We started with a slideshow of my Historicon pics. My picture taking skills are mediocre at best, but apparently a slideshow presented on a giant HD flatscreen TV makes everyone's pics look spectacular.
Next we moved down to the bar, cracked open some beer, and fiddled around with the Mouse Guard RPG. Playing a mouse might seem silly, but the second a milk snake appeared to interrupt their mission, the guys were all business. My guys were impressed and pleasantly surprised by the system. It's simple: (multiple d6 4+ is a success), it promotes player narrative actions (no just "I attack the snake", but "I jump on it's back and stab it!"), and it also actively encourages cooperation and teamwork. We will try it again.
Due to our late start, a long drive home, and the lack of true wargaming space in the Man Cave, I chose to run Burning Plastic to wrap up the evening. Burning Plastic is a simple game where green army men represent robots, and, as advertised it is "A Game Wholesale Destruction".
General Brian set up his tan army to the south of Rold Gold Mountain, General Adam set up his red army far down the Bar Plateau, and Steve (pictured above) set up the blue army right in the middle. Each had similar units 20 Aluminum Grenadiers (slow troops that can dish out and take a lot of punishment), 2 Scout Floaters (represented by the jets), and one Dreadnought (think mini-Ogre).
The first two turns had the blue and tan armies in vicious fighting, with the red army lumbering along. Most of the damage was done by morale checks. In Buring Plastic, each officer and vehicle can force a d6 
morale check on any one figure or vehicle within in its range. Make the check, no effect. Fail it, the figure moves back half its move. Roll a 1 and the unit charges a full move and gets a free attack. Roll a 6... hehehe, the unit's cpu overloads and it retreats its full move and self destructs in a blazing atomic fireball. The blue and tan armies' dreadnoughts were not destroyed so much as they were the focus of multiple morale checks and if you roll enough dice, eventually a 6 will come up. The wreckage of the tan army's dreadnought can be seen in the picture above, it failed its check and took out three of its own guys before exploding.
It looked like a close battle until the GM-controlled air strikes were called in. To use the radio operator/walkie talkie figures, Burning Plastic has spotters, who can call in airstrikes. A regular airstrike is conducted as follows: (1) Any figure within twice the shooting range of the spotter can be targetted. (2) Grab a normal (ie boardgame) d6. (3) Take two steps back from the table. (4) Chuck the die at the troops. Any figure, vehicle hit by the die until it stops is considered destroyed, with the exception of the dreadnought which requires to hits to be destroyed, no matter what. To spice things up, I called in random airstrikes from my bar stool at the far end of the bar. The first couple missed, but around round five I hit the blues and tans hard , and got one good strike on the red army's dreadnought.
Mid-Game
The Epic Battle of Steve's Man Cave (they advertised!)
The tans continued to press on, the blues troops had managed to destroyed the red army's damaged dreadnought with just overwhelming firepower and a little luck and fell back in between the two bags of chips. General Adam split his red army: half to fire at the blues and tans, the other half hiding behind a bottle of Leinenkugels to stop a flank attack if the blues decided to move between the bags.
End Game
Osama bin Plastic: The lone survivor of the Blue Army hides out in the caves of the Snack Mountains.
In my last act as GM, I attempted one final air strike, aiming for the blue army moving down the Snack Pass. I missed, but I hit the bag, causing the Pass to "collapse" and cutting off one blue army trooper who valiantly, but immediately was gunned down by the other armies.
The red army's stretched forces caused its downfall; its fascination with the blue troops hiding in a "cave" of popcorn. Caused numerous casualties. The tan army took its time whittling down the rest. Despite numerous disasters, General Steve's blue army took second place with one dude hiding in the mountains. Hopefully in twenty years, somebody will inform him that the war's been over for awhile...
For a hastily organized game day with one no-show and couple of us showing up late due to race day traffic (stupid NASCAR!), it went off pretty well. Can't wait till September when we should be able to start our Tanga campaign for Gnome Wars.... time to start painting!
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