Let's Roll Con 2020
Over the weekend I had the opportunity to participate in what may be the first ever virtual gaming convention. While there may be groups or conventions that play games online, they are not usually miniature games.
From what I understand, this was originally the weekend for the Huzzah! Convention that would have been held in Portland Maine. Due to the worldwide crisis, they canceled the convention but then changed directions and it became a virtual convention.
I heard about the game late in the scheme of things, from a post that Dave Phipps of Pulp Alley had put on Facebook. To participate in the convention you had to register (it was free), and once registered you could get tickets (also free) to play in the games. The GMs had the ability to choose what format they wanted to use to run their game. I saw various sessions using Roll20, Zoom, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, and other video chat systems.
It was tough to know what to play, since all of this was extremely new. I imagine it was for all of us. For example, there was a Jonny Quest RPG game that was going to be run at noon. I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, I grew up watching the show, and have the theme running through my head right now, but I have only ever played one RPG. That was many years ago and honestly, was not a good experience. Having no familiarity with the rules, or RPGs, I thought that it was better not to play, and to instead watch the live stream of the game to see if perhaps in the future I might play. That game ended up being canceled, I guess not enough players, so I felt bad if my participation or lack thereof, might have made a difference, but didn't want to have the GM having to spend the entire time working just with me on how to play.
I ended up signing up for a game of Ultracombat Normandy at 8pm (Eastern Time US). I was not familiar with the rules, but after checking around online, they seemed easy and figured it would be an enjoyable experience. The game would be run on the Roll20 platform. I have an account on there from several years ago, but had honestly forgotten about it, and had almost zero experience with it.
In preparation, I spend some time reading reviews of the rules and also trying to get more familiar with the gaming platform. The rules themselves are a very large book. For participating the GM provided us with a copy of the PDF rules (thank you for that), and it comes in at 174 pages. That does include cards that you would need to print out and cut apart, to play the game. I think the actual book is about 134 pages long.
The GM, Colin Phillips, who is also one of the authors of the rules, contacted the players on May 15th. He included copies of several charts that we would need to play the game. I printed out the charts, in black and white, and also had the PDF copies available in case I couldn't see something on the chart because it was in black and white. I wasn't a Boy Scout but like to be prepared.
He also sent a copy of the scenario overview, which gave us the general situation, as well as a list of what troops the players would command. The game was being run with four players against the GM. The other author of the rules, Nathan, was unable to attend due to personal reasons, and therefore it was decided to have all of us on the US side verses the German troops being run by the GM.
The convention was run from 10am to 10pm (Eastern US) on Saturday May 16th. It was a very interesting and nice experience. First of all, it was the first convention I have ever attended, that I didn't have to worry about what I was wearing or technically even showering. I know many gamers don't worry about this at any of the conventions (which gets really interesting in the summer), but I do concern myself with personal hygiene. For the record, I did shower.
Since my game wasn't until 8pm I decided to check out some of the various "event" offerings that were available. I started with an interview with Thomas Stoesser of Stoessi's Heroes. For those that are not familar with Stoessi's Heroes, they are a very nice selection of "hero" miniatures. What I mean by that is the miniature are not just a range of World War 2 miniature figures that you purchase to use for every situation but rather a specific range of figures that reperesent the "story" of the person the figure represents.
The figures are reprsenative of people who may be well known, or not, but all have an interesting story. For example, part of the set is Band of Brothers member, Dick Winters (as well as other members of this group). There are also other lesser know individuals, and even the "ultimate heroes" from Hogan's Heroes TV series, Colonel Hogan, Colonel Klink, and Sergeant Schultz. It was actually mentioned that Klink and Schultz are best selling items.
The interview started at 11am and was conducted by Petra Bender who is from Things from the Basement https://www.thingsfromthebasement.com/ (which is where I buy the Stoessi's Heroes figures and other neat things). The biggest thing, that I learned, is that the goal that Thomas has when creating the figures, is to tell a story about the person. It isn't just to produce a random soldier figure, but to tell about the person, their life, and experieces. He mentioned that this storytelling aspect is where his interest is.
The interview was very informative and fun, and was especially interesting to me since he was in Germany, where he lives. It isn't all conventions that has someone be interviewed from another country. I don't think most people would be able to speak loud enough for that to happen.
After that was done I visited the Marketplace. That was the vendor hall that most conventions would have. Obviosly it wasn't very crowded there. The dealers offered special discount codes for the convention. I ventured over to the Pulp Alley site and bought my subscription for the 2020 Scenario of the Month. I had forgotten to do this earlier in the year and once the world changed, it had completely fallen off my radar. The site is http://pulpalley.com/. A great resouce for anyone looking for pulp gaming action. The rules can also be used for virtually any skirmish games too.
In the pulp vein of things, next up I was going to watch a playthrough of Jonny Quest and the Eye of Makara. This was the RPG game that I previously mentioned. It was going to be run using TSR Top Secret New World Order. The link for the livestream took me to the TSR Facebook page. There I saw that it was scheudled to go live at noon. Then it changed to 12:20. Then it was canceled. So much for that.
I also was able to watch an interview with Joerg Bender (Things From the Basement) and he showed us some of the upcoming Kickstarter buildings in the Farms of Gettysburg line. What he showed us were beautiful buildings that will be offered. Not exactly sure when the Kickstarter will be but if you are interested in Gettysburg buildings, you should chcck it out.
The final thing that I did for the interviews was one with David Hill. He discussed the Yamashiro games that he has won awards at HMGS conventions. I wasn't familar with him, or his games so it was interesting to hear.
Throughout all of this, I spent the day working on painting some figures that I have been wanting to get done. Basically doing some repaints on Heroclix figures, and finishing up some other figures that i have been wanting to do, but just have not.
As the hour approached for the game of Ultracombat Normandy, I logged into Roll20 and got everything set for the game. Of course when I first logged in for the game, my internet had issues. I had been fine all day and now, there was an issue. I switched over to wired internet and that seemed more stable.
I waited until about 7:50 to "enter the game". I didn't realize that he was using the same room for the 6pm game. They were just finishing up. They said their goodbyes and Colin and I began chatting. It was an interesting experience playing a game with someone in New Zealand. There was a third person "in the game" but he wasn't saying anything at first. Then we realized that when he was speaking he was playing another game. We weren't sure if it was part of the convention or if he was just playing another game. Colin tried to get in touch with him but didn't get an answer. Finally he said that the two of us would get started.
I was originally going to command half of an American squad. My section would have been the Assistant Squad Leader, the two man scout section, and a three man BAR team. Since I was the only American player, he also gave me the Squad Leader and the five man rifle team.
The game plays very easily. Each player has a group of cards that specify the various teams, the level of experience, and the other various factors that influence play of the game. The players choose a card, and whoever has the higher experience goes first. If two have the same level they we each rolled to see who went first.
The American forces were a mixed group. The Scouts were Veterns, but the rest of the troops were mixed, including some Novice men, straight from the Replacement Pool. All of the Germans were Veteren troops.
He mentioned that the game was set so that the Americans should win the game but would have a tough time of it. The Germans had a MG42, riflemen, and NCOs in a farmhouse. The issue was that the game was supposed to be two full squads verses the Germans and I only had one squad. I didn't car though, I just wanted to have some fun. Playing online was a bit different but once I remembered the workings of the site, ite went well. I want to write up a more detailed game report so I will just hit the highlights.
The game played out with the Americans advancing against the farmhouse and the Germans working to keep the MG42 firing. One thing that was interesting is that they use "real ranges" for the weapons. Every weapon can hit everything on the board (at least on what we were playing on) and grenades have a lot larger blast radius than in most games. This makes them very useful.
The game was really a lot of fun and Colin was great. I really enjoyed playing the game. When all was done, I had actually managed to win the game. Not quite sure how (since that never happens) but I did.
This was a great day. I am really happy and thankful that it happened. While I don't want to see the issues with the pandemic to continue, I think something like this virutal convention is a great thing to come out of it. To have played this game, one of us would have had to travel to another location (either he to the US or me to New Zealand) which isn't something that would be done on the spur of the moment, but this allowed for me to meet a very nice person, and experience a couple of hours with him playing a really fun game.
Thanks to the organizers, vendors, GMs, and participants of Let's Roll Con 2020, I really am glad and hope that virutal game conventions, or virtual elements to in person conventions remain in the future.
From what I understand, this was originally the weekend for the Huzzah! Convention that would have been held in Portland Maine. Due to the worldwide crisis, they canceled the convention but then changed directions and it became a virtual convention.
I heard about the game late in the scheme of things, from a post that Dave Phipps of Pulp Alley had put on Facebook. To participate in the convention you had to register (it was free), and once registered you could get tickets (also free) to play in the games. The GMs had the ability to choose what format they wanted to use to run their game. I saw various sessions using Roll20, Zoom, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, and other video chat systems.
It was tough to know what to play, since all of this was extremely new. I imagine it was for all of us. For example, there was a Jonny Quest RPG game that was going to be run at noon. I thought it sounded like a lot of fun, I grew up watching the show, and have the theme running through my head right now, but I have only ever played one RPG. That was many years ago and honestly, was not a good experience. Having no familiarity with the rules, or RPGs, I thought that it was better not to play, and to instead watch the live stream of the game to see if perhaps in the future I might play. That game ended up being canceled, I guess not enough players, so I felt bad if my participation or lack thereof, might have made a difference, but didn't want to have the GM having to spend the entire time working just with me on how to play.
I ended up signing up for a game of Ultracombat Normandy at 8pm (Eastern Time US). I was not familiar with the rules, but after checking around online, they seemed easy and figured it would be an enjoyable experience. The game would be run on the Roll20 platform. I have an account on there from several years ago, but had honestly forgotten about it, and had almost zero experience with it.
In preparation, I spend some time reading reviews of the rules and also trying to get more familiar with the gaming platform. The rules themselves are a very large book. For participating the GM provided us with a copy of the PDF rules (thank you for that), and it comes in at 174 pages. That does include cards that you would need to print out and cut apart, to play the game. I think the actual book is about 134 pages long.
The GM, Colin Phillips, who is also one of the authors of the rules, contacted the players on May 15th. He included copies of several charts that we would need to play the game. I printed out the charts, in black and white, and also had the PDF copies available in case I couldn't see something on the chart because it was in black and white. I wasn't a Boy Scout but like to be prepared.
He also sent a copy of the scenario overview, which gave us the general situation, as well as a list of what troops the players would command. The game was being run with four players against the GM. The other author of the rules, Nathan, was unable to attend due to personal reasons, and therefore it was decided to have all of us on the US side verses the German troops being run by the GM.
The convention was run from 10am to 10pm (Eastern US) on Saturday May 16th. It was a very interesting and nice experience. First of all, it was the first convention I have ever attended, that I didn't have to worry about what I was wearing or technically even showering. I know many gamers don't worry about this at any of the conventions (which gets really interesting in the summer), but I do concern myself with personal hygiene. For the record, I did shower.
Since my game wasn't until 8pm I decided to check out some of the various "event" offerings that were available. I started with an interview with Thomas Stoesser of Stoessi's Heroes. For those that are not familar with Stoessi's Heroes, they are a very nice selection of "hero" miniatures. What I mean by that is the miniature are not just a range of World War 2 miniature figures that you purchase to use for every situation but rather a specific range of figures that reperesent the "story" of the person the figure represents.
The figures are reprsenative of people who may be well known, or not, but all have an interesting story. For example, part of the set is Band of Brothers member, Dick Winters (as well as other members of this group). There are also other lesser know individuals, and even the "ultimate heroes" from Hogan's Heroes TV series, Colonel Hogan, Colonel Klink, and Sergeant Schultz. It was actually mentioned that Klink and Schultz are best selling items.
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| DickWinters |
The interview was very informative and fun, and was especially interesting to me since he was in Germany, where he lives. It isn't all conventions that has someone be interviewed from another country. I don't think most people would be able to speak loud enough for that to happen.
After that was done I visited the Marketplace. That was the vendor hall that most conventions would have. Obviosly it wasn't very crowded there. The dealers offered special discount codes for the convention. I ventured over to the Pulp Alley site and bought my subscription for the 2020 Scenario of the Month. I had forgotten to do this earlier in the year and once the world changed, it had completely fallen off my radar. The site is http://pulpalley.com/. A great resouce for anyone looking for pulp gaming action. The rules can also be used for virtually any skirmish games too. In the pulp vein of things, next up I was going to watch a playthrough of Jonny Quest and the Eye of Makara. This was the RPG game that I previously mentioned. It was going to be run using TSR Top Secret New World Order. The link for the livestream took me to the TSR Facebook page. There I saw that it was scheudled to go live at noon. Then it changed to 12:20. Then it was canceled. So much for that.
I also was able to watch an interview with Joerg Bender (Things From the Basement) and he showed us some of the upcoming Kickstarter buildings in the Farms of Gettysburg line. What he showed us were beautiful buildings that will be offered. Not exactly sure when the Kickstarter will be but if you are interested in Gettysburg buildings, you should chcck it out.
The final thing that I did for the interviews was one with David Hill. He discussed the Yamashiro games that he has won awards at HMGS conventions. I wasn't familar with him, or his games so it was interesting to hear.
Throughout all of this, I spent the day working on painting some figures that I have been wanting to get done. Basically doing some repaints on Heroclix figures, and finishing up some other figures that i have been wanting to do, but just have not.
As the hour approached for the game of Ultracombat Normandy, I logged into Roll20 and got everything set for the game. Of course when I first logged in for the game, my internet had issues. I had been fine all day and now, there was an issue. I switched over to wired internet and that seemed more stable.
I waited until about 7:50 to "enter the game". I didn't realize that he was using the same room for the 6pm game. They were just finishing up. They said their goodbyes and Colin and I began chatting. It was an interesting experience playing a game with someone in New Zealand. There was a third person "in the game" but he wasn't saying anything at first. Then we realized that when he was speaking he was playing another game. We weren't sure if it was part of the convention or if he was just playing another game. Colin tried to get in touch with him but didn't get an answer. Finally he said that the two of us would get started.
I was originally going to command half of an American squad. My section would have been the Assistant Squad Leader, the two man scout section, and a three man BAR team. Since I was the only American player, he also gave me the Squad Leader and the five man rifle team.
The game plays very easily. Each player has a group of cards that specify the various teams, the level of experience, and the other various factors that influence play of the game. The players choose a card, and whoever has the higher experience goes first. If two have the same level they we each rolled to see who went first.
The American forces were a mixed group. The Scouts were Veterns, but the rest of the troops were mixed, including some Novice men, straight from the Replacement Pool. All of the Germans were Veteren troops.
He mentioned that the game was set so that the Americans should win the game but would have a tough time of it. The Germans had a MG42, riflemen, and NCOs in a farmhouse. The issue was that the game was supposed to be two full squads verses the Germans and I only had one squad. I didn't car though, I just wanted to have some fun. Playing online was a bit different but once I remembered the workings of the site, ite went well. I want to write up a more detailed game report so I will just hit the highlights.
The game played out with the Americans advancing against the farmhouse and the Germans working to keep the MG42 firing. One thing that was interesting is that they use "real ranges" for the weapons. Every weapon can hit everything on the board (at least on what we were playing on) and grenades have a lot larger blast radius than in most games. This makes them very useful.
The game was really a lot of fun and Colin was great. I really enjoyed playing the game. When all was done, I had actually managed to win the game. Not quite sure how (since that never happens) but I did.
This was a great day. I am really happy and thankful that it happened. While I don't want to see the issues with the pandemic to continue, I think something like this virutal convention is a great thing to come out of it. To have played this game, one of us would have had to travel to another location (either he to the US or me to New Zealand) which isn't something that would be done on the spur of the moment, but this allowed for me to meet a very nice person, and experience a couple of hours with him playing a really fun game.
Thanks to the organizers, vendors, GMs, and participants of Let's Roll Con 2020, I really am glad and hope that virutal game conventions, or virtual elements to in person conventions remain in the future.
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