Hot Lead 2017

This is a rather late posting for something that happened in late March...

Hot Lead was a bit a strange event for me. I had been really busy the previous two weeks with job interviews all while hoping that to hear back from a company in the Vancouver area. They had pushed their decision back by a week so I didn't know what to make of that. So at the time, I had no idea what was in my future and it put a bit of a damper on purchases. But I had really come for the games. (As it turned out, I got an offer from the West coast company on the Monday so I'm really glad I went because it could be a while before I get to another Hot Lead con.)

Unfortunately, I didn't really take that many pictures. I played in three games but I am unable to recall the first one. Might have been the Italian wars. Maybe.

In the afternoon session, I played Guns of Gettysberg. Very nice rule set and it makes me very interested in picking up Pickett's Charge, by the same author. I had the lead brigade charged with gaining the hill so that the rest of the Union had room to deploy.

Unfortunately, the Confederates got to move first but I shot first. My first roll was a good one and it just completely unravelled the Rebs. By the time they had sorted themselves out, my cannons were pounding their left and my line and skirmish were taking their toll.

Having taken out the lead Rebel brigade, I was able to extend my left so that a fresh brigade could occupy the road on the left. The Union brigade arrived in the nick of time.

Meanwhile, on my right, a fresh Union brigade was starting to steamroll what was left of the Confederates.

In hindsight, this was going to be a tough scenario for the Confederates to win. It turns out that the hill was a trap. If I had gone first, I would have gone over the top of the hill and got blasted.

In the evening, I played in a game of Pikeman's Lament. It was very entertaining if a little lacking in period feel. I can see why the Rampant games are popular. They are fun. I had the left flank but the game was really 4 separate games in which we made no attempt to stay in turn with the other players.

My Scots Forlorn Hope were the real heroes. They dashed into the church on my right to prevent it being occupied for one turn. (I then realized that while it was helping Chris on my right, he really wasn't in any position to take over having had real problems failing his movement rolls. Rather than have them shot to pieces, I pulled them out on my next turn.) They then dashed to the other side to take out some musketeers. Having done that, they rampaged into the enemy pikemen and dispatched them. Finally, caught out in the open with dwindling numbers, they were finally gunned down by the last enemy unit.

I didn't take any pictures but fortunately, my fellow Scot Chris Robinson on my right did. You can see a couple of pictures of the affair in his blog: http://twothreesixmm.blogspot.ca/2017/03/hotlead-2017.html. Thanks to Mark for running the game. He had a very clever scenario and made for a fun event.

Guardians

While I was in Vancouver, I happened to stumbled across these (almost literally, because I was head down trying not to get too wet):

A Ram II



And an M4 Sherman:






















These two tanks stand guard beside the Beatty Street Drill Hall, which the home of the British Columbia Regiment.
The plaque says that this tank isn't actually the battalion commander's tank. I suspect that they bodged together two completely different tanks to create this display tank. The turret and port side came from a tank that was hit many times by an MG. Even though there's some hits on the front of the turret, there's none on the front hull. It is possible that the turret was turned to face the MG and that would account for the hits on its front but not on the front hull.




Here's the plaque. You can see some of the hits pretty clearly.

Interlude

Well, it's been a while between postings and for that I apologize.

I had initially thought that not working would mean that I would be able to get in a few more hours of painting, terrain-building, and gaming. How wrong that was.

Looking for work turned out to be a full-time job in of itself. I found that even when I did have the time, it was hard to find motivation. Perhaps it was guilt: should I really be painting when perhaps there's something I could be doing to find a job?

Well, eight weeks ago that all changed. A fantastic company offered me a position and I accepted. The only catch was that I had to move to BC.

In the space of 17 days, we packed the house, painted it from top to bottom, changed the kitchen counter, staged it, and put it up for sale. Needless to say, this has made anything gaming-related hard to do. But not impossible...