"Fall-In" Pics and AAR

A couple of weekends ago our club attended the HMGS East "Fall-In" convention in historic Gettysburg Pennsylvania. As always, we had a great time. We met several people, ran some fun games for the other attendees, and played in a couple of great games stretching from Ancients to WWII.

I snapped a couple of pics, but unfortunately my camera's battery died and I did not get to walk around taking shots of all the games, like I had originally intended.

On Friday afternoon I ran an ACW naval game using some home rules. We had 25 ships, Forts, and Shore Batteries. The scenario was an attack on a Southern Harbor, and the Union players pushed hard to win a decisive victory. They had some lucky hits on the main fort that silenced several of the guns, and the Confederate rams had some bad rolls and couldn't seem to do much of anything. Despite all of this, the Rebels did not give up, and they kept up a hot fight the entire game.

Our Friday Regimental Fire&Fury game:

"Death was holding High Carnival!"- Chickamauga, 19 September 1861
The vital rail junction of Chattanooga was Rosecrans' next target. Bragg's Army of the Tennessee, with the added weight of Longstreet's corps finally stopped retreating and turned around. Scattered Federal troops earlier in the morning have taken a beating, but now more effort has been added. Bragg too is pushing more troops forward. Farmer Brock's field is about to witness an all out slugfest.

AAR: For our playtest before the convention, the Federals had won a decisive victory, virtually destroying the entire Confederate left flank and stopping an assault on the right. The Fall-In game turned out quite differently. It was fairly historical as neither side could gain a clear advantage. The Federals came away with a slight victory as the Confederates could not obtain their objectives. Historically, both sides fought to a standstill until more support could be brought up.


Some games we played on Friday:

The Battle of Kohima, 1944: British vs Japanese

A large Stalingrad game:

On Friday night we hit up O'Rourke's Pub in downtown Gettysburg for a couple pints and some loaded cheese fries. I will really miss this place when the Con moves to Lancaster next year. When we returned to the Ike, we played in one of our friend's Check Your Six! Kamikaze game. I was Japanese, and had a good hit on the carrier. Banzai!!!!!


Our other Regimental Fire&Fury game was played on Saturday: Greenbrier River, 1861. For a more detailed description of the game, see our November 12th post on the playtest before the convention.

Another club member ran a second naval game. The scenario consisted of the CSS Tennessee having to leave port and exit off of the opposite table edge without being sunk by a Union squadron. Of course, some friends showed up to help the Tennessee. I got to command the slow moving Ironclad, and kicked some Yankee butt! -a little retribution for the pounding the Rebels took in the game I ran on Friday.


On Saturday night we ran a large, twelve player Wings of War (WWI aerial) game. We had 24 planes on the deck in an all out dog fight.


With GameMaster registration already open for Cold Wars in March, it's time to start planning our club's schedule. Right now, we are planning on doing some more Regimental Fire&Fury (Belmont MO, Richmond KY, Bentonville NC), as well as some more ACW Naval and Wings of War. We may even bring our large French and Indian War game. Be sure to look for our club (Refuse the Flank Wargamers) in the PEL if you want to game with us.