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Prague SummerCon 2017 Part II

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Prague SummerCon 2017 Day 2 - Saturday

8 am

Woke up, went for shower, prepared my stuff and knocked on Markus & Mario’s door to get with them for a breakfast.

Short hello to the pilots we met in the hotel restaurant and had some coffee, sausage, eggs and buttered bread.

9 am

Today we played in an conferece room in the hotel Mars, well organized by Dan-Sam and Kubajs.
Enough space, tables and chairs for 4 parallel games.



I started with Pirates, a SoG game hosted by Simon.



Me, Nemanja and Asja as pirates with nice painted and rigged ships versus some Royal Navy frigates under the command of Simon, Alexandar & another Serbian captain. Simon and me planed two ships.



First time I engaged Simon on the water he turned around for a broadside on maneuver quicker then me.
Can’t describe how he added the number of the damage tokens but I wasn’t only hit by a simple broadside racking shot. This was spiced with some house & optional rules and went straight through my middle deck, leaving me behind with the command of a ship and a floating wreck.

I checked the rules, Simon. I’ll get my revenge in Doncaster this year.



Nemanja and Asja fought brave and were able to fight down their two RN opponents. Myself struck the colors with one ship and was blown out of the Caribbean sea with the other.

When the game ended it was a standoff.

Nice and interesting game, hosted by Simon. Beautiful designed setup stuff and ships. It was fun to play and watch. Each gamer get a (plastic) gold coin for participation.



10:30 am

We assisted Simon in storing the whole stuff and after this I setup my ballon busting mission.
During this nice SoG mission, there were two WGS games and a WGF game.
I have some pictures of those games.

Komet attack hosted by Andrzej.



Beautiful painted "Krafteier"!



A fictional WGS 1938 sceanrio with Czech Avia fighters versus a Tane Ju and some early war Messerschmitt 109s – ended with a German victoy.



A WGF scenario with early war planes.



11:00 am

I announced the repaint contest start.

Conditions were:

  • WWII - Pacific theater 19371945, late war Soviets welcome.
  • Historical camouflages only.
  • Scale 1/200 only (of any source).
  • Repaint must be produced from now to 23th April 2017.
  • No publishing in the painting showcase before 23th April 2017.
  • Prices will be WGS minatures for the places from the 1st to 3rd.


9 gamers participated and presented their repaints.

We had a B29, a Yokosuka D4Y nightfighter,



a Lokheed Hudson red cross version, a Japanese medium bomber,



a Dauntless, a Soviet Dakota,



a Yak 9, a Grumman Hellcat and an Aichi Val Dive bomber.



All very nice entries.

All con participants get a small piece of paper and wrote 2 numbers on it. First number get 2 votes, second number one vote. Later I counted the votes with Ladinek.

11:30 am

My WGF scenario for the con was a vice versa balloon busting mission in 1918 at the A-H/Italian front.

We played on two gaming mats, so the scenario was limited to 12 players. The could choose from 9 different planes per side. We had rockets (Italians only), incendiary ammo, aces and altitude in play. Balloons were on level 1, guarded by A and B firing MG positions.

Each pilot get an “ignore one jam token”. That’s one of my special house rules to keep the WW 1 games more fluent and the players liked it. Same went for an explosion damage, that only counts for balloons and MG positions.

There were a lot of planes of different types and colours. Aviatiks, Ufags, Macchi flyboats, Spad XIII, a Nieuport 11 with rockets, etc.
First time that we used the B firing Hanriot with the higher machine gun rule from the Nieuport 10.



On the German side we had Markus Aviatik, Mario Aviatik + ace, Dennis Ufag, Simon Phoenix + Ace, Reg with the B-firing Aviatik, and Radek with a captured Macchi.

The Italians were under the command of the famous Nightbomber Hanriot + Ace, Andrzej Nieuport 11 + Rockets, Kuba Flyboat, Victor Hanriot + Ace, Arek SPAD XIII & Ladinek SPAD XIII.

The top aces on both sides had bad luck. Linke-Crawford (Mario) and Scaroni (Nightbomber) were the first victims of this aggressive battle.

Markus' Aviatik lost the upper Wing during the battle and flew a fw turns as an Eindecker.



The Polish/Italian side throw everything versus the enemy, while the AH side defended their balloons with some planes.



A long time the AH side lead with a few points, but the final aerial victory fulfilled a tight Italian victory. Andrzej blew up one AH balloon with rockets, Reg killed an Italian one with his “special” Hanriot.



I think that the gamers had a lot of fun.

Meanwhile the participants prepared the little food festival and presented a nice assortment of European specialities of sausage, bread, sweets, etc.
Beside this we had a steady beer support from the hotel bar, that kept the morale on an outstanding level.

2:30 pm

It was time for our big “Bloody April” mission. A big green mat with lots of Albatros D.IIIs versus Airco D.H.2s, Sopwith 1 ½ Strutters and a single B firing SPAD VII. No altitude, just a big dogfight.
Before the game started, Nightbomber brought a toast for absent friends. He hosted the game and I assisted in managing the 2nd half of the table with questions of collisions and firing.



The result was historical, but not that historical. The RFC fought brave and get a better kill/loss quote then in 1917.



Meanwhile Dennis hosted his first scenario at a SummerCon called “Dark Sands”. A WGS battle with altitude rules between Italian Falcos and British Gloster Gladiators.



Another picture of the "last biplane" fight. Beautiful desert map!



Around 6 pm

The last round of the day starts.

Mission was called “The Lion hunt”.

Dennis was the host and was looking for a pilot for the Handly Page O/400. I accepted. Traditional I have luck with bombers in Prague.



Mission was for the O/400 and an Airco D.H.4 under the command of Alexandar, to bomb two targets in a Turkish city, defended by German planes. Some RAF R.E.8, Aircos and Bristols covered us.

Altitude rules were in play and the battle started. Unfortunately the whole German Wing was on the enemy’s side. So I was shure that Markus and Mario know my plans to get as low as possible to make a clean bombing run.



Following the old rule that the bombers always get through, I managed to place a direct hit with all my bombs. Lucky me.



Same did Alexandar with his Airco. Well done!

Due to his smaller bombload I turned right to finish off the remaing target with the MGs.



Followed by Markus and Mario I succeded and finished off the second target, only to be shot down a few moves later by my German wingmen. The RFC won the scenario by points. Great game and we had a lot of fun. Finally I have to say that only 2 gaming mats are a too small gaming ground for a WGF giant.



8:30 PM

Main battle day of the Con was over and I announced the winners of the painting contest.
1st place was Nemanja with his excellent painted Japanese bomber
2nd place was Nightbomber’s beautiful green Aichi Val
3rd place a young Czech gamer named litte Martin with a Soviet Dakota transport plane. (Why little Martin? Because his father was there too and his name is: Martin)



Congratulations to the winners and especially for the co-sponsor or the prizes, my old friend Nightbomber.

Here are the results:



10:30 PM

After a beer and a snack in the hotel restaurant we went for the famous beer pub “Zly Casy”. In our company were Dan-Sam, Kubajs, Andrzej, Radek, his son Jirka, Markus, Mario, Dennis & me.



We had such a good time there last year with good beers and talks, that we went there again. Unfortunately the Serbian wing left us before because they had travel back early Sunday morning. Nemanja, Alexandar – we really missed you.



I’m very proud that I was able to “blitzkrieg-like” pay for the first round. It was an honor for me and the Tambour beer tasted very good.

Later Dominik & Stephan joined us in the pub.

Great atmosphere, great friend and great beers. Do you need more after a successful SummerCon Day?



11:45 pm

Cheers!



Half an hour later. Dan Sam told us some stories about his family, the beautiful historical Czech cities, landscapes and the people who live there. We had a lot of good talks again.



Sunday morning

01:02 am

We’re on our way back. Dennis & Mario organized us a “Tram beer”.



10 minutes later we reached the station in front of our hotel.

A little bit drunk, but always prepared for an emergency take off. Special attitude medal goes to Andrzej. I think he had a few of those tasty Serbian congnacs during the day, but the squadron leader led us successful through the night - a real Nightbomber!


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Updated 05-18-2017 at 08:08 by Marechallannes

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