KEGSCon

KEGSCon is a small, local (to them, not me!) convention hosted by the Kent-Essex Gaming Society (KEGS - see what they did there?) in Chatham, a town in south-western Ontario. I've played in several games at Hotlead hosted by KEGS members over the years and gotten to know a few of them pretty well, even went down to the USAF's National Museum this summer with some of them.

I've been invited to KEGSCon a few times, but it's about five hours away and in the fall I often have conflicts with work or football on weekends, but this year it all worked out and not only did I make the trip, but (holy of holies) I even volunteered to run some Song of Drums and Shakos games during one of the sessions.

As I've posted, I had six scenarios ready to go, and I figured I'd run two games of two players each concurrently, bouncing back and forth to help them play, while also setting up the next scenario as they rotated around through the three boards (each with two potential scenarios).

Turns out that would probably have been a bad idea, I had two players sign up and getting them started took all my time; having another game beside theirs with the same level of help needed would have swamped me and probably ruined the experience for all involved.  I think now that a four-player game would have been a better approach, maybe on a 3'x3' board, and had maybe just 2-3 scenarios ready (which would have saved my sanity leading up to the Con).

I also had created a large (and large-print) QRS on an easel, and while it works for me, it doesn't really work for newbies.  A paper QRS (which I had on hand for them too) and a simpler big QRS would have been better, I think, the big QRS just having a few questions and answers for them.

Something like:
It's Your Turn!

Who Do You Want to Activate?

How Many Dice Do You Want to Roll (1, 2, 3)?

What Do You Want to Do? 
(with a list of potential actions and costs)

That would have covered the basics and their common questions/issues as they got in synch with the game.

Anyway, as I ponder what to do for the next time I run a game, here a couple of photos of my games in mid-action, and the wrap-up game for the convention - a 20+ player wild west shootout in 28mm!

Find The Maps in mid-game (an eventual French victory)

Stop Shooting Those Cannons At Me! in mid-game

Some of the final bloodbath in a Russian victory over the French

The Wild West free-for-all, my guy is on the porch of the red building in the bottom left

Song of Drums and Shakos Boards

I showed one of these off last week, but here's the full set of six boards I had ready Song of Drums and Shakos scenarios at KEGSCon last week (I'll report on that in my next post).  I had three basic mats - snow, grass, urban - and two scenarios set for each.

Stop Shooting Those Cannons At Me!

The Last Pig in Russia

Find the Maps

Troubles With The Ladies Of Spain

Take The Streets

Klepakhov's Heroes

As it turns out, we only got two of the tables (Cannons and Maps) into action, but I'll talk about why that was probably a good thing in my next post.  But I'm now all set up for lots of SDS gaming, with these maps/scenarios and more in development.  A pile of terrain was finished in the last two months once I had the hard target of KEGSCon to work towards.

Quick Kaiju City for My Nephew

My nephew and fellow giant monster movie fan, Theo, has a birthday this weekend, and a few of the things he's getting from me are some 3" gashapon monsters - "Godzilla Raids Again" Godzilla (aka the one with the fangs), 1990s Godzilla, and 1970s Mechagodzilla.  He already has Godzilla 2014 and one or two of the MUTOs, and has played Mighty Monsters with me a few times with my stash and in-progress city terrain.

So to compliment his toys, and give him something to practice his gaming with (he likes to make up his own rules for games, always to his own benefit), I quickly put together this table for him last night:

The base is just black foamboard, and the buildings are cut-outs from some Figures in Comfort transportation cases I got a few weeks ago.  Conveniently enough, the cut-outs all have peel-away sticker on the bottom of them, which made this pretty easy to put together.  There's space on the left for his own buildings or other terrain, and the streets are wide enough for the figures (and their tails!), and should be pretty indestructible, even if his younger brother gets ahold of it!

15mm Skirmish Napoleonics Ready at Last!

Just a quick-hitter of an update here, posting some eye-candy of my 15mm Napoleonics as their basing was finished and they underwent Dullcoting in anticipation of getting into action this summer in games of Songs of Drums and Shakos.  I have one band of French in great coats for the winter, and two bands for all other seasons, ditto for the Russians, though one of the "summer" forces is a unit of Jagers.  For the British I have line/light troops and of course the 95th Rifles.

Amongst the cavalry are French hussars and dragoons, Scots Greys, and lots of cossacks.  More to paint, but I've had for a while now enough to game, and this weekend I'm off to KEGSCon in southwestern Ontario to run a half dozen SDS scenarios.  The layout for the first scenario, "Stop Shooting Those Cannons At Me" is the bottom pic.  I should have pictures from the event next week, plus more on the set-ups.