Retropocalypse at DundraCon

Aggro and myself ran the Retropocalypse scenario at DundraCon just yesterday. Our first session ran for nearly three hours and we had 6 attendees. The second session ran for 1.5 hours and we had a repeat attendee and a new intrepid player. Our attendees demonstrated mastery of the basic rules very quickly. We did not expect such a large audience for the first session and it required the doting care of the both of us to ensure our guests experienced maximum enjoyment. Something had to give and we soon forgot to get enough sequential pictures to build a proper AAR.  However, in all cases our intrepid gamers did express to us that their time was well spent.

The six players in the first ran one team each of the various available factions issued at random.  The Red Army was not selected. The second session was two mini-games with two players each  (me + one, Aggro + one) at different ends of the battlefield.

At the start of each session I laid out the rules booklets with gamer card attached.

Booklets removed.

Those yellow stars are the Objective Markers. We didn't have time to build a thematic set.

Sometime around Turn 2?

Pa just took down a Scavenger.  "Get off my lawn!"

Sort of blurry.  You can see Herr Maske at the left with the She-wolves moving up towards the middle.

Done and Distracted.

Deep in the mix.  Those little bowls helped us corral the numerous dice.

From the second session, my one-on-one game.  Princess is Hidden and Ready.

A little blurry. 

Leroy about to move a bit closer to Princess and Onyx.

Ben is protecting the Object Marker.

Leroy by his lonesome.

Pa and kin Hidden.  Pa looks a bit Distracted.

Leroy caint really be hidin past them barrels.

Long view of the situation.

I think here my game was called.  Leroy took out Onyx, Princess looks out of it, and Moondog has no ranged weapons.

VSF Battle Revisited

Overview

Wee Aggro, Aggro84, and myself had a chance to re-run an earlier battle from last year.  The time we've had has been spare and so this was a welcome match-up!  Aggro84 decided to mentor Wee Aggro and I was the opposition.

Here's the previous AAR:
http://matter-energy-space-time.blogspot.com/2013/11/november-10th-2013-vsf-game.html

Assemblies

Aggro's Assembly included many Beasts with Elites, Marksmen, and a Heroic.  My assembly had many Average with Melee weapons and my Elite and Heroic were given Pistols and Heavy Armor.

Battlefield

We used the same rosters for our assemblies but we decided to go urban this time. Gamekastle in San Jose had a decent street board that we overlayed our terrain. Our mission was the Treasure Hunt one found in the full-color MEST Basic Rules .  We deployed 9 Objective Markers [ OM ] and placed them hovering within 8" near the center of the 48"x48" battlefield and no closer than 3" to each other.  Afterwards we deployed our assemblies at opposite edges.

Resource Cards

For every Objective Marker retrieved a player can draw from the Resource Cards deck which is an Advanced Rule feature.  Each card might award additional bonus Resource Points [ RPs ] to augment the collection of the OM or have some game effect that can be good or bad.

Victory Conditions

The player with the most RPs is given 1 Victory Point [ VP ]. The player that KO'd or Eliminates the greater number of enemy is given 1 VP.  The player that crosses the mid-line of the battlefield with the greater number of models is given 1 VP. The player that forces the other to bottle-out is given 1 VP.  These incentives shaped our game-play strategy.

Aggro's starting line-up. There's four OMs within view.

The starting line-up had three Beasts.  You can see
 in the back one of the OMs near those quick models.

Those little black/purplish tokens identify the models
 as being Hidden.  Hidden models receive many
 benefits, one of which is that they can't be
 targeted for Range Combat unless first detected.

Here's some of my forces.  My Elite is that all-black
 steam-punk guy with dual Pistols from LAF minis.
There is an OM nearby.

A high shot of the starting conditions.  My forces are
 way in the back near the top. 

This is one of my blurry smartphone pics. Sorry. 

One of the Beasts makes a run to carve out a
 tactical position near the skull-pile OM; it goes into Wait.
 Another Beast runs to the barrel OM.  The two other
 OMs are taken by a third Beast at the jalopy and by a
Marksman near the south-west wall at the street-lamp.

From this angle you can see that Wee Aggro
 has secured 1 VP for most objective markers, and one
 more for crossing the center with at least one model.
 At the left his quick beast is fighting my Turk Marksman
 for the bone-pile OM.  My forces at the right are bit slow
 but they have been moving into position.  The Elite
 with the pistols is in Wait to cover the skull-pile OM.

Here's my Turk Marksman and the Beast.  It doesn't look
 good; he's been Wounded and is already Nervous. 

Aaargh! Turkman down! Apparently the Beast is
 now Distracted and this may slow it down.

Meanwhile across that particular wall you can see
 that I've got another shooter in position and Hidden.

Across the street in the courtyard I've bean able to
 maneuver several of my characters into position.
This particular area becomes a critical choke-point because it
 is also at the mid-line of the battlefield.  The Beast
 already took the other OM and so I'm stuck trying to
 acquire VPs by other means.

Back near the Turkman I've been able to bring into my
Elite and Heroic to acquire the bone-pile OM.
Another Beast was fielded to prevent that and
 also Wee Aggro decided to bring in one of his shooters.
 I got the OM for myself when I brought in the Heroic.

You can see that my Heroic with the Sword and the
 Elite really kicked some butt.  Though it looks bad
for my Elite this little Scrum was mine to own.

OK. This is back at the other courtyard.  You can see
 that I've been able to bring about my Leader and
 begun getting closer towards the mid-line.

Here is my last picture.  I've been
 doing mop-up work in that courtyard.
At this point Wee Aggro forfeits
 knowing that it is a matter of time.
I win with achieving the most KO'd and
 Eliminated, and with the most
 models crossing the mid-line.