Gaming in the Time of Corona

Most of the lads gathered tonight via Steam and Google Hangouts to play a round of Formula De, a G&G staple. Right now, I'm in second-last place. If we can't game in person, by golly we'll use technology.

Hey! I wound up winning! But really only because Jeff, Mike, and Colin crashed out and did not finish. Still, a win is a win!

Now we're trying out crokinole.

UPDATE: Colin triumphed!

G&G XIII Poster

I finally hung my print of Jeff Shyluk's amazing poster for Gaming & Guinness XIII. To learn how Jeff approached the project, you can visit his blog here, here, and here. Vroom! 

Gaming & Guinness XIII: Day Four, Part 1

Day Four began as an after-midnight continuation of Day Three, as our Formula De match roared past the witching hour. Jeff generously donated his copy of the Formula De poster to the winner of the match, who turned out to be Stephen after a long back-and-forth battle for pole position with Island Mike.

After spending the morning shooting the official G&G group photo (see a later post for that), Steve and I unveiled a surprise scenario for this year's Star Trek battle. What began as a typical battle between the Klingons and the Federation turned into a desperate fight for survival as Steve and I took our own ships off the board and replaced them with Doomsday Machines!

My original idea was to have the Borg travel back in time to assault our fleets, but Steve pointed out that there was an existing Doomsday Machine scenario we could modify to suit a similar, but more thematic, purpose.

I ordered and painted the two Doomsday Machines seen here. One model is only half the size of the other because the first one I ordered was the wrong scale. Stephen's glib explanation: "It's further away."

Here's the scenario writeup:

“A Clockwork Remembrance”

A Call to Arms: Starfleet Scenario for Gaming & Guinness XIII

Fleet: Two Planet Killers (630 points) versus three Klingon D7s and three Federation Heavy Cruisers (1,080 points).

Scenario Rules: The objective for the Planet Killers is to score 75 points of damage on plant and its inhabited moon. The objective for the defending fleet is to destroy the Planet Killers before they destroy the planet. The players controlling the Planet Killers cannot communicate, coordinate or strategize with each other.

Game Length: The game continues until either the Planet Killers are destroyed or the planet is destroyed.

Victory and Defeat: The Planet Killers must deal 75 points of damage to each target—Seamus and Kildare—to destroy them. The defending fleet must prevent this.

Both Planets Destroyed: Decisive Planet Killer Victory
One Planet Destroyed: Marginal Planet Killer Victory
One Planet Killer Destroyed: Marginal Defending Fleet Victory
Both Planet Killers Destroyed: Decisive Defending Fleet Victory

Setup: Begin play on the official Gaming & Guinness IX A Call to Arms: Starfleet map. Place planet Seamuis and its moon, Kildare, in close proximity to each other, twelve inches away from one short edge of the map. Place four Klingon D7s and four Federation Heavy Cruisers near the planet and its moon by using scatter dice to determine the opening distribution of ships.

Federation and Klingon players will then place their ships, one Klingon, then one Federation, in turn until all ships are placed. Then, Earl reads the following text aloud:

“Captain’s Log, Stardate 3120.6. Excalibur, Intrepid, Poltava and Potemkin are engaged in battle with four Klingon D7 cruisers just a parsec away from the Harp Nebula.

“The Klingons are attempting to destroy our dilithium mining operation on planet Seamuis, along with Starbase 91, located on its Class-M moon, Kildare.

“Our forces are evenly matched, and I cannot predict the outcome. The Excalibur is heavily damaged; we are seconds away from a warp core breach, but we’ve given the Black Dog as much as they gave us. We cannot let the Klingons capture one of the richest dilithium deposits in the sector!”

Then, Steve steps in to describe a shocking turn of events: the Excalibur explodes and he removes it from the map, replacing it with the small Planet Killer. An instant later Steve removes the Black Dog, describing it as engulfed in a brilliant flash of white light. Then, he deploys the small planet killer. Once Steve has deployed his ship, Earl deploys the large Planet Killer.

While the other players are letting this sink in, we will ask each remaining player to roll 2D6 shield and 1D6 hull damage to represent the effects of the battle so far. Steve and Earl will explain the true scenario rules, and the real battle will begin.

The two planet killers move in.

Past enmity laid aside, the Klingons and Federation decide to tackle one doomsday weapon first en masse.

Once I was finished off, the humanoid horde came for Steve...

Into the maw of the beast.

As it turned out, the Doomsday Machines were dispatched with relative ease, too slow to get to their targets before being whittled down by heavy numbers. Were we to do it all again, Stephen and I would have started our ships much closer to our objectives, which would have provided more challenge to the other players. Even so, it was a ton of fun and a nice change of pace.

But Day Four didn't end there. There was still...the chariot race...

Gaming & Guinness XIII: Day Three

We began day three with Abandon Planet, in which players attempt to escape a doomed world before it's obliterated by an asteroid. No one person will ever have enough spaceship parts and supplies to escape, but neither are there enough resources for everyone. So players have to evaluate who has what, and teams quickly align before the final cataclysm. I was not one of the escapees.

Here's our first glimpse at the official Gaming & Guinness XIII artwork, commissioned to the formidable Jeff Shyluk. It's in rather debased form here, on a car magnet thrown in for free by the printer. You'll get a better look at the art in my next post.

Each G&G features an outing of some kind; this year, we ventured into one of Edmonton's many escape rooms. Our mission was to escape a space station filled with alien artifacts. Another 45 seconds and we would have made it, and I have to take a lot of the blame - I had the caps lock key off when it should have been on when entering the final codes.

We returned to our home base for round of Timelines to start...

...and then returned to a long-absent favourite, Battletech. My side got massacred!

This text says it all. (Sylvia's concern above stems from my fight with a bout of double pneumonia that coincided with G&G.)

Even though I'd last played Battletech five or six years ago, and before that at least a decade and a half, the rules came back to me quite smoothly. They're really quite elegant.

My defeated mech. I had a pretty good plan - charge headlong at the enemy, unload my weapons, then jump into a lake to cool off and evade return fire - but, as seen in the text message above, the dice were not kind and my ammo exploded.

Pete, Rob and Jeff strategize. Jeff doesn't look impressed - probably sabotaged by unlucky dice again.

Scott consults the rules.

Steve painted these. I love the Spider-Man-themed mech.

Next up was another new game for G&G, Captain Sonar. Teams of four operate two opposing submarines, with each player serving as captain, first officer, radio operator, and engineer. Players must cooperate to hunt down the enemy sub - before the enemy sub does the same to you. I think of it as "fancy Battleship."

We finished off the evening with Formula De, a familiar staple at G&G.

Who won? The answer will have to wait until my next post, for the race wasn't finished until after midnight, consigning the result to Day Four.