From: "D. Holte" Subject: Fox Con 1 - early report. The Con is continuing through today, so there will be some new things to mention later. The attendance was about where Chris expected (about 30-35, possibly more as some have only showed for one day.) Allan Bell was able to come through on his way back to Australia, and since he's probably _still_ on a plane, it's safe to talk about him. As he was a visitor, Ray and I thought it only fitting that we allow him and Ted Kim to give us a thorough drubbing at STALINGRAD POCKET II on Friday and Saturday. My Romanians in the North were holding moderately well, but Allan took advantage of some rather aggressive Axis forces in the South and encircled the city. As far as the game goes, I liked it a lot. The Southern battle seemed to be a slugfest, but in the North, the game is very fluid and both players must make many adjustments thoughout the game. And even though the Axis player will take many losses and spend most of the time on the run to the Chir, he still gets the opportunity to chew on an occasional exposed division here and there. Perry Andrus came by and mentioned that the next title in the SCS series will be OPERATION CRUSADER, and that should be very well-suited battle for this system. I won't wait long to buy that one when it's out. Allan showed us his program to run the old SPI game AFTER THE HOLOCAUST (although, I told him I would make sure to report that as an Apple employee, he should not have asked for forgiveness for his laptop that was "outdated and very slow" ) Anyway, it looked like a great way to cutdown on the 'paperwork' time in the game. Very nice. Chris Cummins had the beta to their new computerized WAR IN EUROPE running, and this looks very exciting. It will allow you to play the classic game via PBEM or hotseat, and will include all existing errata and many play improvements. Also, it will allow play of just WAR IN THE EAST or WAR IN THE WEST as well. (He also hinted that if this one is a success, WACHT AM RHEIN may be next..) Justin Thyme has been running their games through the weekend, and I heard that they were quite fun. My SP2 partner in the South was playing England in their modified A MIGHTY FORTRESS game and said it was a lot of fun. Yesterday afternoon, they were running a moderated, blind game of Gettysburg but I didn't get a chance to get the full story. 'Looked like a lot of fun though. I think Joe Miranda was supreme commander of the Union forces, while Tony Zalewski had the Rebs. Joe Miranda of course had some of his upcoming games to display, and Hank Meyer had the early maps for DESERT FOX DELUXE on display. Joe Youst did the artwork and of course they looked great. Joe was going to come down but due to illness could not make it. New products - There are copies of FOX ONE, the new card game from the GameFix/Competitive Edge guys available, and Doc had copies of the latest S&T there (the remake of THE FALL OF ROME.) I bought a copy of Avalon Hill's new AGE OF RENAISSANCE. 'Haven't had a chance to play yet, but the graphics for this one are certainly stunning. The cards are simply gorgeous. I'm sure this one will quickly be a popular game in my own local group. Anyway, I'm off to the Wyndham now, and we'll see if Ted Kim and the White Bros. (Mike and Chris) can hold off my Axis jugernaut in KRIEG! (Allan, why did you leave me with a Treaty card in the summer of '40? I could be skiing the slopes of Norway this fall, and instead I've got my useless ambassadors running around causing headaches.. ) -Danny From: "D. Holte" Subject: More on Fox Con 1 [con't] Chris had John Desch's soon-to-be-released game, THE FORGOTTEN WAR: KOREA on display. Actually three games in one, it includes three battles: The Naktong Bridge, Chosin, and The Hedgehog at Chipyong Ni. The maps and counters are complete, and Chris thought the rules had already gone to proof and should be ready for the printers. So, this one could feasibly be ready for OrcCon in February. Also, they had the maps for S&T 184 out, THE FIRST ARAB-ISRAELI WAR. I didn't get the details on this one, but the maps looked like Joe Youst's work - Very nice IOW. Joe Miranda had another of his games on display - BRITISH EMPIRE. Unfortunately I didn't get the details on this one, though one scenario will cover a hypothetical 19th-Cen British invasion of Vietnam. Justin Thyme was running a multi-player blind game of PANZER BLITZ. I was briefly in the game as Soviet Political Commissar, but unfortunately my prior commitments to other games kept me from continuing. In the afternoon we played a game of LORDS OF THE SIERRA MADRE. The players were Ted Kim, Tony Zalewski, Chris Cummins, Mike White, and Chris White. For those who don't know, LotSM is a game of production/expansion in turn-of-the- -century Mexico/Southwestern U.S. Phil Eklund designed it and it's really a lot of fun. Jim Jones took over for Tony Z. late in the game, but Tony, who doesn't normally play the 'lighter' multi-player games, said even he liked this one. What other game let's you run guns, raid opponents ranches with bandits, or send machine-gun toting jeeps commanded by George Patton to chase them? [actually, there is PANCHO VILLA, also designed by Phil Eklund] Chris said that he definitely considered the Con a success, and will be planning on running Fox Con II in November (Note - this one was supposed to have been in November, but there was a screw-up at the hotel.) -Danny From: tjohnson Subject: Justin Thyme at Fox Con I: Results We had a fun learning experience at Fox Con I. We had brought with us three simulations. Two of which, we re-wrote for our format from the wargame Classics "PanzerBlitz", and "A Mighty Fortress". Ostensibly because Fox Con I was heralded as a "board wargaming" convention. A Mighty Fortress Of the two classics, it "A Mighty Fortress" turned out to be quite enjoyable, and playable. Although intended to be played with a political section ala "Diplomacy" in another room. There weren't enough players so it the political separation was dispensed with. As mentioned previously, we used the map from "Empires in Arms", this was to utilize "area movement". In addition, we took the pieces from the latest edition of "Risk", which are now a plastic miniature of a soldier, a horseman, and a cannon. Joe Miranda, although he did not play in this scenario, was intrigued by the small plastic "Risk" pieces while he took a look at it. By the expression on his face, I could just imagine him trying to figure out how he could fit plastic figures, into an issue of S&T. Maybe it's the "Lure of Miniatures" discussed a month earlier. We had to cut it off due to time constraints, thereby giving it a Lutheran victory. The Jesuit missionaries had just started appearing on the board and had not started affecting the Lutherans. France came in second, almost establishing an early French empire at the expense of the Hap(less)sburgs and the English. Gettysburg While I was playing "A Mighty Fortress" my compadres from Justin Thyme decided to revise our current "Gettysburg" system into a triple-blind. They had two huge sheets of 1"x1" graph paper and frantically drew two similar maps with magic marker of the battlefield to match our 3D terrain we had build up of felt and tree figures. Once again, we utilized the figures from the latest edition of "Risk". This time Joe Miranda played as Union versus (I think it was) Tony Zalewski as Confederate, Frank Moody was also in on it (but I forgot which side he played on), and another player. This one also turned out to be a trip. While Joe and Tony were representing the Lee and Meade and receiving status reports from the front lines, the other players were maneuvering the Divisions on the large tactical board. Joe was again "entranced" by the sight of plastic figurines on top of the hastily drawn map of the battlefield we had made earlier in the day. The figurines were placed on the alternate maps as the positions of the opposing forces were updated. For the curious, we had judged it in favor of the Confederates, as they had broken the Union center. (Neither were the battle lines positioned on the traditional ridges.) We had made allowances for the commanders to try new tactics. Panzerblitz This was another triple-blind. I managed to muddle through this one. Joe and Tony were in this one again. On the surface, believe it or not, they were on the same side. Joe as the Soviet CO and Tony as the Chetnik XO. The German XO had just managed to vacate his bunker, as Joe pounded it into an "X" block with an SU-152 regiment and a close assault. However the German CO & XO were able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The German CO was being held prisoner by the Chetniks, He managed to turn the Chetnik XO (Tony), with a captured shipment of Gold (ala Kelly's heroes) and Artwork. When Joe was just able to break through the German line, The German XO managed to link up with the German CO and Chetnik, and made their getaway in the armored cars of a recon battalion. In addition, they "bumped off, the Chetnik in their armored car. Dealer dollars were awarded to the Germans in this one. There is more to story, but I can't give out more details due to the most dangerous weapon of all, the "plot device". Especially so if I want people to play it again. Needless to say, this scenario I'm sending back to my "In-box" for more re-work. I had simply allocated too many units to be managed effectively, by too few people on a triple-blind. Tracy Johnson Justin Thyme Productions From: "James H. Jones" Subject: Foxcon To add to the already voluminous posts on Foxcon One, I would judge it a qualified success(bearing in mind that my exprience with cons in general is limited). I arrived Friday night, after driving in from the Central Valley, and became quickly involved in a learn as you go game of Eurofront. We played the short '43 scenario (I can't recall the name of my opponent and owner of the game). Although I ended up with a marginal defeat as the allies, I did manage to pull off a couple of nifty flanking landings on the lower Italian peninsula to put several units out of supply, resulting in their eventual demise. Neverthless I tried too many landings, resulting in the loss of too many beachhead markers and headquarters steps resulting in the loss of a large number of VPs. This was my first experience with one of the block games and I enjoyed it, simple enough to grasp most of the mechanics quickly enough so that I was able to give a good game to an experienced opponent, yet it mirrored many of the difficulties experienced by the allies--I may pick this one or its sister game Eastfront up some time. On Saturday I joined in the "Mighty Fortress" game by Tracy Johnson. I joined late and chose the papacy to play. As Tracy already mentioned, the game was called a little early before the jesuits came to bear in a meaningful way, so the papacy was the big loser in that one. It was a fun go, although the combat rules had to be tweaked a couple of times during the game I was then the runner/corps commander for Joe Miranda in the gettysburg game. His plan was to suck them into the center, while hitting the Cenfederate left and rolling up their line. I'm not sure I completely agreed with the plan, but couldn't talk him out of it (those CinCs just won't listen to good advice from their subordinates). In justice to his efforts, the game had to be called before the full weight of his attack had been brought to bear on the left flank. Our center while suffering losses, was in the process of pulling back to the historical ridge line, so things may very well have gone the Union way on Day 3 if played out. Certainly JM wasn't ready to concede a Confederate victory at the point the game ended--he felt they were falling right into our "trap." I can definitely see where the whole experience would have been better with more players in the various corp commander roles, a short coming that resulted from the overall low attendance at the con. On Sunday, woke up late and managed to get in a game of Settlers with Callie Cummins and another couple(whose names again escape me, old age creaping up). Then joined Lords of Sierra Madre as a replacement. I didn't get to do too much, as the position I stepped into wasn't the best, and I was again doing the "learn as you play" method. Nevertheless it was great fun, and I look forward to finally breaking the seal on my copy and learning the game in ernest for the next time. A word of advice for those out there who may have LSM and haven't sent in their reg card, apparently a 2nd edition rules book is being printed up to be included in all future sales of the game, but will be sent out free to those who bought an old copy and have registered their game. In summation, the low attendance was a bit of a shortcoming, but one they appear willing to put up with in the short term with the hope that word of mouth and time will increase attendance figures in the future. I pretty much did as much gaming as I could wanted to, and learned two new games in the process. I had an opportunity to talk to JM, something of a treat as I have enjoyed several of his games. I may try returning in November, although it might be too close to Pacificon to justify the expense and time. James and Janet Jones jjones@elite.net From: "Michael A. Daniels" Subject: Re: Foxcon Regarding the WIE Computer game: (a) I asked Chris Cummins how much the War In Europe (WIE) computer game would cost... His response was $60 retail, but most likely direct mail order price would be $40. (b) Chris Cummins stated that a Beta Copy is available for "Beta Testers" HOWEVER, there is a $40 charge (Needless to say, I passed on this "Platinum Opportunity"). (c) When I asked him technical details (CPU, RAM, & HD requirements), he was unable to provide adequate (informed) answers. Unfortunately, I did not get an E-Mail address for the Programmer (an oversight on my part). (d) The game did look interesting...Like (some) other computer wargames, you can toggle the magnification of the "board." The graphics were crisp VGA, but at higher magnification, you cannot see the "counters" clearly. At first, I thought that the game was very attractive, but after reflective thought, I concluded that you lose the "visual impact" of the (boardgame) map. Every time I go to my garage, I am treated to the beautiful sight of a huge map of Europe covered with counters. I can't imagine receiving the same satisfaction level from a computer screen. (e) For a person who doesn't have the space for the (full) boardgame, this computer program will be an effective method to play this "classic" boardgame. (f) As stated in previous posts, this game is Hot Seat Only. I asked Chris if you could play the game by file transfers...He responded yes, but I cannot express any confidence in his answer. (g) We will have to wait until we can (get E-Mail) access to the programmer to find out which set of errata was used. I suspect there is no provision for "optional settings." (a) Attendence was approximately thirty (30) [according to Chris Cummins] on Saturday. This was consistent with a rough headcount (I made late Saturday Afternoon). I did not attend Friday or Sunday. (b) The convention area was closed at 2400 on Saturday...This was a MAJOR drawback as two (2) of the people in the ETO game I played were only available on Saturday. (c) The other four (4) people in the ETO game (upon hearing that the room would be locked at 2400) stated that they wouldn't be back for another FOXCON (they felt it was cheaper to play a game at someone's house). As for myself, I will probably attend the next one (it takes time to raise convention attendence to a level that makes attending worthwhile) in the hopes that the convention will survive and grow. (d) There was no "Dealer Room" the only vendor was "Cummins & Cummins" (A High Cost Provider). I played in a game of ETO. We played a 1942 scenario (starting in January, 1942). I was one of the Allied Players. Because I arrived late, I was assigned to the Middle East. Due to the inability of the other allied players to adequately defend the sea lanes, I found myself fighting the Africa Corps for five months (WITH ALMOST NO # REINFORCEMENTS). Fortunately I had read Rommel's book. It was a very fluid battle that eventually ended with the surrender of the Africa Corps after I surrounded Rommel at El Alamein. Unfortunately, they were able to fly Rommel out before the surrender. After my success, I was rewarded(?) with a transfer to the Eastern Front, where the Soviets were on the ropes after the Germans cracked the Russian lines at Moscow. I was able to stop the Germans and stabilize the line. After their thrust at Moscow was blunted, the Germans attacked in the South towards Rostov. In November of 1942, I launched my Winter Offensive. I struck at the weak Rumanian Units covering the Panzer Attack on Rostov. I crushed the Rumanians and pocketed two (2) German Panzer Corps. After the destruction of the trapped Panzer Corps, I called my glorious victory "ROSTOVGRAD." While I was hotly engaged on the Eastern Front, my "erstwhile" Western Allies managed to make three (3) unsuccessful amphibious assaults against Norway and allowed the Italians (without the assistance of Rommel) to break the El-Alamein Line and advance all the way to the Nile! The game continued on Sunday (without me). V/r Dr. Morbius of the Krell From: Allan Bell Subject: Re: Fox Con 1 - early report. Danny Holte wrote: > >Allan Bell was able to come through on his way back to Australia, and >since he's probably _still_ on a plane, it's safe to talk about him. But i'm listening.... ;-) >As he was a visitor, Ray and I thought it only fitting that we allow >him and Ted Kim to give us a thorough drubbing at STALINGRAD POCKET >II on Friday and Saturday. My Romanians in the North were holding >moderately well, but Allan took advantage of some rather aggressive >Axis forces in the South and encircled the city. > Ray (who played the axis in the south) was very aggressive but it was not obvious to him that the best strategy for the axis was to evacuate the city and prepare for the encirclement. The game heavily favours the use of artillery to disorganise the defenders and then use your ground troops to attack the disorganised units while their they are defending at half strength. You can kill units with artillery alone but it is harder. He also missed the opportunity the shuffle the units in his defensive front to make small attacks at the enemy's weak points. But with a new game you need to play it once to pick up the best strategy. When you are playing the axis, going backwards and expecting to be encircled it is hard to remain positive. I can see why historically the soviets were slow to reduce the stalingrad pocket. Ray had some strong units in there. He was doing better at Tracy's A Mighty Fortress game and understandingly was losing interest in taking a beating in Stalingrad Pocket II. Danny had the pieces for SP2 sprayed with the artists varnish and then blue-tacked onto the board (which was mounted under plastic). This seemed to me to work quite well. The map and pieces for SP2 are gorgeous and one other attendee to Fox Con went out and bought it on the spot. >Allan showed us his program to run the old SPI game AFTER THE HOLOCAUST >(although, I told him I would make sure to report that as an Apple >employee, he should not have asked for forgiveness for his laptop that >was "outdated and very slow" ) Anyway, it looked like a great >way to cutdown on the 'paperwork' time in the game. Very nice. Yeah my humble laptop is 386 vintage (to put it in intel terms) a fast machine in its day but we have much faster on the market today. Now if I can convince my boss it is time for me to upgrade... >Justin Thyme has been running their games through the weekend, and I heard >that they were quite fun. My SP2 partner in the South was playing England >in their modified A MIGHTY FORTRESS game and said it was a lot of fun. No, he was playing France and came second so he was happy. He was running out of units to cover his extended French empire. >New products - There are copies of FOX ONE, the new card game from the >GameFix/Competitive Edge guys available, and Doc had copies of the latest >S&T there (the remake of THE FALL OF ROME.) I bought a copy of Avalon Hill's >new AGE OF RENAISSANCE. 'Haven't had a chance to play yet, but the graphics >for this one are certainly stunning. The cards are simply gorgeous. I'm >sure this one will quickly be a popular game in my own local group. Danny hasn't told the complete story here. He brought ten or so games to the con so that when he went home with AoR his wife wouldn't notice the new box amongst the others he took. Nice strategy. AoR looks nice. Pity I spent too much this trip. I'll get it next time. >Anyway, I'm off to the Wyndham now, and we'll see if Ted Kim and the White >Bros. (Mike and Chris) can hold off my Axis jugernaut in KRIEG! (Allan, >why did you leave me with a Treaty card in the summer of '40? I could be >skiing the slopes of Norway this fall, and instead I've got my useless >ambassadors running around causing headaches.. ) I didn't have the paratroop unit in the force mix until late (damn delay box roll) so Norway was going to be hard to take quickly. I took the opportunity to blitz the low countries instead. The axis are limited to not having two blitzes in successive seasons and I didn't want to use a total war card so a treaty card was all that was left. I figured that in the summer you could invade France, use the treaty card to pull in Hungary and then the France Ultimatum card could be used to finish off France. Probably a terrible strategy (looks even worse now I look at it) but hey, I was a Kreig newbie. Kreig looks good. I'm not sure if I can get my group to play it but it will be on my shopping list. I'll probably wait for totaller kreig. Allan From: "Ted Kim (Random Dude)" Subject: FOX CON (another report) The first FOX CON was held at the Wyndham LAX hotel on 17-19 Jan 97. Overall attendance was about 35, though 15-20 were probably there at any one moment. Chris Cummins said it would be a while before the exact numbers were in, but on the whole he was encouraged enough to think about runing FOX CON 2 in Nov 97. At the con, his Desert Fox Games company was selling new games and mags. Everything was list price, but by using the $10 coupon given to attendees or going for the buy 2 get 1 free deal you could do okay. For November, they were considering adding an auction. Various Decision Games personalities showed up along with some of the usual LA area suspects: Chris Cummins, Alan Emrich, Hank Meyer, Joe Miranda. As others have mentioned, future Decision products were shown off including games on Korea, '48 Arab-Israeli War, DESERT FOX DELUXE, COMPUTER WAR IN EUROPE. Joe Miranda showed me some maps for STORM OF STEEL (strategic WWI) and his Crimean War game. There was a hardcore group of ETO players who played through the whole convention. Alan was showing off TOTALER KRIEG!. Joe Miranda demoed various projects of his. The Justin Thyme folks ran some events including MIGHTY FORTRESS, GETTYSBURG and PANZERBLITZ. Tracy also made some CONSIM labels for our badges! On Friday night and into Saturday, I played STALINGRAD POCKET II. Alan Bell and I played the Soviets. Danny Holte and Wray (forgot his last name) took the Axis. We used Dean's historical setup to speed the start of the game. Danny and I squared off in the northern half of the board. After a Romanian corps or two evaporated, my attack went deeper to the west than history, and I nearly gave Danny a heart attack when I got over the Chir river. However, he did manage to keep reforming a line, even though it looked like collapse was imminent every turn. It's not clear if having Chris Cummins 6.5 year old son roll the dice helped or not. In the south, Wray was seduced by the powerful German mobile units into attacking. Unfortunately, the Romanians were being ripped to shreds by Alan and German forces were not being shifted to cover. Thus, Alan formed the pocket by himself, but with very large forces within. Only scratch forces stood between the Chir/Aksai river line and the Soviet spearheads. On the other hand, perhaps the pocket could have broken out, instead of waiting to be rescued. Eventually, we called the game about half way through to try other things. Overall, I like the system even with the "OCS lite" features which some SCS purists have complained about. The asymetrical turn sequence, exploit/reserve system and determined action markers add some interesting twists. Apparently, our game attracted enough attention for another pair to buy a copy and start playing. On Saturday and Sunday, Chris and Mike White joined us for KRIEG!. We didn't get that far, but I think the "first timers" got a reasonable look at how it works. I would have liked to have seen if my advice to play the Manchurian Settlement was wise for the Soviets. Later Sunday, the White brothers, Chris Cumins, Danny Holte, myself and Tony Zalewski played LORDS OF THE SIERRA MADRE. This is a game about the frontier area along the Mexican border in the 1888-1917 period. Each player takes the role of a wealthy businessman using legitimate and not-so-legitimate means to develop business "opportunities". The game is loaded to the gills with historical flavor. Danny, Tony and I started close to the border with the other players far to the south in Mexico. Early on, Danny and I got into a little conflict about him buying the railroad in front of my ranch. (Tony had done the same to Danny.) I had the Wild Bunch burn Danny's ranch and eventually got the railroad when the bank loans got to be too much. However, he used various ploys to add to my financial pains in order to exact a fitting price for my misdeeds. My banditry triggered an arms race and every available military/police unit was bought off as protection. (These had to be repurchased after Halley's Comet caused some panic.) Danny's casino gave him a steady income, but the real money makers (mines and smelters) were slow to show up in the game. When they finally showed up, there were well developed ranches and an extensive railway network already in place. (The rail construction was helped by extensive subsidies from the Mexican government.) For a while, bandits tried to buy guns with various military units chasing them around (sometimes in fights staged by Chris White). Tony bought up a newspaper fueling speculation that he might have political aspirations. A few revolutionaries were bought up to forment future trouble. Some of us put puppets into the election for the governor of Sonora, but gold behind the status quo incumbent carried the election. South of the border, the White brothers and Chris Cummins set up little empires, protected by various combinations of Mexican troops. Chris Cummins and Mike White in a joint venture were finally poised to get the first operational mine with Tony (later Jim Jones) as developer of the first smelter. I attempted to extort some money from Jim Jones by threatening his smelter with some lawyers. Jim didn't take kindly to this and a proxy fight ensued. I ended up with the smelter, but I also had to take over development costs. (Next time I will extort closer to project completion!) Mine profits eventually started to roll in. Mine production was aided by my professor's Copper refining invention in exchange for promises not to use Mexican forces to "tax" my smelter. The ore took a circuitous route to get to the smelter cutting in the proper railroad owners. The mine owners and I also bought the Mexican Secret Service to protect our operation from further lawyering. When the game was called due to time, Chris Cummins was busy building his own smelter to cut me out of the money. Danny's mine was about to come on line with my second smelter as a potential partner for that operation. Wray and his wife came to watch our wheeling and dealing late in the game after their game of SETTLERS OF CATAN. Overall, I really enjoyed the historical flavor of the game as well as the wheeling and dealing. The game can be quite long, but with experience (most players were newbies), the early rounds can go much faster. I am looking forward to playing again. Overall, it was a fun time. -ted Ted H. Kim Email: tek@ficus.cs.ucla.edu UCLA Computer Science Dept. WWW: http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/tek 3564F Boelter Hall Phone: (310) 825-7307 Los Angeles, CA 90095 FAX: (310) 825-2273