Saturday, April 4, 2015

Flames of War at Adepticon 2015

Well it has been some time since the last post but I have been busy with Bill putting together a Flames of War game and running it at Adepticon 2015.

I want to thank the wonderful people at Battlefront - Flames of War for all the support we received from them. Battlefront gave us Brumbars and motorcycle platoons for each player in addition to two issues of Miniature Wargames for each player. A very generous set of gifts for the gamers. In real terms each participant took home over $40.00 worth of prizes. On top of this Adepticon provided us with awards for the top two players from each team.

We decided to do Mid-War East Front but with a little twist. We wanted to have as many nationalities as we could cram into one place in history at one time! So there were Russians (of course), Germans (of course), Italians and Hungarians. Mid-War was chosen because in our minds everyone was a bit more equal in terms of experience, power and moral. It turned out to be a good mix and the players seemed to enjoy the variety.

The down side to all this is that we put together two huge armies which meant that there were a lot of figures to transport and move about. We had listed our event as a Flames of War alternative to tournament play and as a platform for learning the game itself. What we did not expect was that the most experienced player in the game had only 3 hours of play time under his belt. This meant that we could not depend on any of the players helping each other with the game mechanics. We had 12 players sign up but ended up with only 11 for the game.

Our terrain was based on two Cigar Box fleece material mats (which by the way are of fantastic quality and well worth the money) with other fields and roads made from teddy bear fur material. Topping this off were add on pieces like villages, trees and hedges.
Here are some pictures of the game.

As you can see there were plenty of figures and tanks to go around. Bill supplied all of the trees, hedges and the two villages. One was a bombed out village and the other was habitable. Bill outdid himself with the habitable village as seen below.



This is 15mm guys! Very nicely done!!!!

The players seemed to have had a fairly good time with the exception of one of the Italian players who had the very bad luck of being in the wrong place with the wrong equipment as he was severely underpowered and it probably would have taken a very experienced player to make his command enjoyable.
 Here are the players

All in all it was a very enjoyable time. Set up and take down went quickly. Adepticon provided us with more than enough space and our event was sold out. We will be back next year with a new game and surprises but we have learned some valuable information for the next go around. We will run a smaller game. Maybe not on the number of players but in the number of figures per player. We will also bring the opponents closer together sooner either through the set up or some mechanic to allow for faster movement until close to the enemy.
So as always, comments are always welcome and please please please help to support Adepticon 2016!!
A great convention. Free to get in if you are not playing and not too much more than any other convention if you are. My wish is that Little Wars would combine with them in the near future.
Good gaming!
Greg