Fall In 2015 Con Report, Part 1: Overall Thoughts and the FOW Doubles Tournament

 Fall In 2015 is done and I've just returned home.  To be be concise, it was a blast and a hearty "Bravo Zulu" to the HMGS staff for doing a superb job managing the event.  This con was one of the best HMGS cons I've attended in years.

Without a doubt the highlight for me was the chance to meet Paul O'Grady (of the Man Cave blog) and his son Reilly in person and gets some X-wing gaming time in with them.  Paul is a fantastic fellow and his son is a most impressive young man (and, by the way, a newly minted Eagle Scout!).  I was very pleased to see that parents from the southern hemisphere of our planet take the same great pride in their children that those of us from the Northern one do.  More importantly, these Southern Hem parents both excel in and take great delight from embarrassing their teenage offspring in public with goofy behavior.  There really are traits we all share on a universal basis.  I've now got a great excuse to find my way to Australia!

The con mainly consisted of meeting and getting to know Paul and his son, playing in the Flames of War doubles tournament with Luke of Friday and then playing X-Wing, lots and lots of X-Wing but more on the in a following Fall-In'15 post.

One thing I do feel compelled to comment on is the con's venue, the Host Resort in Lancaster.  I have been extremely critical of the Host in the past.  While I didn't stay there this con, I did think the facilities management and food service was much improved.  They place was kept clean and the staff seemed to be a lot more motivated.  All-in-all they did a good job and should be recognized for the significantly improved efforts.

FOW Doubles Tournament:

 I really like playing in a Flames of War doubles tournament and Luke's a fantastic partner.  The tournament's theme was Italy (my favorite on the FOW book sets) and we brought a US Inf and Mech Infantry list.  Out list structure meant we'd be on the defensive for all our games and that suited our playing style.  The first game was against a German tank and infantry company which had some Brumbars who you can see by turn two had advanced very far forward...

 Maybe a bit too far forward, as they got shellacked by one of our M-10 platoon and some 57mm AT.  I think this turn of events may have broken their player morale.  We ended up winning that game 6-1

 Our next game was against another German tank / infantry pairing with Brumbars and Elephants.

 This game we tried to show our sportsmanship since we technically "won" the game but the other side was in possession of one of the objectives so we elected to give them the win.  Winning on a technicality isn't a good way to advance in the rankings.  We marked the game down as a 2-5 loss

Our last game was against another German tank / infantry list (but with FJ's).  This was a great game and the two house with the roof's removed became a bit of a fortress and withstood 5 rounds of being hit by 150MM artillery and 120mm mortars.  It was a really fun / tight game and I learned that the threat of "popping" an ambush is often more impactful that the ambush itself.  This  game was a 6-1 win which placed Luke and I in third place for the tournament - not a bad showing for a very rusty FOW player.