Planning for DANG 2012

With the Museum of Flight game out of the way and things slowing a bit at work, I can finally start preparing for my yearly naval game: DANG (Dave's Annual Naval Game). This year's voting ended in a tie (that is the second year that the voting ended in a tie) and the winner was decided with a coin toss. This year's game will be "Lord of the Lakes: The War of 1812 on Lake Ontario."

British ships on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812 (Enemy in Sight by Peter Rindlisbacher

There is a lot you can do with the naval war on Lake Ontario, but our mini-campaign will cover the critical months of July to September 1813. This is after most of the ship building for the year was complete and when both sides had opportunities to bring the enemy to battle and secure a decisive victory on the lake. However, both sides also must realize that they could lose the war by losing their fleet and that not losing might be more important than winning. Historically, there were four encounters/battles during this time period and I'm hoping that my game will generate about the same number. 

USS General Pike and Wolfe face off (Burlington Races by Peter Rindlisbacher)

I've started writing out the basic rules for the running the campaign. The game will play out with operational turns (each lasting two weeks) where each side will assign ships to required and optional missions for the two weeks. The missions include patrolling, interception, supporting land forces, escorting convoys, along with ship repairs/refits. The ships assigned to missions will have the chance of meeting and generating tactical actions. We will use Mark Wadington's beautiful, scratch-built 1/600 scale ships and the modified Sail and Steam Navies rules for the tactical actions.

USS General Pike opens fire, from an earlier game

Mark built all the needed ships for the time period the game will cover, but I'm planning on building a few gunboats and cutters that will be the supply ships for the convoys. This will also give me gunboats and small ships for future games on the Great Lakes or in the Chesapeake Bay area. I'll post information about building the smaller ships later.

The game should be a lot of fun and it looks like I will have a packed house for it. This is DANG’s eleventh year and here are links to recaps of games from before 2010, the Lepanto game from 2010, and last year's American Civil War river game.

2012 Museum of Flight Game Day Recap

Another NHMGS Game Day at the Museum of Flight is over. This year we had our information table and five gaming tables set up under the museum's Blackbird and around 30 NHMGS members and guest showing up for the games. As the museum opened I was at the information table and a man and his son came up to me saying they had come to the museum specifically to learn more about the group and games. We talked for a little while and I directed them over Wings of War table for some WWI action. There were also several other museum visitors that joined in the action throughout the day.

Overview of the gaming/display area before the museum opened

A view from the other side of the Blackbird later in the day

Here is a view of the information table. We had the usual figures, rule books, and reference material to show the different aspects of the hobby. A couple people mentioned that we should have had the NHMGS banner attached to the table to show who we are. So, there is something to think about for next year.

Rules and references

The French 100 Years War army drew a lot of attention

The morning session had a Wings of War WWI game, our home-brew Golden Age Air Racing game, an Axis & Allies Navy game, a Check Your 6 Jets Korean War game and some DBA games with winged Polish Hussars (although none of my photos of them turned out).

Wing of War getting set up

Target for today

The Astoria crew also brought along a scratch-built German Mannesmann giant triplane (it did not get into the game)

Air racing ready to go

Racing through the first lap. It was a tough race with only 3 planes, out of 8, finished the race

The Axis & Allies naval game with lots of carriers

A Check Your 6 night battle over Korea

DBA and DBR games

In the afternoon we had a Wings of War WWII game, a WWII platoon-level game using the Fire and Maneuver rules (the game was run by the rules designer), a Pike and Shot game with the Black Powder rules, a Check Your 6 Jets game with a Top Gun scenario (sorry, but no photos of this one), and more DBA/DBR.

Some Stukas with Me-109 escorts make their way over the English countryside

This Stuka found itself in a bad situation

Fire and Maneuver game set up

Some German units move to engage

Allied force, including a Sherman tank, move up

Pike and Shot - the battlefield is set

And the forces engage!

I didn't get a chance to play in any games this year, but it was still fun to see the other gamers and talk with the museum visitors. The game day is always a good opportunity to show off the hobby to the general public and the museum is a really great forum for it. We always get questions from people that have never heard of the hobby. This year there were even a few comments from younger kids about this being "sort of like Real-Time computer games." Everyone seemed to have a good time and we even set a date for next year with our museum contact. So, be sure to mark down Saturday, November 2, 2013 on your calendar as the next game day.

Kevin says "See you next year."