I had a blast at MilleniumCon 9 this past weekend.  A very kind friend agreed to let me crash at his place for the weekend, so I got to do the con "on the cheap".  Which is a good thing, since "cheap" is what I can afford at this time of year. :-)

All of the games I signed up for were based on Two Hours Wargaming rules.  Well, except for one that really was a custom game that just borrowed some "All Things Zombie" rules, like how zombies get generated.  I was a bit disappointed, but the game was fun anyway, so as they say, "no harm, no foul".

Friday night was a WWII Pacific theater game where I was playing Japanese trying to stop a US Marine landing operation.  The game was played using the "Nuts!" rules and a really cool sand table.  The landing craft started off smoking at the water line, and the marines were in cover behind them.  I had a number of hidden machine gunners and riflemen.  At first, my machine guns kept the Marines well pinned, but eventually the Marines managed to take my gunners out, and ultimately overran my position.  It didn't help that of the 3 reenforcements rolled during the game, ALL of them were for the Marines.  I think we did reasonably well anyway.

Saturday started off with a "Zombies of the 3rd Reich" game, advertised as an "All Things Zombie" game, but as mentioned earlier, it was really a homebrew with ATZ rules cherry picked.  The setup: Nazi scientists created a zombie formula, and it naturally worked better than anyone ever anticipated.  As a Russian squad, we went into the zombie infested Berlin looking to capture some of the serum, allegedly to have our scientists find a cure.  The set was an amazingly accurate and impressive recreation of the Reichstag, but wrecked and burned out.  In reality, the game became every man for himself, with whoever racked up the most zom kills and/or found the serum "winning".  The rub?  Any time you fired a weapon or opened a door, you might get more zombies.  So after the initial onslaught, it was more a matter of localized hunting (get those deaders away from that door!) than actually trying to defeat them all.  One guy and I teamed up, found the formula and almost escaped with it.  We were quite literally one move away from victory when some traitors hand-grenaded us.  And they call themselves communists....

Next up was a Star Wars game, using 5150.  2 AT-ATs (full of Storm Troopers) and 3 AT-STs were advancing on a Rebel base full of hidden soldiers.  The Rebs had one blaster cannon and 2 Snowspeeders (actually Sandspeeders - we played on the same game table as the WWII game from the previous night).  As is typical of SW games, there were lots of kids, and somehow I got stuck on their side.  We diced to see who got to pick which units, and I wound up commanding an AT-ST.

The 'speeders smoked two of the AT-STs (fortunately not mine) and then went in to "lasso" one of the AT-ATs.  I got my AT-ST over there and shot him down.  Sadly for the Rebels, they never managed to get any more 'speeders as reenforcements, which was lucky for me!

The AT-ATs had to move relentlessly towards the Rebel base, but since we couldn't actually *see* the Rebels, we couldn't shoot yet.  As we unloaded trooper squads, the Rebels appeared and gunned them all down.  I got my AT-ST into a good supporting fire position and suppressed the Rebs, allowing the rest of our troopers to dismount in peace.  A few turns later, the Rebels were forced to surrender.  So we won, but not without loosing 3/4 of our troopers.  Which sounds about right, really. :-)

Last up was the game I came to the con to play - 5150, run by the man who wrote the rules, Ed Teixeira.  Ed is one of this world's fun people, and anyone who even remotely likes to game should try to play in one of his games.

The 5150 scenario was almost an RPG game.  We (the participants) were each in control of a squad from a force sent to retrieve a datacore from a listening station on a planet overrun by BUGS.  (As in Star Ship Troopers bugs, but in this case they were "Gricks" from D&D collectible miniatures.)  I was playing the "skin job" squad of "Symons", and we had 4 standard infantry squads and two machine gun toting mechs with us.  I decide that since my force were synths, we would be the "go-to" force for finding the datacore.  I managed to find it almost immediately and called for dust-off.  Then the long wait began.

We fought off wave after wave of bugs, and when the EVAC ship arrived, there was only enough room for half of us!  Since my symons had probably the weakest weapons of the group, we evaced me and the datacore, along with another two squads. 

While waiting for the second EVAC ship, more bugs came, but they guys managed to get most of them, only losing one man.  When the second ship arrived, they loaded the mechs and all but one squad and took off.  (Yet again, not enough room.)  Amusingly, when one of the squads was trying to get to the ship, they decided to leap off of the wall.  Well, one landed on a not-quite dead bug and got eaten, and the other broke his leg and had to be carried out.

Waiting for that last squad was hilarious.  Bugs came.  Another ship came, but got eaten by bugs.  The last ship came, and the squad managed to get themselves AND the other ship's crew on board.  Then a "puker" bug showed up and tried to shoot down the last ship!  Ed let the last player roll the "to hit", since he had the most at stake.

Two tense dice rolls later, the ship escaped!  And there was much cheering!  Only two casualties (three if you count rescue ship #3), and a successful mission.  What a great game!  Co-op miniature games are NOT the norm, and this one was a blast.  The scenario really encouraged role playing, and you felt bad when one of your men got eaten.  That's a factor that is usually missing from miniature wargames.

Sunday was the "flea market" day.  I got in about an hour after it opened (my hosts and I went to get some breakfast, so it was time well spent), and I managed to score some pretty cool stuff for very little money.  There was more stuff I wanted to buy, but being on a budget is helpful sometimes, and I didn't actually wind up with a whole bunch more gaming stuff to store in my closet after all.