoke markers I picked up in the flea market that were made by an 11 year-old girl who manning her table with her parents. The trees are well-proportioned and aren't made of the typical model railroad flock that falls apart all over the table. The smoke markers are definitely a much better fit for my 20mm vehicles than the larger ones I picked up a while back on Ebay. She was also selling baggies of homemade cookies! I was so pleased with the terrain and baked goods I bought Saturday morning that I went back in the afternoon session to pick up some more, but the family was gone. Maybe next time!

My new trees on the plush New Grassland mat from Cigar Box

The flame/smoke markers from the same producer