Bayou Wars XXI, June 7 - 9, 2013

Bayou Wars XXI was held a the Doubletree Hotel on Veterans Blvd in Kenner, LA.  It was a chance to run and play enjoyable games with old and new friends.  This is a very gentlemanly convention, with lots of welcoming gamers.

FRIDAY

On Friday, I ran a 5150 Star Army game in which Planetary Defense Force fire teams were pitted against marauding Lhurgg.  The players learned not to engage the Lhurgg in hand-to-hand combat.  Shoot and scoot, if possible!

Chris Swearingen and I ponder the likelihood of the PDF surviving, and completing their mission of clearing the table.  Due to being an early game, we didn't get started for about 30 minutes, waiting for players to join the con.

The lumber yard, from which a small group of Lhurgg attacked, and the PDF Lt. ran away, though all his troops thought little enough of his actions to remain.

Jeremy (center) and Josh Gremillion capably handled their fire teams, as did the young man nest to them.  The ultimate result was that the PDF cleared the ruined factory, but forgot about the lumber yard.  More time might have seen them succeed.  The Lhurgg were run as PDF's, played by Brian Simmons, who arrived late.

These are shots of a beautiful game that I didn't see.  Theresa took all the pictures.

And here we have Duane Rock and Rudy Nelson of Time Portal Hobbies at his dealer's table.

Next to my dealer's table and game table, Ken of All The King's Men ran 54mm ACW games throughout the convention.

Steve Wirth ran a dinosaur game in the other gaming room, and apparently all had fun getting eaten!

Larry Reeves gets a clarification from Steve Wirth.

JonnyCon 4.5 ran a what if game in which the Battle of New Orleans was fought in 1864.  I believe that the Rebels won.

And I tried my hand at the new Star Wars fighter game, and being loyal to the 501st, took a flight of tie fighters to their deaths, though my tie fighter was the last on the table, avoiding damage from a flight of X-wings, with very bad shooting rolls.  Thomas and I gave up both our flight to take out Wedge; an expensive accomplishment.

While we were eating dinner earlier, Elizabeth and Walt Bourgoyne stopped by.  It's always nice to see other gamers wives at the conventions.  Theresa is always there for moral support.

And the Jackson Gamers were getting silly as Jim Campbell puts horns on the svelt Jay Stribling and Phil does his best to ignore them.

SATURDAY

Saturday, of course, is always the big day at a convention.  In order to play in Mark Stevens "colonial" game, I moved my game up to 9am, unfortunately to the disappoint of Mark and Joshua Brown, who didn't arrive in time.

My game was a rip-off of Gunga Din and Mark Stevens' game of Bayou Wars XX.  He's an excellent painter and uses more expensive figures.  I use Ral Partha, being cheap!   I of course used Colonial Adventures 2, by Two Hour Wargames.

Here's the initial layout.

Cutter, Ballentine, and McChesney attempt to fix the the downed telegraph wires.  The buildings were some of the first I built from foamcore about 25 years ago.

Rick Doskey chose the telegraph repair unit and died gloriously to a man, the first unit on the table to do so.

I was quite happy to have Marc Stevens in the game, a dyed-in-the-wool Sword and The Flame man. Of course, he handled his troops well.

Jim Campbell stopped by to take pictures while Duane Guilbeau helped with setting up the Pathans!  Duane is another disciple of Two Hour Games, and active on the Yahoo group.

And we finally got to meet Duane's lovely wife, Theresa!  In the background in the green shirt is Mike Bobbe of Bobbe's Hobbies, Pensacola, FL, who is running Pelicon III on the 29th of June, a great one-day con near the Pensacola Air Museum (Yeah, they're both in Pensacola)

And, of course, I'm carrying the dispatches.  The Brits won the day; the Highlanders were the deciding factor.  Without them, the Indian troops might have been wiped out.  As it was, it was a neat thing.

I'd like to thank brother-in-law Ron Gros for running Saga in that helmet, making sure that I didn't have the silliest hat!

These are the pics Theresa took of Saga units.  Ron ran this all day long, teaching the rules.

Allie of +1 Gaming playing on the Portmouths Games table.  Lovely looking game that never seems to start when I'm available.

Marc Stevens game of Napoleon in Egypt.

The British commanders, Jim Pitts, Al Himmel, Richard, me (GOC) Larry Reeves son, and Larry himself.

Mark Brown and Martha Stevens, French commanders.

Our right flank crumpled as our cavalry was outnumbered 3 to 1.  The worst troops on the board, the Ottomans, led by Larry Reeves crumpled the French right flank, and my Guards brigade threw the French center back.  The French had to occupy the two buildings on the board.  They never seriously threatened the one on our left, and bypassed the one on our right without bothering to occupy it.

Chris Swearingen ran a great early France WWII game using NUTS! 2nd edition.  I took HQ, a squad, and the HMG detachment.  Brian Simmons bravely took the lead ahead of me and suffered for it.  Even the Stuka attack that should have landed on me deviated to Brian.  The Germans were PDF's run by Chris.

Brian and I get last minute instructions from GM Chris.

All of the PDF's have not yet revealed themselves.  A Stug IIIa appeared on the left and held us up, while a German squad with a MG34 did damage to the left until finally a Rep 4 activation allowed my HMG team to do away with them.  We won, but there were a lot of Adrian helmets to put atop rude crosses.

   

                                      

Here a couple of pics of a Star Wars game atop CorSec Engineering's beautiful Red Nova mat.

These are pics of games that I did not get to see.

SUNDAY

Of course, on Sunday many of our friends are checking out of the hotel, but I managed to gather 17 players for my Six Gun Sound: Blaze Of Glory (Two Hour Wargames) hillbilly game.

Yes, I know many GM's despair over playsheets on the table, but it's my Sunday Morning Brain Dead Game, and neatness doesn't count!  The Clampetts were angry because the Skaggs had killed one of Ellie Mae's racoon and made soup.  The Skraggs were in a foul mood because Jethro Bodine had impregnated Laurie Lee and never crossed the river again.

At the end of the game, the last Clampett blew up the kerosene tank behind the store (the only place to replace ammo), and the remaining Skraggs rolled off for the 'valuable' prize of a hillbilly dice bag.

Ron Francis' possum-eatin' grin!

Marshall and Mark Mod

Ashley Nicholls and Jeremy Gremillion

Rick Doskey wisely played Laurie Lee and survived the whole game, for once!  Allie sits in disbelief.

Angela played Ellie Mae and was unfortunately shot down before any of her critters could come to her aid.  The shock around the table as our Baton Rouge star bit the big one!

 The bloody bridge!  I painted it Sunday morning!

 I laugh as silly things happen to Ashley Nicholls and Josh Brown.

 Apparently the far end of the table was invaded by some alien who had no effect on the game.

 Rick Doskey gloats as Laurie Lee survives the slaughter.

And Allie of +One Gaming wins thd coveted dice bag!

Angela and Brian Simmons take their prize home!

The final gasp of JonnyCon 4.5

Duane Rock does all of this terrain.  The fences have plastic tubes inserted into the stryofoam that they fit into quite sturdily.

Well, as always it was a great con.  Special thanks go the the Board of Directors for keeping it going, and to all the GM's and players for making it so enjoyable.

"The hills are alive with the sound of ...gunfire!"

I realized that my NWF  terrain was sadly lacking, consisting of mostly of pine bark that Vince Clyant and I knocked off the trees in his yard.  I had been given some 2" thick pink insulation styrofoam, which is much denser, but not much heavier than, white styrofoam.

I initialy got out an assortment of tools that would have complemented a house builder; hand saw, electric carving knife, hot wire cutter, hunting knife, etc.  After two hills, I realized that, for rugged hills, only the hand saw, electric carving knife, hot glue gun. and a craft (Xacto with a #11 blade) knife, were necessary.

So here are my new hills, first from 4 directions.

The figures are Ral Partha Indian Troops Advancing, since my NWF forces consist entirely of Ral Partha and Frontier true 25s.

This was the first hill I carved.  The extreme elevations on all the hills were built with cutoffs from the rectangular pieces I cut with a handsaw.  They were attached with a low-temperature hot glue gun, since white glue requires evaporation to dry, and the styrofoam is impervious to air, water, etc.
If you click on the picture, the three figures descending the ramp are the well-known Ballentine, McChesney, and Cutter.  These are quick and dirty conversions of Ral Partha officers.  Ballentine's pistol was exchanged for a mounted officer's sword hand (he now has the pistol.)  Cutter had his pistol cut away and the Thugee axe made from a sword for a set of Abyssinians from Reviresco (not on his list.  You have to ask for them. The are also true 35s, with a plethora of weapons)

This hill is ascended by the steep ramp.

On the long hill, I cut steps near one end, and...

a ramp on the other.  I stupidly made it too long to fit in the box I intended to store all this terrain in.  sigh.

To paint the hills, I first went to Lowes and found a gallon  (whining)"I wanted you to match the other side of the drapes" of  tan for $5.00, which was applied with the cheapest 2" brush they had.  This is to for a barrier for the spray paint.  The vertical sides were sprayed with Krylon Low Odor Jungle Print Satin, after the latex had dried.  The horizontal surfaces were sprayed with Valspar Stone Santa Fe Sand.

So, quick and dirty hills!

OH, no Bayou Wars is around the corner!

Yep, Bayou Wars is just around the corner (June 7 - 9) so I'll be working on goodies for my 3 games.  This will leave me no time for solo wargaming.  So, I'm putting up a few more pictures of mostly recently painted figures.

First off are 3 Chronoscope figures, Eden, Farrah, and whatever his name is.  Eden will be called Fuschia for obvious reasons.  A very simple paint job.  There is an interesting flaw in the figure.  Both semi-auto pistols have their ejection ports on the left side of the gun.  All auto-pistols have their ejection ports on the right side.  She will be Big Bad Leroy Brown's main squeeze, and will be a Poser in Two Hour Wargames rules.
Farrah is so 70's with her big hair and sunglasses, that I painted her in 70's high fashion, with all accessories in shiny white.  And Big Bad Leroy Brown will be a gang leader in 5150 New Beginnings.  I never could warm to the figure, so his paint job is a bit uninspired.

And here's a Hasselfree and two more Chronoscopes.  I painted the Hasselfree in work-a-day clothes, so she's pretty plain.  Note her gigantic eyes!  Next is the Smuggler girl from Chronoscope.  I had just rewatched A Boy And His Dog, so her pants were inspired by Vic's shirt, one of thos late 60's multi-stripes (I had several).  She has had a bit too much callogen in her lips.  And finally Decker Detective from Chronoscope.  He has a gaudy tie, like the best film noire detectives.  My stepson really likes this figure because "nothing matches, because he's too poor to use anything but what he's already got."  Hey, how come no one has made a Vic figure?

The first two figures are old GW figures.  The alien is proof that some figures can't be improved with a paint job.  The center figure is probably Talisman, and an Indiana Jones rip-off.  Nice figure though.  The last was given to me, and I have no idea who the manufacturer is.  I call him Officer Unfriendly, with his sideburns and cigaret in his mouth.  I intend him to be a Freddy Kruger figure in my zombie games.  You can kill him, but he'll keep coming back in another episode.  I found a Chevy Tahoe diecast police vehicle for him, from Maquette.  I have a friend who is a Louisiana  State Trooper who wants me to paint another in their dark blue with yellow piping.  If another shows up, I'll do it.

And finally, this is a Reaper figure that my stepson gave me for Christmas.  I tried to do a little more exacting painting on him before washing him with my brown wash.  The staff was painted a medium grey and then washed with Windsor Newton Nut Brown followed by Windsor Newton Peat Brown.  I find it gives a good worn wood finish.

This will probably be my last post until sometime after Bayou Wars, so I hope you enjoy it.