VetMu '23: The Re-Tribaling

On Saturday, I drove 107 miles down to the Veterans Memorial Museum in Chehalis, Wa to host a game of Tribal at the VetMu game day event, which Gene Anderson has hosted for several years, with only a brief interruption in 2020 due to The Plague™. Gene is a Chehalien and has volunteered with the museum for a long time. Prior to that, he spent a longer time volunteering to jump out of airplanes for the Army.

One thing about the museum that delights me is that the main road sign features two of the 6-inch/30 Mk III guns that made up the main battery of the USS Concord (PG-3) which participated in the Battle of Manilla Bay in 1898.

The two guns had been in Woodland Park in Seattle since 1915. I'm not sure when they were removed, but the museum acquired them at some point in the near past. When we attended the first VetMu event, they were in a fenced-off area awaiting restoration work. At the time, we weren't sure what they were, but they looked old.

Incidentally, Concord's guns in Chehalis aren't the only Manilla Bay veterans in the Pacific Northwest. Closer to home (for me) are the 8-inch/30 Mk I guns that comprised the main battery of the USS Boston, one of the ABCD ships that formed the beginning of the American steel navy, which are in Hamlin Park in Seattle. 

One of the guns bears a plaque stating that it fired the first shot at the Battle of Manilla Bay. (I believe it was the aft gun, which took a potshot at Corregidor after the squadron had passed it.)

I would love to see VetMu acquire Boston's guns and put them in an appropriate setting. They're just rusting away in Hamlin Park. Ironically, no one knows when they were put there or why.

But I digress. 

The VetMu event was attended by about 20 people, I think, and there were four games in the morning period and three in the afternoon period.

Kevin Smyth and I hosted a four-player game of Tribal in the first period using my beloved 40mm Bronze Age Europe guys. It's funny that figures that languished unused since 2019 (and since 2017 and 2016 before that) have suddenly found a new life with Tribal. I've gamed with them more times in the last two months than in the previous seven years.

I acted as GM, Kevin and Dean Motoyama were on one side; Mark Serafin and Scott Murphy on the other. The warbands were somewhat even, except that Scott had the chariot and two horsemen, and Mark had one fewer character. I just ran out of figures. I have more unpainted minis, which I need to get to, but there's already so much in the queue.

We used the objective system from the rules, each player drawing two objective cards. Mark and Scott drew Jokers, Mark drawing black and Scott drawing red. Those are the wilder objectives. The black Joker required Mark to lose every figure to win and the red one required Scott to exit his warband from the opposite side of the table. Dean had to protect his people marker and destroy his loot marker. Kevin had to hold a position in the center of the table and rescue his people marker. The Joker objectives cancel all other objectives for the players, so Mark and Scott had only one objective.

Scott started off aggressively against Dean charging his chariot-mounted warlord into one of Dean's warrior formations and wiping it out.

Dean and Mark had standard bearers in their warbands, which allowed them to use the Rally Around the Flag rule. It benefited them mostly in depriving Scott and Kevin from getting honor points when they won combat rounds.

Mark came on and moved to isolate the hill where Kevin's people objective sat. Although each was ignorant of the other's objectives, that part of the game became the locus of action for them as Kevin tried to get to the marker and Mark tried to get his wee tin soldiers all dead.

It seemed to me at one point that Mark and Dean were getting clobbered. Scott followed up wiping out one of Dean's warrior units, by moving in to wipe out his marksmen unit. Following up on that victory, Scott continued to circle around and attacked Dean's standard bearer, who'd already suffered a wound from Mark's marksmen unit and was hiding from further attention from Mark.

The standard bearer went the way of Deans other two units before him. Scott was picking up slaughter points (from Dean) for wiping out Dean's units, but not getting victory points for winning combats because the Rally Around the Flag rule.

Meanwhile, Dean attacked and destroyed his loot objective marker and got his three honor points reward. It brought him back from the brink after losses to Scott had reduced him to two. He was also able to wipe out one of Scott's warrior units in a tough fight.

At one point, by some anomaly, Scott managed to have three units left to activate while every other player had none. That was especially dangerous to Dean, whose warlord now came under repeated attacks by Scott's units. However, Dean managed to survive the assaults for a while (it's nice to armor).

He eventually succumbed, but not before he and Dean's remaining heror wiped out both of Scott's warrior formations and inflicted some hurt on his mounted heroes. Dean got no honor points, but if I were Dumbledore, I'd be awarding some to House Motoyama for a heroic stand against the odds.

At his point, Scott started to skedaddle as he assumed the game was nearing an end. We didn't actually have a set game length, but it was nearing noon when the first session ended. I also think he'd started to calculate that trying to stay and kill all of Dean's units might cost him victory points in the end.

Over on the other side, Kevin managed to keep killing Mark's figures while not knowing that it was exactly what Mark wanted. Kevin lost no figures at all in the game, although his warlord and hero got banged up some.

Mark's standard bearer was the last to go down. When he did, Mark shouted "Victory!" and revealed his objective: Getting all his warband killed.

Scott got his four surviving units off the board for eight honor points. His game total was 20. Dean achieved both his objectives and got 6 points for them, but losing four units (one of them his warlord) had cost him five slaughter points. He ended the game with 12 points. Kevin, didn't get either objective and lost six points, winding up with a total of 7 points remaining (I think). There were likely a lot of points he didn't get from winning combat rounds because of Mark's standard bearer inspiring the troops to not lose even when they're beaten. Mark had only three points, but won anyway because getting everyone killed was his sole victory condition and superseded any calculation of honor points. Funnily, Mark having one fewer character than everyone else contributed to his victory.

The game unquestionably went to Mark and Scott. 

It was the first time that Scott, Mark, and Dean played Tribal. I think they enjoyed it. Maybe they'll buy the rules...

Ad prandium et ultra

As we have done at most past VetMu events, Kevin and I went for lunch at the Market Street Pub and Grill in Chehalis.

It's simple fare for simple folk and they draw a good draft. I couldn't help thinking that it was 2019 when we were last there with Dave Schueler.

After lunch, I decided not to stay for the second period. Even though I'd appealed online in the weeks before the event that participants not bail out after the first period, I bailed out. In my defense, I left home at 6:00 am to drive down and figured that if I stayed to then end, I'd get home around 7:00 pm and have to face a very indignant cat, who would have been waiting very impatiently for his dinner.

My bigger fear, apart from facing Tybalt's disapprobation, was that I'd be so tired after being up since 4:00 am, driving for two hours, then setting up and running a game, that I'd fall asleep on the two-hour drive home after playing another game until 5:00. Even leaving when I did, I had to stop at a gas station/quick mart just south of Seattle to stretch my legs, walk a bit, and get an energy drink to be reasonably sure I'd make the remaining 37 miles to home.

I got home a bit after three. After attending to cats, I zonked out for a power nap until 5:00.

Other games

Focused on running my game as I was, I didn't see much of what else was going on, but the gist of the other games for the first session were Lawrence Bateman running a "Hedgerow Hell" Normandy scenario using Chain of Command rules, Greg Moore running a "Rat Patrol" game based on the Mad Maximilien rules by Mana Press (the same people who do Tribal), and Bruce Smith running a "Halloween Rampant" game set in Barbie Town using  Xenos Rampant. 

Second period games were James Sagen running a Napoleonic game using Rebels and Patriots rules, Scott Murphy running a Rangers of Shadowdeep game using Frostgrave rules, and Dean Motoyama running a WW1 game (with tanks!) using Bolt Action rules. All pics here stolen from Dean's FB post.

Swag

As usual, there was a bring 'n' buy at the VetMu. Chris Bauermeister is downsizing his collection of everything and had several books for sale cheap. I walked away with a few treasures.

I'd never heard of Anton Gindely's work before. He was a Bohemian historian in the late 19th c. His two-volume Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Krieges was translated and published in English in 1882. This is a 1972 reprint of that edition. 

When I got to looking at my email yesterday afternoon (after unzonking from my power nap), I found that the Kickstarter I joined for The Tales of Beowulf was nearing fulfillment, i.e., they wanted my credit card info, which I think implies that something's moving.

I ordered enough figures to make a Saga warband or two Tribal warbands. The minis look beautiful. I hope they don't disappoint on size and heft. I like heft and I cannot lie. I'm not sure when they'll show up. I've been thinking it was end of the year, but it may be sooner.

Coming up: The Return of the Son of the Tribaling (or something like that)

Our next NHMGS event will be the game day on November 18 at the Boeing Museum of Flight under the big SR-71 (actually an M-21 variant of the Lockheed A-12). I expect to have the rest of my BoJack cavemen painted by then and I'll put on a four-player Tribal game with them.