G&G XIX: Axes, Battletech, and Formula Dé

A few things conspired to keep us from filling the schedule as much as we would have liked at Gaming & Guinness XIX: not one but two Stanley Cup Final games, the host's brohter getting concussed at a football game, a spasmodic back, and several issues associated with aging (exacerbated by sleep deprivation, spicy food and, in some cases, alcohol consumption that bordered on the heroic).

In fact, on Friday night no one stayed up past 11:30 -  a first for G&G, I am confident.

But our motivation for turning in early was good, as Saturday was actually a very full day, beginning with axe throwing.

We made out way to  Axe Monkeys on the North side by 10:30, taking advantage of their "Rise n Shine Saturdays" BOGO offer. Despite having many newbies in the crew, we managed to get seven people landing shots with decent consistency after about twenty minutes of practice. We had one side of the facility practically to ourselves, with only two people per lane, so we could keep up a good chucking pace.

Legit bullseye scored by Earl J Woods

Even if you don't hit a bullseye, the satisfaction of landing a hatchet with a beefy 'thock' into the two-and-a-half-foot wide tree cookies that serve as target is reward enough.

And sometimes, missing a target in a creative manner is its own special treat.

Rob didn't even say he meant to do that

Best of all, we had time afterwards to try throwing some unconventional objects, like a circular saw blade...

...or this absolute beast of three axeheads welded together:

And although we played a couple of different games, mostly it was fun to get out of the house and do something a little unusual together.

After lunch, Jeff and Scott set up what I think is the largest and densest Battletech table we have seen to date, and we finally played out our long-speculated matchup between bipedal battle robots and conventional tanks.

Now, classic Battletech has a fantastic equalization system built in if you are using equal tonnages per side, but a) that doesn't take into consideration the enormous mobility advantage the 'mechs have over tracked vehicles, and b) it can lead to boring and bog-standard knock-down drag out battles.

I had proposed having the 'mechs run a gauntlet, with minimal scenery in the centre of the table and the tanks having additional tonnage resulting in a 3:1 advantage in numbers. Jeff and Scott put together an idea where six vehicles would face off against four mechs, the tanks had a 50% advantage in tonnage and owuld be each be allowed to respawn at select points on the board.

We ended up abandoning the respawn idea, but after the tanks got a strong initial salvo they stuggled to get clean shots as the mechs tried to outpace them.

Despite their victory conditions being based on evacing 'mechs within 12 turns, the House Davion 'mechs still managed to wreck three tanks and get two mechs away, so we declared their side the winners of this year's Golden Griffon. It was great playing with tanks for the first time though, and Jeff painted them exceptionally.

The final event was an enormous game of the venerable racing game Formula Dé, combining the Zandvoort 1 and 2 tracks from Holland into a true megaboard.

We also introduced the rules for designing cars, which incorporates suspension points, which necessitates inclusion of the debris rules. Long story short, if anyone loses a bodywork point due to a collision, or an engine point (from over revving or 'pushing' into a corner, a marker is set on the track to represent the debris left behind. Driving over the debris runs the risk of damaging the suspension (rolling a 1-4 on a d20), and losing your last suspension point eliminates your car.

Despite all the debris littering Zandvoort, not a single suspension point was lost!

It was a long and grueling race that saw the lead change hands several times. In the end, with two other players running neck and neck, Pete dark-horsed his way up the side from a distant third place, ending up beside the leader but in a higher gear, which allowed him to roll first and win the game!