February Gaming Weekend.

 I've started thinking about a February Gaming Weekend. For the past 17 years, i've organized some sort of gaming event around my birthday at the end of February - the Annual Wargaming Birthday BasH! Sometimes its been a single afternoon or evening - usually a multiplayer miniature game of some sort with a few friends. Other times it's been and entire weekend of gaming - either a campaign or a mini, invitational con. Other times, just a few games with the family... 

I’m really trying to stay positive and plan as though we WON’T be in a FIFTH Wave of Covid… or STILL Be riding out an extended (never-ending) fourth wave!?   (Not that there are going to be any more restrictions of movements or visitations, regardless of how many die, this government had made clear!). But, these things often work out better if there has been some planning beforehand…. So I am thinking about it and trying to make plans… 

To get started, I recently catalogued all of the previous events on a separate page, recently...

Wargaming Birthday Bashes

A couple predate this blog - I was lucky to find a couple pictures of one of the pre-blog games (going through back-up CDs from previous computers, sifting through piles of old pictures)... but could find nothing for the first one... 

Putting this together and reviewing all these events, brought up a rollercoaster of memories ranging from pure joy to total despair. These constitute some of my favourite gaming memories, ever. Simultaneously many bring up feelings of soul-crushing misery and utter  despondency… 

Every year there was that one person (or two, or three) that insisted on RUINING ALL THE FUN (for ME, at least, They probably still had a great time!).  Whether it was the constant complaints about the system (the tabletop game itself and/or campaign rules), or their constant demanding for rulings about stupid bullshit they should have known the answer for if they read the rules and weren’t trying to seek advantage through rules lawyery, or just finding loopholes in either the game rules or the campaign rules and totally exploiting them…. 

There are more than a few of these people that have also showed up at many of these events that ALWAYS caused trouble and made me never want to run one again…  I've tried to stay positive in game reports and not mention these things plainly... Ignore it… "Let it go"... But it happened and, looking back at them, even now, I wonder, is the stress they cause worth it?!

Some I can simply NEVER invite again (finally got that solution through my thick head). A big problem is a few of them still live here in Saskatoon and THESE are the people that are almost ALWAYS available… and worst part is... some of them are truly generous, fantastic human beings… Y’know, OUTSIDE of gaming… 

On the flip side, there ARE about a dozen people that have come to multiple games over the years that totally make it worthwhile and never cause any sort of trouble or headaches. They are the reason I have carried on. They would be my DREAM TEAM of players for a game weekend… Unfortunately, over half of them don’t even live in Saskatoon and it is a big deal for them to get here… especially in February… especially in the middle of a pandemic… 

How does one get a Dream Team of players to show up, while not hurting good friends (who are terrible people to play games with)? 

That being said…. Problem Person(s) played in the Necromunda game (the last big one I ran in 2020, both at my Birthday Bash and again at ToonCon… I won’t say which it was the Problem Person(s) showed up at…) and didn’t cause much trouble… I think this was largely due to scenario design. There was a need to work together, to a certain extent (if the common enemy, played by me, was not stopped, EVERYONE LOST!! And Karloth Valois and his horde of Scavvies and Plague Zombies were NO PUSH-OVERs!), and there was no great benefit to being a dink (each had secret, individualized objectives and victory points - mostly points were awarded for dealing damage to Valois and his crew... but each gang had ONE other gang or gang memeber that they had some sort of vendetta against and could gain points by taking ONE specific character out.).… so… no one was really THAT much of a dink… 

I also find it hard to make plans and get things prepared when I get a luke-warm commitment from many people… Which I've gotten a lot of over the years, and especially the last few. “Well, I’d LOVE to… but we’ll have to see… I can’t plan that far in advance…” when it’s, y’know, just two months away…. Somehow people can make plans to go on holidays, or go to weddings, or go to (AND/OR ORGANIZE) larger conventions up to (and sometimes more than) a YEAR in advance on a specific day/weekend/week… but can’t say if they can make it to my thing until the week before…?! WTF!? 

The last wargaming weekend I'd planned (a Necromunda campaign in the fall of 2019) which I had done SO MUCH WORK FOR (painting multiple gangs for people to use if they didn't have one and a bunch of terrain)... got cancelled because I got a bunch of "maybes", which turned into "NOPEs" in the last week or so coming up to the planned weekend for the event. (Luckily I was able to make use of it all in the following Birthday Bash/ToonCon event) 

(Except for the problem people… they can ALWAYS commit and will definitely make it…) 

Anyway…. 

I digress... 

Back to THE PLAN…

This also happens to be a BIG ONE - as this will be my FIRST HALF-CENTURY celebration! 

(Seriously, how the fuck did I actually make it this far!?) 

(Ooh! Maybe I should start the day with a half-century ride!) 

(but, like, a metric half-century... and only if its NOT -40°C!?) 

AND, my Birthday IS on a Friday, so it seems like it would be fun to use that to kick off a whole WEEKEND of festivities! 

But what format to take…? A weekend long campaign of some sorts - either tabletop miniatures (which could be competitive or co-op/semi-co-op) or a role-playing game? Or something more like a mini-con with a number of different events/games over the weekend. 

I think my favourite option is a co-operative, tabletop miniature adventure campaign - where the “players” are all on the same side and have one character/hero and/or a small unit of some sort, that fight against antagonists controlled by a GM (i.e. ME!) - and play through a series of linked adventures - possibly requiring collection artifacts or clues or completing objectives before they can move on, and culminating in a BIG BOSS BATTLE at the end of the weekend…?

But a lot of that depends on who is available that weekend, how much of that weekend they are available, and what they are interested or willing to commit to playing.  

Over a weekend I generally, mentally break it down into 5-7 game "slots":

1. Friday Night
2. Saturday Morning
3. Saturday Afternoon
4. Saturday Evening
5. Sunday Morning?
6. Sunday Afternoon
7. Sunday Evening ?

So... Campaign or Mini-con?

CAMPAIGN

Role-Playing Game or Miniatures?

ROLE-PLAYING GAME

Advantage to role-playing games - if things do go sideways, Pandemic-wise, I could always switch to Online… like I did for my birthday this past year. 

• Fate? 
• Wrath & Glory? 
• Something Else!? (unlikely) 

MINIATURES

Competitive campaign/mini-tournament OR a co-op/semi-co-op tabletop adventure (like RPG - but miniature combat focused where all the Players are on the same side fighting enemies controlled by a game master - i.e ME!) 

Competative Campaign/Tournement

Competitive campaigns/tournaments I could potentially run... 

• Hordes of the Things
• DBA
• Necromunda
• Kill Team
• 40K Combat Patrol
• Frostgrave
• Stargrave
• Warcry

• The Silver Bayonet

While a LOT of fun... there are almost always a LOT of problems with these... 

Co-op/Semi-Coop

As mentioned before, this is probably more most favourite option. Running a series of tabletop miniature adventures where all the of the players are (more or less) on teh same side, battling against foes controlled by ME - ultimately culminating in some kind of "Epic Boss Battle"!  Some of the games I have and could again run as a cooperative or semi-cooperative :

• Savage Worlds
• Age of Sigmar
• Warcry
• Kill Team
• 40K
• Necromunda 
• Song of Blades and Heroes
• Frostgrave
• Stargrave
• The Silver Bayonet
• Warhammer Quest (like Blackstone Fortress or any of the Age of Sigmar ones...) 

Team Option (Semi-Coop/Competitive)

The "All Quiet Campaign" - two teams with multiple players- each player commanding a squad or Kill Team within a platoon or similar larger formation... it uses set terrain representing a stagnant part of the front where the fighting has more or less ground to a halt. The teams are holding that section of the line for a period of three days and three nights. A series of six scenarios are played over that time period. Not all troops are used for each mission. Some are active (on the mission out in No Mans' Land), some can be on stand-by (sentries, holding the trenches or whatever), some are out-of-the-line and resting... Quality of troops degrades if they are used twice in a row (i.e. without resting)...?

MINI-CON

There are definitely some advantages to running a "Mini-Con". I can mix it up and play some different things. There could be somewhat less prep involved - especially if a few of them are board games and I dont have to worry about an airtight campaign system. Also, no one has to commit to WHOLE weekend - people could “sign up” for just ONE slot. 

The weekend could look something like:

• Friday Night - One-Shot Role-Playing Game
• Saturday Morning - Miniature Skirmish 
• Saturday Afternoon -  Miniature Skirmish 
• Saturday Evening - Miniature Skirmish 
• Sunday Morning -  Board Game
• Sunday Afternoon - Board Game 
• Sunday Evening - Board Game 

OR

• Friday Night - One-Shot Role-Playing Game
• Saturday Morning - Miniature Skirmish 
• Saturday Afternoon -  Board Game 
• Saturday Evening - Miniature Skirmish 
• Sunday Morning -  Board Game
• Sunday Afternoon - Miniature Skirmish 
• Sunday Evening - Board Game 

Just to mix it up a little... 

OR... have the one-shot RPG on the Saturday evening, half-way through...

OR... it could be ONE board game on Sunday... but, like, a bigger one with many players taking all day to play... 

Lots of possibilities here... 

COME-AND-GO CAMPAIGN

A third option I've been considering since I started this planning and writing this a week or so ago is a "Come-And-Go Campaign. This would be a semi-co-op miniature campaign - involving a number of linked scenarios played over the weekend that create a bit of a narrative... BUT... it could involve DIFFERENT characters/groups - played by different participants that could show up for just one session, or ALL of them. Ideally, there would be one or two that would play the entire weekend and would be the "Lead Heroes" that assemble the varied groups of allies to fight... whatever it is that they are fighting...? 

OR... 

...maybe I'll just play some games with my family again, like I did last year... 

Kind of still leaning towards co-op tabletop miniature adventure... possibly with come-and-go option... 

Wargaming Weekends and the Game Plan 2008

Before coming up with a Project Plan for 2008 I realized I should really look toward 2009 and what I’d like to do for a Wargame Weekend. I’m kind of assuming the weekend will be at least moderately successful here, and that I’ll do another one next year. As I’ve mentioned before I’d like the weekends to be mini-campaigns of sorts of programmed scenarios or otherwise linked battles or at least have some common “theme” to them.

Over the last couple of days I’ve been making a list of conflicts/campaigns I might like to run and I’ll go through a number of them below.

Which will it be for 2009…? Well, I’ve got a few months to think about it I guess… Some of the major factors I’ll be considering are what people would be most interested in – won’t be much of a weekend if no one shows because no one is interested in playing what I’ve got set up… But just as important, if not more, there is the reality of having all the toys and terrain required for each and as I’ve had a moratorium set on spending money on toys, so I really SHOULD focus on ones that I currently OWN (or can cast for myself) all of the elements required…

If you’re someone that might be attending any future wargaming weekends please feel free to post comments below and vote on which you would most like to see run!

They will mostly follow the same format of 5 games (Friday Evening, Saturday Morning, Saturday Afternoon, Saturday Evening, and a grand finale Sunday mid-to-late-morning to mid-afternoon. My current thinking is that any larger battles will be played out with Cold War Commander/Blitzkrieg Commander/Warmaster Ancients or one of it’s many variants. Skirmish actions will be played out using Savage Worlds.

The weekends will be taking place the last weekend in February of each year – partly because it won’t conflict with any other cons – that I know of – or any long weekend travel plans. Of course this means anyone planning on traveling to this will likely have to book a day off work (the Friday)… look at it as a bonus long weekend in February… The other reason for holding it in February is to carry on the tradition of Tim’s Wargaming Birthday Bash – an event started in 2005 to celebrate my birthday with an evening of gaming with my favorite gamin’ pals (which is basically being extended into a full weekend…).

Originally I was thinking I’d let this turn into a mini-con, if enough people started showing up, with multiple games going on through out my house (a miniatures game on the war game table in the War Room, boardgames on the dining room table upstairs) and in the Bike Barn (my “garage”) where I’d build a second wargames table…. Or if it got big enough maybe move it out of my house… I’m starting to think that may be a bit chaotic and hard to organize/coordinate, so now I’m considering simply limiting it to the games I am running and 6 participants….? I don’t know – any thoughts on this? Post comments!

Here they are, in no particular order, the ideas for themes/campaigns for future wargame weekends – In some cases I don’t know a lot about the history of the period or campaign and so some of the battles might not work out for tabletop action (i.e. have enough elements for 4-6 participants to play for a couple hours)… obviously in the year preceding the Wargaming weekend I’d be doing a considerable amount of research and finding which would work, which wouldn’t and finding better actions to replace them – nothing is set in stone here, they’re just ideas off the top of my head…

Campaigns of Alexander the Great
Granicus, Issus, Gaugamela, Hydaspes…? All played with Warmaster Ancients. This will be sometime in the far future as I have NOTHING for this period – except for my crappy old DBA Later Achemenid Persian army – not much of a start…

Montrose’s Scottish Campaigns 1644-45
Lots of options here – Tippermuir, Aberdeen, Inverlochy, Aulderan, Alford, Kilsyth, Pilipaugh… maybe I’ll make it a wargaming long weekend and do them ALL! BWA-HA-HA-HA!

Seven Years War in North America
A series of five battles from the campaigns… OR…

Quebec 1759-60
I have to admit at this exact minute I am kind of leaning towards this one as it just occurred to me that next year will be the 250th anniversary of the battle on the Plains of Abraham! I am using Habitants and Highlanders as a major source of inspiration for the scenarios here:
Friday night - Captain MacDonald’s Company Climbs the Heights of Abraham – a skirmish game using Savage Worlds – the outcome of which might somehow affect the next scenario.
Saturday morning/afternoon – Battle on the Plains of Abraham – using a WMA variant – perhaps Bob Barnettson’s Two for Tea…?
Saturday evening – The Wood Cutters – another Skirmish scenario.
Sunday mid morning to mid afternoon – Battle of St. Foy 1760.
I have some stuff that could be used for this. I was planning on working on some SYW stuff this year anyway – I’d just ramp it up a bit and model and cast a pile of my own generic tricorne figures… We shall see…

England 1066AD
Fulford Gate, Stamford Bridge, Hastings, and maybe a skirmish game or two or the winner of Hastings has to go beat down the Scotts under Malcom II. This will be high on the priority list as I have a lot of Dark Ages stuff.

English Civil War
Edge Hill, Marston Moor, Naseby, Dunbar? Some skirmish action…?
I have a lot of ECW stuff now...

Falklands 1982
A skirmish battle in the streets of Port Stanley during the initial Argentine invasion
South Georgia? Raid on Pebble Island?
Some air and/or naval action (I have no idea what rules I’d use…)?
Goose Green for sure (CWC)!
11/12 June – Mt. Longdon, Two Sisters, Mt. Harriet (CWC)
13/14 June – Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge (CWC)

The War of 1812
Queenston Heights, Chateguaney, Chrysler’s Farm, Chippewa, Lundy’s Lane… New Orleans?

Canadians in the Sicilian Campaign 1943
Grammichele, Assoro, Leonfort, Agira…?

Moro Crossings/Ortona 1943

Canadians in Normandy 1944
Capriquet, Buron, Authie, and other battles around Caen, etc…

Arnhem 1944

Closing the Falaise Gap
Operation Totalize I and II, Operation Tractable

Northwest Rebellion 1885
Duck Lake, Fish Creek, Battoche, Cutknife Hill, Frenchman’s Butte
Not sure what rules I would use for these they seem a bit big for Savage Worlds skirmish actions, a bit small for a WMA variant/Colonial War Commander… maybe a modified version of Ever Victorious Armies…? Of course if I use cold War Commander with one stand equal to an 8-10 man section and formations being companies – that might work… at least for Batoche… or maybe a scaled skirmish action using savage worlds (1 figure = 5 or 10 men – depending on the size of the historical action…?)

Battles on the Somme 1916

Battles at Paschendale 1917

The Last 100 Days 1918

Great War - East Africa

Red Dawn – Soviet invasion of North America 1986…?

Peloponnesian War?

Punic Wars?

Ia Drang 1966?

Well.. that’s 21 years worth of Wargame Weekends – assuming I just do one a year…. Maybe if it really works out I could do two a year – one in February and one in the summer or fall sometime – the secondary one would have to be one I already have stuff ready for – like the assorted WW2 ones, which I have a lot of the stuff done for already, or once I had the Canadian Corps (and a German one to oppose it) finished I could easily so any of the Great War campaigns with a minimum of effort (maybe a bit of battle specific terrain…)

The 1066 campaign is likely to happen sooner rather than later as it’s one I’ve wanted to do for a long time and HAVE a lot of the stuff I’d need. I would have to buy some Norman Cavalry and model and cast a few more generic dark ages warriors – mostly skirmishers with javelin or slings…

Looking at anniversaries - the 1885 Northwest Rebellion is another one with a big one coming up – 125th in 2010. Of course 2016, 2017, 2018 will see the various Canadians in the Great War campaigns as those will be 100th anniversaries. 2012 will be the Falklands 30th…? 2018 - Sicily or Ortona’s 75th, 2019 – D-Day, Normandy, Arnhem….

Tim’s Winter Wargaming Weekend

I had previously mentioned the idea of running a mini-con or invitational wargame weekend (Here). I’ve been doing some more thinking about this and thought I ought to start setting things down in stone (or at least pixels…) planning-wise. Tentatively I am planning for the weekend of 22-23-24 February 2008 (though there is a slight chance this may be moved up to the last weekend of January – depending on the availability of some potential participants).

While I had alluded to the idea of a campaign or theme weekend, I think the format I’ll use for the first one is an “open gaming” weekend. In the future I’d like to run mini-campaigns of a series of 4 or 5 linked scenarios. I just don’t think I’m going to have enough stuff together for one by the time the new year rolls around and I promised myself I would no longer volunteer to run games for conventions (even my own!) that I don’t have all the stuff I’d need for the game ready to go at the time I promise to run them (so there’s no frantic late-night painting for the week or two prior to the convention just to get things finished up!). The exact games that will be run will depend on who else volunteers to run games and what stuff I have ready a little closer to the weekend when I firm up the schedule. My goal is to have enough games planned and ready to go so that if all the other people that have offered to run games bail at the last moment there will still be a weekends worth of games to be played!

So for an “open gaming” format it would be ideal if I had 4 or 5 participants. Each could run one game during the weekend and the others could play. That way everyone is guaranteed to play at least one game that they love (their own! – though hopefully all will be interesting) and have 4 or 5 committed players.

If somehow I ended up with more than six I could probably open up a second table in my garage or in the downstairs kitchen and there could be a choice or two games in each time slot…. Just like a “real” convention….

The benefit of this format is that if some people couldn’t be here for Friday night, or had to leave early on Sunday, or couldn’t make any of the games in between there wouldn’t be any problems with continuity of command or whatever…

I imagine the weekend would go something like this:

Friday Night

6:00 – meet at my place for supper – Tim’s yummy home made pizza!

7:00 - Game #1

Saturday

9:00 – 12:00 Game #2

12:00 – 1:00 lunch

1:00 – 5:00 Game #3

5:00 – 7:00 Supper… somewhere…

7:00 – Game #4

Sunday

10:00 – Game #5

(lunch break – snacks and CAKE!! Mmmmm, cake…)


So here are some of the games I could potentially run:

Blitzkrieg Commander – either in North Africa or NWE involving British Paras.

Cold War Commander – Vietnam, Modern Africa, World War Three in the late ‘80’s.

Savage Worlds – either an historical skirmish – Vietnam, Modern Ops, World War Two, etc, or some sort of Pulp Adventure or Victorian Horror game.

Great War Commander – Vimy, Paschendale, etc or the Russian Civil War

Obviously I have a lot more stuff, but this it what I have that I’d be willing and able to run for a group of up to six. I’ll firm up exactly what I’m going to run and what each scenario is about, as we get closer to the New Year. As I said I’m going to plan to have five games ready to go, however if anyone else wants to bring and run a game that would be cool too!

If YOU want to run a game here’s what would be required of you…

You need to provide or arrange for all the materials required to play.

The game you run should be simple and fast-playing. Simple enough for an idiot like me to be able to pick it up and play it with no previous experience. Fast-playing enough to bring the scenario to a satisfactory conclusion within the allotted time and also to keep everyone on their toes and involved and not wandering away from the table.


You should be able to organize your game in such a way that it could be able to accommodate between two (you and me) and six players, as I have no idea right now how many people might want to show up for this.

Game length: maximum of 3 to 5 hours depending on which time slot its in.

Below is a link to a really great article about running a good convention game – I think all the suggestions would apply here…

How to run a great convention game

I’m going to say I’m not going to limit games to miniature war games, though that is obviously my preference. I could be talked into a board wargame. It should meet all of the criteria above – fast-playing, simple, accommodate 2 to 6 players…. (So yeah, John, you could bring some sort of C&C game and run a big multi-player battle..).

Stay tuned for further info as the next couple of months roll by… If you’re interested in attending let me know.

Once again any questions, comments, ideas, etc. please feel free to post them below!

Hero’s Gambit and other things…

So… the Hero’s Gambit …


When I first started to compose this it was going to be a email/post to drum up some helpers and participants for a series of games I would run over the convention weekend. However I kind of dropped the ball with regards to the Gambit this year, and it may not have just been entirely due to laziness on my part…

Looking back at the experience of the last four years of running events at the Hero’s Gambit – and comparing them with my experiences playing and running games at Fallcon and Mayday – I’ve come to the conclusion that maybe the HG isn’t the place to run the kind of Games I want to run and play.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying the Hero’s Gambit is a “bad” or “poorly run” convention. Rather the opposite. I think they do a smashing job at what it is they want to do with the given the resources at their disposal. What they want to do is run tournaments; Warhammer Fantasy, 40K, Flames of War, D&D, and maybe Settlers of Cattan… (oh, and a couple of LARPS…). Other than the events that I run there has been one maybe two other people that have come out and run single event/demo games – usually on the Friday nights – and usually boardgames. It is not what people come to the convention for, though. They come for the tournaments (or the LARPs..).

If no one is coming to the Hero’s Gambit to play the type of games I want to run, why on Earth would I continue to run them?

I would actually like to thank the organizers of the Hero’s Gambit for allowing me the opportunity to run events at their convention over the last couple of years and wish them all the best in the years to come – though considering the number of organizers that have moved away (or just moved on) over the last couple of years and the complete and utter lack of new volunteers I can’t see how they can keep up the energy to keep it going…

I do think I learned a lot each year and improved on the format of the events I ran each year. I think last years games were the best by far in terms of turnout and the amount of fun for all involved (both players and myself). It was, however a) a LOT of work, and b) there was no one that showed up that I didn’t already game with…

After much thinking about it in the following months I realized I could do the same thing (run a series of games over a weekend) ANY weekend of the year (that people were available for) – but do it in the comfort of my own house where a) it would be much, much quieter and I wouldn’t have to shout all weekend long just to be heard and find myself on Monday with a tremendous headache and no voice, b) We could play on my big solid table where I wouldn’t have to worry about someone bumping the table and knocking all the toys over, c) I wouldn’t have to haul my toys half way across town (and potentially forget essential components - like, say, unit cards that I spent hours the night before preparing…), etc, etc, etc….

So, a weekend of wargaming….
While I’m not going to be running games at the Gambit anymore I’d still like an opportunity for a weekend of wargaming here in Saskatoon from time to time… So I’ thinking I will run a sort of mini-con in the War Room (my basement wargames bunker – it’s not that bad, for those of you not familiar, It’s really only a half basement, fully developed, 8ft ceilings and 3’x3’ windows… it’s really rather nice…).

I’ve thought about some different potential formats for such a weekend. It could either be just like a mini-con where a number of the participants each volunteer to run a different game in one of the time-slots OR I could just run a series of games all by myself all weekend – all the participants would have to do is show up and play my games! I’m kind of leaning towards the latter as I am a closet control freak and also if someone wasn’t able to come at the last minute I’d have to come up with something at the last minute anyway…

Whether I run all the games or other run games I thought it might be fun to have a sort of theme to the weekend – maybe based around a single conflict; the Great War, for example…. Games could be played for different theatres of aspects of the conflict – maybe some Air combat with Canvas Eagles or Wings of War, some action at sea with some naval wargame or another, and of course some land battles in one or more theaters of the conflict…

Better yet… a Wargames Campaign Weekend! Play out an entire wargames campaign over a weekend! This is my favorite idea of all of them. I’ve always wanted to play a campaign of some sort; I’ve started a few but never really brought any to any sort of conclusion (hmmm… except maybe the All Quiet Campaign I ran for Mr. Miller and John Bertolini a couple years back…).

At first I thought of a Map Campaign. I’ve always wanted to run a map campaign of some sort. This would be where everybody has a kingdom/country/state and army of their own and wages war on the other participants as they see fit. The idea attracts me, as there would be opportunity for political intrigue (and back-stabbing) and Strategic planning and movement in addition to the tactical/table-top battles. The downside of this format for a wargame weekend is there could be rounds where people don’t get to participate and the possibility of participants being knocked out early in the game whether through an unfortunate series of bad luck or being ganged up on by the other players for whatever reason. Also it might be difficult to bright such a campaign to a reasonable conclusion in a single weekend.

So instead I was thinking a scenario-based campaign might work better. Where the next following scenarios are affected, or even determined, by the outcome of the preceding scenarios. With this format there would only be two sides – participants would be divided among the two and for each game the would simple split the resources/commands available for the game. If someone suddenly can’t make it, or has to leave early – there’s no problem – the remaining players on that side just end up with more toys to play with… also with this format there is some opportunity to incorporate some sort of “play balance” and to keep EVERYONE involved all weekend.

Back to the map Campaign for a second… I think it would be a great idea for an ongoing campaign or a scenario generator for a regular game night… My ideas here is that the C-on-Cs for the forces/nations involved would ideally be people that don’t even live here and preferably don’t know who each other are. They would be given Sitreps for each turn and could do all the strategic planning and moving of troops and when forces bump into each other me and the local gaming crew would play out an appropriate scenario to determine the outcome. C-in-Cs could issue orders to their tactical commanders in as much detail as they want and if appropriate to the campaign send messages/couriers to the other force commanders – through me – this way I could keep track of what’s going on, what deals are being made and possible introduce some static into the campaign… couriers gone missing… or even intercepted…?!

Anyway… I’d like to hear what you have to say. Ideas? Suggestions? Whatever! Please feel free to post comments below.

Would you be willing/interested/able to (travel to and/or) participate in a wargaming weekend in Saskatoon?

What format would you prefer? Games run by different people or everything run by Tim? A theme weekend or a mix of periods, scales, and rules? A campaign weekend?

If you were interested in a Campaign or theme weekend that conficts eras would you be most interested? Which would you boycott?! Ancients? 1066? Seven Years War? Great War? WW2? Vietnam or other modern conflicts? Others?

What time of year would be best for such a thing?

I was thinking I’d like to do this at the end of February – it’s sort of between Fallcon and Mayday and there’s no other cons going on (that I’m aware of) to compete with… it wouldn’t interfere with any summer holidaying plans… it’s a good excuse to take an day off of work and make a long weekend for yourself where there normally isn’t one… (unless they’re doing that family day thing in February again…). It’s also my birthday, for the last three years I’ve hosted a Wargaming Birthday Bash – so this would become a Wargaming Birthday Bash WEEKEND! It is of course winter… and could potentially be a crappy time to travel… but then so was Hero’s Gambit three years back…