Fallcon 2013

Over the last weekend I went to Calgary for my second Fallcon visit, and it was a blast!

This year, there seemed to be fewer miniatures games and more boardgames, but I still managed to get my fill.  I also met all the old Calgary crew again, along with Mark W., who moved there in this past year.

Friday night, there was a Saga game run by Mike Johnson.  At first, I thought it was some kind of tournament, so I brought my own Saga warband.  However, it turned out to be a loosely depicted version of the Battle of Brunanburh, with all the miniatures provided.

Here both armies were arrayed against each other, and I was on the Scottish/Viking side.

I took control of the Scottish King Constantine's warband and faced off against the Anglo-Saxons.  It was a pretty standard Saga warband with a leader, a couple of groups of hearthguard, and a couple of groups of warriors.

There really wasn't much room for maneuver, and I charged through one of the Anglo-Saxon warbands facing me, managing to break them in cooperation with the Viking players on my side.  The battle ended up with the Anglo-Saxons losing, having something like three of their warlords killed.

On Saturday morning, I played in Sean's GASLIGHT game, a Victorian Science Fiction skirmish using 1/72 scale miniatures.  The objective was to collect a bunch of blue crystals, and their collection triggered monsters.  The players also could cooperate or backstab each other.

 

Here was the board setup showing Sean's excellent terrain.

 

I took the role of the Ethiopian prince Haile Unlikely (clever eh?), commanding a bunch of warriors on camels and on foot.  Sean had some very nicely-painted 1/72s.

 

There were all sorts of interesting units, like this Italian steam tank controlled by Mark.

A lot of monster-killing fun was had by all.  Here, my leader attacked a giant spider by himself.

 

Mike Johnson's Fez Patrol was attacked by a giant sandworm.  He managed to kill it though.

 

Eventually, the players all had to turn on each other.  I prematurely attacked the Highlanders next to me and got a lot of my warriors wiped out for my troubles.  Here, my lone camel rider bravely charged the remnants of the Highlanders.

Later on Saturday, Don Ray's Calgary DBA group put on a friendly introductory tournament of ancients DBA, set in the time of Alexander the Great.  I participated and put my ancient Spanish army in there as a stand-in for Thracians.

I played a couple of games with an Alexandrian Macedonian army against other people who used my Spanish, and I managed to win both times, even in bad terrain.  This was more due to bad luck on the part of both of my opponents than anything else.

Most of the armies were actually Alexandrian Macedonian, provided by the club, but there were several other interesting armies too.  Here, a Persian army faced off against their historical enemy.

 

In this one, the aggressive Macedonians attacked an Indian army.

On Sunday, I participated in the Alberta Open DBA tournament with all the usual suspects.  My army of choice here was the Komnenan Byzantines.

My first game was against Mark S's Carthaginians, and it was really bizarre.  I attacked with my knights, including my general, on the right wing against his warbands in the open.  Even though I had quick-kills on his units, my general died without killing any of them.  This ended the game with 1G-0 against me!

The next game was against Mark Wall's Spartacus army.  In theory, I should've been able to take any of his units (mostly warbands and blades) in the open with my knights.  Knowing this, he cleverly positioned his warbands in rough terrain and drew up his blades to support each other.  It ended up being a grinding match, with both of us losing units until he won out 4-3.

In contrast, the next game was rather quick.  My opponent had a mostly blades army and deployed on a gentle hill.  His general and one other unit got run down by my knights very quickly, ending the game.

There were quite a few nicely painted armies in the tournament.  The brightly-coloured Sassanid Persian army here was a good example.  The tournament ended with everyone having a lot of fun, and Don gave away prizes (mostly donated by Mark W!) to almost everyone.

This year's Fallcon was an enjoyable experience, and I'll definitely be back next time!