I survived Cold Wars 2010 and didn't get a lousy t-shirt

This past weekend was "Guys Weekend" where my buddies Steve, Brian Nichols, and Jeff were to travel down to Cold Wars 2010 in Lancaster, PA. A weekend of wargaming (historical is optional for our bunch), drinking, and relaxing.

Our battle plan was to meet up at Steve's house outside Allentown, drink sufficiently, play some form of game, and shoot the breeze. We would leave early Friday morning, possibly grabbing some breakfast along the way. Arrival was pegged for around 10 am, so we could register, hit the dealer hall and the morning flea market (and I would try to get into a noon RCW game). We would spend the night across the street at the Continental Inn and game until 8pm Saturday, when we would begin the trek home.

It started kinda "eh". Jeff couldn't make it, as he already had a weekend that involved three or four commutes between Montgomery Co, PA and Atlantic Co, NJ, due to family 'events'. We sat around, looked at Steve's new love, the latest Batman game on XBox 360, and drank copious amounts of Guinness before hitting the hay around 1:30pm.

At 6:30am, I was wide awake, packed up and ready to go (Being a father of a sleep confused 10-moth old does that to you. Hoo-ray five hours of uninterupted sleep!) Nichols appeared dead, and Steve was puttering about, so to bide my time I plopped down in front of the XBox and tried a little Batman, by default turning to my favorite pastime: Madden on franchise mode. Three preseason games as the Buffalo Bills and the boys were alive. Nichols recovered from being up 22 hours straight, and Steve had picked up a stomach bug from either the drinking or the vegetable lasagna he ate earlier that night.

Truth be told, we arrived at noon.

Friday Gaming:
All of us managed to get into a French Foreign Legion game in the afternoon, with Arabs trying to storm Fort Zinderneuf.


We all played Arabs and we all did our part in crushing the silly French. Steve and I commanded camel and horse cav whose mission was to stop, or at least stall, the relief Legionaires. Both flanks were pretty much obliterated, but the Legionaires were still four or five turns away from the fort when it finally fell. My claim to fame was the bravest camel jockey this side of the Sahara. The first camel cav unit I sent charging in, was decimated the the French Lewis gun, cutting down all but one. Oh, but that one crazed camel jockey continued his charge, killing six figures in hand-to-hand, before falling to the same fate of his brethren.

The GM stated at the beginning of the game that the rules were developed by his 20-something year old autistic son. He wanted to play this time period, but couldn't focus on the chart/sub-chart setup of some colonial games. To keep things simple he ported over some mechanics from Heroscape, used the Heroscape dice in combat, and tweaked it for the period. Needless to say, I was impressed how smooth and enjoyable the system and overall game was. As an added bonus, all nine or ten players had a great attitude, fantastic personalities, and a desire to just have fun! Sandscape was a success.

For the evening game, we split up: Nichols played in a game that focused on Whirling Dervishes. Great scenary, good mechanics. Steve got sucked into a WW2 game set in New Guinea, and by sucked in, I mean like getting sucked into an abyss. The game master was more than competent with the time period and the tactics. The rules of the game, however, were vague, contradictory, and the worst sin of all, had not been fully playtested before the con. Albatross Award nominee#1.

I got the pleasure on playing in another Jim Stanton's Gnome Wars games. I'll be writing a Gnome Wars - specific post a bit later.

The evening ended with three happy warriors (even Steve!) driving to Wawa, stuffing our faces, and falling asleep to Jackass 2: The Movie. Full Guy Weekend mode accomplished.

Saturday Gaming:

Saturday was busier, but the con had a subdued quality to it. It could have been the stormy weather outside, or the bad East Coast winter just gave everyone a bad case of cabin fever, but there was a funk not associated with lack of showering and deoderant. Steve and I did not play any games in the morning, preferring to wander the dealer hall, where I picked up misc terrain, counters, etc. The flea market expanded to an additional aisle, and between that and the lower attendance I did not have compulsive desire to buckle some dumbass' knee when the stopped in the middle of the moving throngs of people. Total purchase at the flea market: 50 cents for two Mage Knight treasure chests.

Nichols played in a 40mm Zulu Wars game, our second nominee for the Albatross Award. In a basic Zulu attacking the British scenario, the ratio of Zulus to British was 1:1 with no Zulu reinforcements or second wave. The British players had a spectacular round and basically annihilated the Zulus.

All three of us played in the 2pm Gnome Wars game. Again a full review will come later, but it was a righteous and cheesey affair.

Perhaps it was low blood sugar, perhaps exhaustion, perhaps I just missed my wife and little girl, but by 6pm I was ready to hit the road back home. Guy time can't beat Dad time (until, that is, I teach Maja to put her dolls in column formation)