Monday, April 1, 2013

WWPD 4 Vets

On the 30th, Aaron (El Flama Blanca) and I trucked down to Game Vault in Fredericksburg to partake in the WWPD Podcast's Charity Event, WWPD4Vets.  We'd game for 12 hours in support of Wounded Warrior and other veterans groups.  There were other sites around the world, including California, Georgia, Alaska and New Zealand!  The goal was to rais $2,500 for Wounded Warrior, which WWPD easily exceeded.

Our contribution was a copy of Super Dungeon Explore.  This brought in $95 in total ticket sales that all went to Wounded Warrior.

In terms of gaming, it was a fun & productive day.  I managed to play 4 games across the eight hours and just generally shoot the breeze with the WWPD gang (check out their twitter feed @wwpdpodcast for some choice shots of me looking confused as someone explains just what exactly they mean by 'executed for being a toaster').

First up was a 2v2 Flames of War game (we all brought 1500 points of late war, so there were 3,000 points on the table).  WWPD Luke and I ran Allies (him with Market Garden Brit tanks and me with U.S. Rangers in Brittany) defending in Hold the Line against WWPD Chris' Schwerre Panzers (5 Tigers Incl. Wittman)  and El Flama Blanca's Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers.  It was a slog of a battle, as we all had impressive swings of luck.  The only constant was that we all failed pretty much every single roll that would've had a big impact on the game.  In the end, they finally failed their company morale test, but not without hammering both of our companies pretty well.  The most impressive moment was the attempted assault on two tigers by one of Ranger Companies, who apparently were all doing their best Vin Diesel impression, leading to the entire Company's destruction in defensive fire.  Ouch.  The big swing for us was an early ambush from some daring Brit tanks (using Joe Vandeleur, the Warrior), that decimated both Gepanzerte platoons.

Next up was Battlestar, with WWPD Jon (Lee Adama), WWPD Chris (Adm. Adama), El Flama Blanca (I don't remember), me (Starbuck), Luke (Baltar) and WWPD Sean (the Admiral from Pegasus) taking part.  The game saw a distinct lack of active Cylon presence on the board, as we only flipped one or two Crisis cards that placed Cylon ships.  I was not a Cylon and was able to confirm that Sean wasn't either.  I had strong suspicions that Jon was a toaster, but didn't play the social aspect correctly, allowing him to cast aspersions on my loyalty.  Luke was outed pretty early as a Cylon due to an unlucky combination of cards in a Crisis vote.  He resurrected and played his Super Crisis, spawning a ton of Cylons and declaring that anyone in FTL control or the Pegasus Engine room when we jump next would be executed.  Unfortunately, Sean and I were in the Engine room.  Sean was able to get out, but on Jon's turn, he promptly went into FTL and jumped us prematurely.  He was a Cylon, naturally and I was executed; this was probably the coolest Cylon-orchestrated sabotage I've yet seen in this game.  After respawning as Boomer, we humans were able to hold off and make it with juuuuuust enough fuel.  So survive we all.

After lunch, we broke out Lords of Waterdeep with the same group (-Sean).  It was an entertaining game.  I really enjoy the mechanics it shares with Agricola, and the lack of stress makes it so much more enjoyable.  Luke ended up winning with a strong come-from-behind effort.

Accompanying dinner, Luke, Jon, El Flama Blanca and I sat down for a game of Spartacus.  Jon and Luke were intent on dogpiling El Flama Blanca's House Glaber early on, while I took the opportunity to control the games and jump out to a decent lead in Influence.  Jon caught up and managed his funds very well.  As Princess Leia says, something about gladiator movies, slaves, and slipping through my fingers...  Eventually, Jon got to 12 Influence, and we were able to knock him down to 11, prolonging the game.  I was then able to bring one of his slaves into the arena to face my Thing in the Pit.  He promptly eviscerated the poor lass, prompting Jon to play a card that gave him an influence via crowd sympathy (and thus, the game).  Crap.  Jon played the social aspects of both Spartacus and BSG very well.

Anyways, it was a very fun day of games and it was cool to be able to contribute to the charitable side of things.  A HUGE thanks to Jon and WWPD for hosting/orchestrating the event.  Until next time!

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