Pelicon

My brother-in-law Ron Gros and I decided to go to Pelicon in Pensacola, FL, on July 24th.  It was held in a square dance hall which is exactly the same as VFW hall minus the bar, because, as a former square dancer, you can't drink and promenade.

There were 3 or 4 rows of gaming tables, filled end to end with games.  Immediately upon arriving, I got into Brian Simmons' 5150 game.  The Tusken raider were trying to drive out the Empire, represented, of course, by stormtroopers and ship's troops.

I was given a 31-figure melee unit with a single leader.  We had two more melee units of approximately the same size, and a rifle armed unit also the same size.  Here's a picture of our home turf that we were supposed to drive the plastic boys out of.

And here we are arranged on the heights.

A closer view of some of the good and true Tuskens without any of those repugnant plastic boys.



And our cavalry.

As we charged charged down the slope, we learned that sticks and a worn-out creed are no match for a blaster, boy.  Let's say we were roughly handled.  A bit.  I ended up with about 5 of my boys left, as did the right flank.  The Tusken riflemen did their best, but hey, those rifles have no sights!

The luckiest thing for us was that the rocket launchers only hit once.  There were more 1's rolled for those shots than the Emperor would allow.

We did get down onto the floor and crack a little plastic armor, but not a lot.

This was the high point of our advance.  As you will see in the next picture, most of my guys were

gunned down, as were Dave's across the table.

At this point, we decided to fade back in the hills, and let the Emperor declare a victory.  My remaining troops are in between the 2 identical rock formation, having taken advantage of the Auto-kill to dispatch 3 OOF stormtroopers.  It was a lot of fun even if those plastic boys did drive us out of our valley!

Now it was my turn to put on a game, and I chose Safe Haven with All Thing Zombie: Better Dead Than Zed to inflict on the gamers.  There were 12 French Foreign Legion who were supposed to protect the civilians in the haven.

Here's an early shot of the FFL lining the wall and mowing down zombies.





The end of the wall was the end of the table.  The vehicles are paper from Chez Ebble.  Easy so far.
Of course, the more zombies you shoot, the more zombies you generate.  The humvee with the MG on the top was unable to keep the zombies from reaching the barricade.  The troops on the wall were too spread out, and not concentrating on the zombies coming up the road.

After a couple of tries, the zombies tore down the barricade.  Until they pass the wall, zombies are only able to generate outside the wall, but once they pass it, they can generate anywhere.

The humvee wisely pulled back to try to continue to keep the zombies out, but to no avail.  To make things worse, the building that had 12 cases of Scotch and 12 more FAMAS rifles caught fire.  And that, of course brought more zombies.

Then an 18-wheeler, followed by 6 gangers on motorcycles, appeared.

Their intent was to get into the compound and steal whatever they could find.  Things didn't go too well for them.  Intent on running over zombies, the driver overturned the rig just as he reached the downed barricade.  And then intiative went to the zombies, and they started attacking the bikers.  One went down and was munched.  The one behind him failed his See Zombie Feast, and headed off for parts unknown.  The leader beat insurmountable odds to escape, and another escaped with him.

The French Foreign Legion decided they had had enough.  They had loaded 2 of the civilians in a van, and a case of Scotch into another.  They ran to their vehicles and escaped.  Hey, everybody else was zombie food.  Who's gonna tell?

The last game I played in was a NUTS! game run by Brian Simmons.  We SS were tasked with holding a crossroads against the advancing US.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Brian's excellent table, and only took 2 pictures, but the bocage is not the best for sweeping vista shots.

I moved into a house right at the crossroads with an MG34 in the second story window.  My Stug III was in reserve behind the last building on our left flank.  Another squad held the right flank behind a bocage hedge.  We had a Pz IV in the rear on the right, and a Sdfz 250 with a 37mm gun to the left.

The US had a Stuart, 2 Sherman 75's, and a jeep with a .50 cal.

The US attempted to move up a .30 cal MG to the rear of the park just in front of the building that I occupied in the center.  My MG 34 stopped that from happening.  They attempted to set up a mortar down the road to the right of my center, but a gap in the hedge allowed me to surpress them also.

On the right, the US moved close to the hedge that the other squad was defending, and they kept each other pinned down.  The jeep with the .50 moved up, but was run off by the other squad's MG 42.

A US squad got into the gap between the two building at the bottom, but they were bunched up faceing the road and the 250 came up behind them and put a 37mm shell in the middle of them, knocking out 2/3's of the squad.

About this time, an artillery strike was called in on the building I occupied, and though all my squad survived, I knew I couldn't be so lucky again, so we headed for the rear, looking for someplace that the artillery hadn't registered.  I had another MG 42 set up to protect me as I retreated.

A Sherman came up and took out the halftrack, but the Pz IV caught it in the flank, and destroyed it.

Brian decided that the other Sherman would pull out, and the US infantry would follow, so we held the crossroads.  Another enjoyable game.

Here's a closer view of my squad in the ruin.  The MG 34 closest to the camera was the hold-up for the US in my sector, and the halftrack sealed the fate of the US right flank.

Now, because I was playing all day, I barely got to look around, but I saw the FOG guys stretched from the front to the rear of the hall, naval games, fantasy, SF space, and Napoleonic.

It was a great time with a great bunch of gamers, and I'm going back next year!