2018 Wrap-up

2018 Wrap-up

Chain of Command @ Cancon 2018

Another great year of chain of Command is done. The main new aspect, making the tables the main focus was a success. I feel Chain of Command is too far along the simulation path to make for a good tournament game, so the T.O. is faced with an interesting set questions and problems to solve. Numbers of days to play, creating terrain, keeping player win loss ratios kind, keeping  Axis v Allies balance, catering for players who are on their second game ever & rules masters, balancing lists. 

First time I ran it, I focused on Swiss draw to sort by players. Win and you played other winners, losers slid down the ladder to play similar levels. I also had moderately complicated  custom rules for the table. Swiss was okay, balancing Axis & Allies and running Swiss was very difficult, and I vowed to remember to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) 2016 Michael from Battlefield Accessories ran his great Stalingrad game, and had excellent numbers, and great terrain. He had heavily modified rules. The games ended up being good fun, however there seemed to be heavy game imbalance between the game knowledge of the Axis and Soviet players. 2017 I ran scenarios so that each round had a different scenario. This worked well or poorly depending on the table terrain. In 2018, I decided the table would be primary.

We ended up with 7 Allied players, and 4 Axis players, so the wonderful Darryl took his Axis army for the sake of balance, I ended up playing 5 of the six games as Axis. 12 players meant we were allocated 6 tables. Each table creator had to provide the scenario 'cards' with different text for Axis and Allies. Our theme was operation Overlord. I made a simulation of a Canadian sector beach, and introduced a moral question with a 'surrender' mechanic. Steve MCG wrote an 'off the beach 'mirrored' scenario, where the table and scenario objectives were mirrored for each side. Our scenery Maestro John Bond wrote 4 scenarios. One was a flank attack roughly based on the "Radar Station" assault from the movie "Saving Private Ryan". One simulated the attack on the guns at Brecor Manor. One featured a heavy Bocage table, and the fourth featured the cathedral at Sainte-Mère-Église.

I can take you both!

 I think it worked well. Many players had initial shock at the surrender rule, and initially felt extremely disconcerted by the unfamiliarity and having the rule 'sprung' on them, but almost all later said they liked the scenario. The scenario ended up with a comprehensive Axis and allied wins, and four close games. I consider that a decent sort of balance. I had my personal best ever game on the mirrored table, it went to the wire. I chewed my nails, and my opponent literally sweated blood. It's not just a figure of speech! John's tables also gave great games.

Oh my GOD what is he doing!

I assigned people to tables on game one, but it had the usual mess of people being late, and people not having the right armies, etc. Several of our guys were awesome and screamed off home to fetch an extra axis army after one of our players had pulled out at the last minute. After that I went very differently. Alternating between Axis and Allied, I told the players to go and stand in front of a table they had not played yet. Then their opponents were told to try and match tables and people they had not played yet. Mathematically it was not possible to get clean 'new table, new opponent' results, so they had their own choices. Also, those who were on time were rewarded above the slow poke and late runners.

Defend the Radar station!

Relaxed pace - previously we had jammed three short games into a day. This year I scheduled two games a day over the three days, with optional extra games at night for those who were keen. This was an excellent pace, with only two players having extra energy on Saturday night. Australia involves some massive distances to travel, so we scheduled faster games on Sunday, and four players skipped their last session on Sunday in order to travel or just relax.

Okay, Okay, I ate all the pies.

Prizes were random draw as ever. Our sponsors were deeply thanked, and the considerable piles of loot were distributed evenly. A lovely surprise was a donated US. Airborne "Clicker" from the Operation Overlord museum from France, handed forward by Ken Snell.

We always have the most photographed tables at Cancon!

Overall it was a great success. Next year Steve MCG will be T.O., and if you want to prepare, we will be fighting in the Pacific, 28mm. This allows Australians, Japanese, Free French, Chinese Nationals, Soviet Infantry, Soviet Naval, US Marines, and US Infantry. 

2019 Chain of Command Blog Link
http://2019canconchainofcommand.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/war-in-pacific.html

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