On the Move Again

 I got laid off at the end of July. I gave myself six weeks to find a new job at the same salary or else we'd sell the house and move back to Ontario. There were a few reasons for this timeline:

• Housing sales start to dip in October and selling in November and December is much tougher.
• Prices on houses had remained strong because of low mortgage rates combined with limited inventory.
• COVID-19 seemed to be spiking again and we definitely wanted to be on the market before 14 days after the long weekend. We definitely didn't want to be trying to sell during a lockdown.

We got a very good offer last weekend, and with me narrowly missing out on a job that could have kept me in Abbotsford, we had to take the offer.

I'll miss all the great people I've met here in British Columbia, my co-workers, my neighbours, and the gamers who attend Trumpeter and those who don't.

Meanwhile, this is a shot of my workbench, research library, and my gaming storage cupboard. I had cleaned up considerably to the showings, so this area is usually not so tidy. 

The one cool thing I found is that my 2mm terrain project is basically the exact same size as the top of my gaming cupboard. This was not planned but sometimes things just work out.

Socially Distanced Gaming

 So, at the beginning of the month, word went out that the naval gaming group would be holding a socially distanced naval game.

I was intrigued.

So how does one safely wargame while maintaining a safe 2 metres apart? The answer is to hold a game outdoors and to extend the ranges significantly.

(I'm the shadow in the middle on the right. This was the perspective from the Dunkerque at the start of the game. )

We met at a concreted reservoir. I was given the USS South Dakota (I think). The scenario started with a group of 4 Japanese battleships. Their goal was to break out and they would win if any of their ships did. The surrounding battleships were broken into two sides and spaced out individually surrounding the Japanese ships in a gigantic circle about 50 feet in diameter. Each ship was given a specific enemy to sink to win. Mine was the HMS Hood.

I faced an immediate problem. The two ships that were closest to me were on the other side. Additionally, one of those ships, an Italian BB, had my ship as its target. Worse, I would have to get past the Dunkerque to get to the Hood. The cherry on the trouble sundae was that the Japanese ships immediately headed in my direction.

My only real option was to sail away from the Italian ship and from the Japanese ships, so I turned tail and ran. My plan worked as well as could be expected. Because I ran away, the Japanese ships instead concentrated on the Dunkerque and Hood. The Japanese players struggled to get the range right but they did some pretty significant damage to the Dunkerque, knocking her out for three turns.

But the Japanese ships were taking a pounding from all of the other ships and this played a role in keeping the Dunkerque afloat. I had turned around to get ready to take out the Dunkerque but she came back to life.

At this point we called the game. It was an interesting experience to play and I would do it again.