03 October 2016

Oldhammer Day USA 2016


I was going to do some good old battle reports, and give a blow by blow of the games this weekend. But I just don't have that in me. I'll leave that to better bloggers. But I did enjoy the weekend immensely, and will report with something like a lengthy summary and some photos. So...

I ran into multiple last minute car problems, and almost cancelled. Luckily I only had to make it from Cleveland(ish) to Pittsburgh(ish) and my friend Bill offered to drive the rest of the way. That was (possibly literally) a lifesaver. It cut my (and my car's) driving by like 2/3, and to be honest, I would have hated driving around that whole DC region.


At any rate, things really went well, and I'm glad I didn't cancel. Bill is an old friend from when I was a GW Outrider, and we've run into each other for years at conventions and gaming events in OH & PA. We drove out Friday and visited another old friend who lives in Glen Burnie, and stopped by Games & Stuff (great store, huge, well stocked, big gaming room.)

We stayed at Jeff's and then drove out to Huzzah Hobbies for Oldhammer Day in the morning. The store was smaller, but still pretty large, organized and professional, an had a lot of gaming space (over half the store) with plenty of tables, terrain, etc. The staff were great all weekend, given that a mob of Oldhammerers had descended on their store and taken over the back half of the main part of the store.

My main interest was getting in some games of WFB3rd, though I had brought a Rogue Trader warband for Escape from Nu Ork. But first thing Friday, I jumped into one of Brian's RT "Battle at the Farm" games.



Bill & Sean's Orks surrounded Farmer Floyd's sheep farm, and I led the valiant Imperial defenders (and only slightly less valiant farm-hands and sheep.) It was a fight down to the last few defenders, but by the end, the orcs were all dead or wandering aimlessly with fried brains.

I enjoyed RT quite a bit, and it has only fueled my recent interest in getting back into some small sci-fi skirmish gaming (like I play more than a few games of anything a year?) Hindsight was telling me that RT was a bit clunky, but the game went pretty well and I may give RT another look.

Still, I was anxious to get into some WFB3. I've got a greater love for pushing formed units of troops around a battlefield than for any sort of skirmish gaming. So Sean offered to face my Marienburgers with his Orcs & Goblins.



Armies were 1500 points (sort of a weekend standard, for the most part.) It was a classic match-up and was pretty close fought. In the end, Marienburg's mercenaries pulled out a win.

There was a bit of stumbling through the old rules (vs. things confused from newer editions,) and I had no idea what to do with an Empire army in 3rd (I used to play Skaven & Dwarfs back in the day) but it went pretty well and was a lot of fun.


I finished the afternoon with another WFB game against airbornegrove26's (givemlead.blogspot.com) Black Vasken. With a twist. The Marienburger's sat this one out and I fielded nothing but giants of various sizes and abilities. Two (Bologs and Waltraud) had apparently been partying before the battle, and showed up drunk.


I think 'Grove does a better job with battle reports than I could, so I will leave the details and drama to him But I do have to admit that one of the highlights was Big Dick climbing up to some temple ruins and throwing everything in sight (pigs, cauldron, priestess (?), and vending machine) at some trolls down below.



(Nigel -- I think -- the troll after being hit by a pig, but the vending machine landed just a little bit to the outside. Later the vending machine would be wielded by Nigel as the tool of Barry the giant's demise. Vorpal Vending Machine?)




It was a bloodbath, to be sure. In the end.... well... keep an eye on givemlead.blogspot.com if you want to find out how it ends.


While some Oldhammerers left the store in search of various venues in which to play Hotelhammer, I was hungry and tired. A truely OLDhammerer. So dinner, hotel check-in, and sleep was all I could manage.

Sunday morning we had time for one quick game, and I picked up one more battle for Marienburg's mercenaries. This time it was against Chris' dwarfs.



Chris fielded a number of newfangled inventions, like a gyrocopter and swivel gun, which were cool to see in action. (Well, until the latter blew half a unit of halberdiers away in a single shot.) Another hard fought game that went back and forth a bit, but in the end the mercenaries couldn't overcome the traditional stubborn tenacity of the dwarfs.

As with most public gaming events, I came home with some loot.



I got the Ork Goffik Rocker for defending the farm from the Orks. The Ramshackle cultist and the \m/ twins \m/ I got as general swag. The chaos warrior I got (along with a modern GW paint set, not pictured -- because how interesting is a box of paint?) from the painting contest. I hadn't even planned on, nor wanted to enter. But I was peer pressured, and participation was apparently semi-mandatory. So I picked two figures (one large catagory, one small) I wasn't using at the time and Mad Marcus, my Marauder Giant ended up winning the large category.



So the whole weekend was really enjoyable and a nice break from reality. I got to visit some old friends, and even ran into someone who used to play with the local group before moving away. I also finally got to meet some people I've "known" through various online communities for a while. And I got to push around some roll some dice and "play pretend soldiers." 

Of course I'm already thinking about next year, as well as having a fire lit to try to do some local gaming again. I think small RT/40k warbands would be fun. As usual, all I need is an opponent... As far as WFB, 2017 is going to be the Year of the Fimir. That was already the plan. I'm also hoping to refine and playtest the multi-player Giant Rumble rules I've been working on.


11 comments:

  1. It was a pleasure meeting and playing those Giants! I'm already working on the comic report. ;)

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  2. Great meeting and gaming with you. My lack of knowledge about the rules could fill volumes. Thanks for your patience as I fumbled through my list. The Orks almost had you, but that neural disruptor, Lt. Dan and self inflicted immolation conspired against us. I'm going to try to put together a scenario with the Muffin Train next year.

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    1. I think most of us were fumbling through the rules. I'm really hoping to find someone to play a few local games with, and get back into it.

      I will most likely have a small (heh heh) halfling army painted up by then, too. :)

      I enjoyed all of the games, but I was thinking that one thing I would like to see in the future is a big multi-player scenario. Something like the Nu Ork game for fantasy. Everyone brings a small warband, and competes on a big table. I had a couple of ideas rolling around in my head on the drive home... ;)

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  3. Looks like everyone had a great time, you played as many games in one weekend as I have all year I think! Nice to see some RT action, the scenery looks so much better than we used in 1988, when owning a green(ish) sheet to cover the books with was considered the height of modernity.

    Every time we play Warhammer we have the same problem, sorting through our mental mish-mash of 8 editions of game rules to remember which one is "correct" that day. I think this is normal for us old gamers? :)

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    1. Definitely! That was an issue for me, at least, in every game. I think that the weekend renewed my interest in the older editions -- both the good & the bad -- though. GW really did lose me when 40k battles started to look like Epic with larger figures, and in 8th ed. WFB. Still looking forward, too, with other games, as always! And more rules to keep straight as I get older... ;)

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  4. Yes on the multiplayer warband idea. I am going to try and do the halfling scenario and actually playtest it. I think Scott wanted to do RoC Sarbanes next year as well.

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    1. Warbands. Silly autocorrect.

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    2. I had previously been thinking about a RoC warbands mini-campaign, but now I'm leaning towards wanting to run a scenario for multiple competing 500-750 pt. warbands of any army/race/faction. I loved the chance for some open gaming, but next time I would like to GM a scenario as well.

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