Bolt Action Boot Camp at MOAB 2015

We are getting ready for the next Sydney Games Convention - MOAB 2015.
This is held on the October long weekend at the Sylvania Heights Community and Youth Club.
We will be running 3 games a day on the Saturday and Sunday - 3 & 4 October.

So come on and join us in a great game of Bolt Action. The main game will be the Attack on Lorient Docks 1942 which we have much more details here (Video) and here (background) and here (first playtest including army lists).

In summary we will have 6 x 600 point forces:
Commandoes by sea, Commandoes by Land and Partisans
vs
Kreigsmarine, German Port Defenders and German SS Reinforcements.

Commandoes ready to attack some Port Defenders on the bridge

Kreigsmarine defending the sub from Commandoes

This is a great game with a board filled with great scenery surrounding the 42 inches of U-505 submarine goodness.

No experience is required.
Everything is supplied - Demo Gamers Sergeants to guide you, troops, rules, dice, tape measure, periscopes, laser guidance - the lot!
The games start at 9:00am, 12:00 midday and 3:00pm.  Each game typically lasts about 2.5 hrs and gets increasingly exciting as the last turn arrives.

Commandoes by sea (with some in the sea!)

Video run through of the Lorient Dockyards board

In response to various requests we have provided a video overview of the board we set up for the "Battle of the Lorient Dockyards 1942" which features our U 505 submarine.
More details are in our previous post, but sometimes it is just better seeing the board in more detail.

Attack on Lorient - First test game

U Boat 505 being repaired in Lorient Dock

After many weeks preparing, we finally had our first playtest of our new demo board for our Attack on Lorient Submarine Dock 1942 game. We had a couple of challenges as we needed to have 6 x 600 point armies and 3 objectives.

The Armies:

Allies:

Commandoes by Sea

These fellows arrive by rubber boat (6 inches movement) and can grapple up 6 inches from a fixed point in one turn.
HQ 2 men, 4 squads (6 men: LMG, 2 SMG, 3 Rifle), Sniper Team with "Up and at 'em" special rule.

The view from the Police Station

The commandoes come by sea

Commandoes by Land

These fellows come in from the right hand side of board when looking at the dock from the beaches. Same as other force but replace Sniper with MMG team.

Partisans

HQ, 1 squad of Veteran Guerillas (LMG, SMG, 6 Rifles),  3 Partisan squads (LMG, Pistol, SMG, 7 rifles), MMG team.  They have the modified special Partisan rule of 2 Bombs set into the War memorial in front of the police station. If one goes off, the memorial and second bomb is destroyed.  Basically it is 2 chance for the bomb to work.

The secret weapon stolen from the British

Battle on the U Boat

The German Defenders

Kriegsmarine

The ship Captain, 2nd Lieutenant HQ, 4 squads Kriegsmarine (LMG, SMG, 8 rifles), Regular MMG. 2 squads are patrolling at the start of the game, the rest are asleep in the Hotel or houses near the submarine, MMG set up on ambush.

Port Defenders

HQ, 4 regular Heer (LMG, SMG, 7 rifles), MMG. 1 squad within 6 inches of winch house guarding secret prize, another on patrol anywhere, MMG set up on ambush.

At times, assaults are rubbish

SS Reinforcements

HQ, SS Veteran squad (LMG, SMG, 6 rifles), 2 Heer Regulars (LMG, SMG, 8 rifles), MMG team, Sdkfz 222. These guys come in from edge near the church, top left corner.

"We killed someone!" - newbies celebrating their first kill

The Objectives

Background:

On return from a secret mission (so not recorded in the history books) U 505 was hit by a RAAF plane and severely damaged. The U boat was carrying 3 stolen prototypes from a British Research Laboratory, codenamed Ironsides. 2 were destroyed in the bombing and the surviving Ironside is stored in the Winch house.  The U boat contains the plans for the German Secret laboratory to which the Ironside is destined.
Meanwhile Father Pierre is in custody in the prison with information critical to the resistance.

1. The Commandoes by Sea and Kriegsmarine must control the submarine superstructure in order to get the location of the German secret laboratory.
2. The Commandoes by Land and Port Defenders need to capture or retain the surviving Ironside stored in the Winch house. 
3. The Partisans and SS are in a rush to get into the Police Station and rescue/interrogate Father Pierre.

How did the game go?

We had a couple of new players who volunteered to help us out: my daughter and my son's girlfriend.  Neither had played before and so were a good testing ground for the game.  They played the Port Defenders.

The only way to protect the prize

2 Commandoes vs 5 remaining Kreigsmarine

The game began in Night time and from turn 3 we rolled to see if dawn broke.  The game stayed in night time until turn 7! This really meant lots of close combat as ranged shots were very difficult having to roll for the options to see at longer ranges.
The game worked well.  We will make some fine tuning of some of the forces, but the battle was pretty well balanced. The Germans retained control of the Ironside, while the Commandoes captured the U boat and the Partisans rescued Father Pierre.
We are ready for our first public playtest at The Combat Company Warehouse next Saturday 21 March from 10am.
Once we have done some more testing we will publish a full scenario as usual.

Update:

We now have created a video walkthrough of the table. Enjoy!

Building Wooden Foot Bridges

The cheap Ingredients

While preparing our Attack on the Lorient Dockyards 1942 board, we needed some bridges to get from the walls to the submarine. Like most terrain we build, we want it to be useful for multiple boards and scenarios. And we wanted it to easy to make and inexpensive, yet look good.
So we started with the basic ingredients:

• Pop Rivets 35mm long.
• Icy Pole sticks/Coffee stirrers
• Cheap wool
• Super Glue
• PVA Glue

Using the clippers trim the rounded edges of the wooden sticks.

Completed but unpainted

Then using some shorter pieces as supports make your bridge. You can be rough or neat depending on the look you want. At this point all you are using is the wooden stocks and PVA glue.
Now we want our rails. Drill holes near the edge and at roughly 1 inch intervals. Then poke the pop rivets in so they stick through about 1 cm or half an inch. Use superglue to keep them in position.
Once dry use the wool to create the rope railing, wrapping it around each pop rivet, move it down over the edge and then around the base of each pop rivet. This is to give the bridge lots of strength, and it looks good too.
Then paint the wool with PVA glue.  This strengthens the wool, sticks down the fibres and makes it all very strong.
Lastly, you need to trim down the pop rivets at the end of the bridge.  Either use tough pliers or grind them down - or get some shorter pop rivets for the end poles!

Painted and beautiful

This step is important to allow the bridge to rest on the edge of whatever you are placing it against.  The longer poles in the middle keep it stable.
Then paint it brown with black wash and finally paint it with some satin varnish (we buys ours in a 500ml tin from the paint store).
It turns out pretty well and will work for any setting from modern to ancient where the construction would have been done using basic wood and rope materials.

This isn't going to end well...

Lastly, you can see how we have used it in our dockyards game. We have placed a bridge from each of the Heights Project bridge ends. They make it perfectly across to the sub to provide for a great cinematic charge or two.

Lastly we had a bit of fun with our Gandalf figure and the phrase so many keep repeating, "None Shall Pass".
We couldn't avoid the pun.

This is what bridges are for.

Attack on Lorient Submarine Dock France 1942

U-505: Winner of the most heavily damaged
U-boat to successfully return to port

We have updated our planned submarine dockyards demo game based on great feedback and suggestions from the very supportive Bolt Action community. Our initial gut feel was that this option was feasible and we liked the idea of a massive boat being fought over, but I hadn't done any historical research to justify the scenario.  As it was were were out by 2 years. And the story is much more interesting too!

Attack on Lorient Submarine Dock 1942

The German U boat U-505 was Commissioned 26 August 1941 and went on active duty 1 February 1942, based at Lorient, France.

In Lorient, the submarine pens were commenced on 2 February 1941 and completed in January 1943. 15,000 mostly slave labourers and German overseers began three separate pen enclosures 2,000 feet in length 425 feet wide and 63 feet high, topped further by a seven section, 25-foot thick reinforced concrete roof using concrete exceeding 3.4 million cubic feet.
Until these monstrous pens were completed, the U-boas were repaired using the better repair facilities compared to Norwegian ports.
On 10 November 1942, U 505 had nearly fallen victim to the U boat hunting skills of RAAF pilot Flight Sergeant Ronald Sillcock. He had perfected the technique of locating a U-boat by radar and then turning his radar off and patrolling out of sight in the clouds. Once he had a good visual identification he would cut his engines and dive out of the sun for a surprise precision attack. Two U-boats had been seriously damaged by this method in recent weeks.
Unfortunately for Sillcock and his crew the attack on this occasion had been too precise. As his depth charges hit U-505 and exploded, he was directly overhead. His Lockheed Hudson was wrecked and the entire crew killed.
On U-505 the Engineering Petty Officer led a determined attempt to save the submarine by plugging the hole in the hull and the boat was able to limp back to France, earning the distinction of being the ‘most heavily damaged U-boat to successfully return to port’.
Now is the chance for a targeted attack by a team of Commandoes guided by a team of local partisans to capture the enigma machine in the sub and finish the job that Flight Sergeant Ronald Sillcock gave his life for.

References:
http://uboat.net/boats/u505.htm
http://historyarticles.com/gray-wolves-den/
http://ww2today.com/25th-october-1940-u-boats-now-operate-from-france
http://ww2today.com/10th-november-1942-u-505-survives-devastating-attack

The French Dockyards Part 2 - The sub is built

It takes two to hold the hull together.

Plain Grey Plastic is boring

We have been busy this week building our submarine as the centre piece of our French Dockyards 1944 board. In our heads we thought we could imagine 42 inches of submarine goodness, but it was still quite large in reality.
Being a quality plastic model there are LOTS of tiny little details and pieces everywhere. Even though we won't be using most of them they certainly add to the style of the boat. The difficulty level of a Revell model goes from 1 (easy) to 5 (advanced).  This definitely earned the 5 rating.  The first step was to drill lots of holes in the hull to which the side rails would eventually be attached. This is nothing like the resin tank models with 3 to 10 parts.
This was over 160 parts from little foot rails around 5 mm across to the massive hull sections.
The end result was a success.  Just placing it on the board encouraged us to start placing figures in various battle positions on and around the boat.
Now this boat is 1/72nd scale.  The reason we can get away with this is that it is part of the scenery, but troops will not be going in it.  They may hide around the superstructure, or we will have special rules so they can race to use the 2 twin 20mm or 37mm AA guns on the deck, but in general it is great "eye candy".

Hmmm. Perhaps not.

Now that it is built we had to face the prospect of doing it justice by painting it properly.  Our first idea was to use a grey spray paint and touch it up, but a fellow gamer who is a much better painter than us asked if we wanted to use an Air brush.  "We'd love to," we replied, "But haven't yet advanced to that level."
She then most generously offered to paint it for us with her excellent air brush and superior painting skills.  We'll trade with a specially organised demo game at her place. Wait till you see this next week!
Looking at the plain grey submarine, my family thought that we should consider using the historical documentary "Operation Petticoat" as a guide and paint it pink.  I did a mock up with Photoshop. Perhaps not.

The French Dockyards 1944 - Preview

We are planning our next Boot Camp for Hawkcon on the 9 and 10 May. While pondering over the main board we saw another gamer had an interesting board with a U Boat or something similar as a centre piece. That got us thinking, so we searched for an appropriate boat.  Our first discovery? Boats are big.  Actually HUGE would be a better description. Getting most boats to scale would be larger than our standard Bolt Action 6' x 4' board. However, we were able to successfully use 1/72 scale gliders in our Pegasus Bridge game so we thought that would work here.

A little small but it'll do.

We discovered this Revell German Submarine Type IX C 1/72 Model Kit online and were enthused at our options.
At 1063mm long (42") this meant we would have to carefully work out the best way to place this on the board to get the most benefit.
Combining this with our city heights project (the planning and the result) was our solution, as you can see by the video above and the photos here.

Now we have a little work to do.

Add Boat Here

Firstly we need to add a couple of corner height sections, some beach areas and paint the foam.
Then we need a gantry to go across the boat and some walkways from the boat to the sides.
Lastly - or  firstly once the kit arrives this week - will be building and painting the whole point of this board - the submarine!

What else is there?
We then have the fun mission of working on the armies we will be using.

Naturally it will be 600 point forces, but we are considering a mix of Kreigsmarine and boat crew for the Germans and perhaps Americans, British or Commandos for the Allies.
We are considering setting this as a battle just after the Sword Beach landings in June 1944.
We'll see what response we get and how play testing goes.

More next week as we progress.

Our public playtest of this game will be at The Combat Company on Saturday 21 March.  We will also be having a second board on which we will be running our Boot Camp.

Let us know if you will be coming along.

Bolt Action 600 Point Armies - the video

600 Points of Russian goodness

Following up yesterday's post regarding how we use 600 point armies in our Demo Games, we have created a video run-through of some sample armies.
We have also provided the army lists produced at the Bolt Action Easy Army website for the armies featured in our video:
Winter British
Finnish
Germany with Pz IV H and Volks Grenadiers
Russia with T34.

And now to the short video:

Bolt Action 600 Point Armies - The perfect Boot Camp starter army

Bolt Action uses points to allow players to create comparable forces with units of high price being of greater power or value in the game. This helps us to quickly develop armies with which to play, but we have some special requirements.
A typical Bolt Action game is 1,000 to 1,250 points.  This allows for a good number of units - typically 10 to 15 or so - with some room for an army to recover from initial blows when the dice gods wreak their vengeance.
For a public participation or training game we need to have a balance allowing new players access to a variety of units, enough units to make the game challenging but not too many to slow the game down and the ability to finish the game in a reasonable time.

The other consideration is that certain weapons whilst reasonable in a higher point game are over-powered in a smaller size game.
In terms of game time and number of units we have found 600 points to be the perfect size.  Typical armies have between 5 and 8 units and they are balanced enough to provide fair and exciting games where everyone has a good chance of doing well.
Our guidelines for a Demo Gamer 600 point army are as follows:

1. Minimum of 5 units.  

Having less than 5 order dice is a too high risk strategy as each blow reducing the army hits 25% of the force. It doesn't matter how powerful the units are, if they are pinned enough, they will be of little use.

2. Reduced super powerful weapons

No Flamethrowers, Heavy Howitzers, off board artillery, air observers or planes. They have too much power for such a low point game. The 600 point limit effectively rules out most heavy and super heavy tanks.

3. Army special rule modifications:

a. British: Instead of the free artillery observer, they get an extra 50 points.
b. Russian: The free squad is 6 men
c. French: Free Light Howitzer

4. Game modifications:

a. No on board setup: This is a simplification that also reduces the power of snipers and spotters slightly to provide balance.
b. Buildings: We use our Building Clarifications to make better use of all our lovely buildings.

The rest of the special rules work fine at this scale.
Our typical game is an objective based "Capture the flag" style game. With two players we have 2 objectives, while 4 players fight over 3 objectives.

To capture an objective you need to be the last one to have been within 3" of the objective with 3 or more infantry from the same unit.  Tanks cannot hold an objective.

All these photos are for armies of 600 points and have all been competitive against each other.
The easiest way to build an army is to use the Bolt Action Easy Army site. It is a very straight forward affair to create armies that follow the army building rules and playing with all the options from which you can choose.
An example of a game with a number of 600 point armies is our St Mere Elise battle.  Check out the scenario for details of the armies we used for the US Paratroopers and German defenders and reinforcements.

UPDATE: We have now done a little video showcasing some example 600 point armies:

And we also have a post detailing some 600 point army lists that are shown in the video.

We train them young

At the Demo Gamers we need to train up our recruits so they can become Demo Gamer Sergeants, bravely going into public areas and introducing Bolt Action to the next generation. It can be a long journey so we start them young.
Zach is 4 years old and wanted to show off his knowledge.

Close Quarters are ...

Click for a bigger view.

Close Quarters assaults in Bolt Action are VERY decisive.
Attack, roll, resolution.
Basically whoever kills the most of the enemy in the first round, wins all and the losers are all removed.  That is why Lt David was able to defeat 9 Inexperienced guys in one roll.
At different times we love them and at others hate them, but you can't deny their cinematic nature!
After a short flurry of combats suddenly our assault trays become quite full and the dice bag emptier.
This comic is taken from yesterday's game.

Russia vs Germany - for the win

Forces coming on turn 1 - forest side

Today we had an enjoyable game teaching a friend how to play Bolt Action. We are grooming him to be a Demo Gamer Sergeant as our experience at Cancon means we will be needing more people helping us run demo games.
We have created a Youtube video giving a turn by turn run through of what happened, but here are some more details to help.
To show that we are not completely obsessed with buildings, today's board was a combination of fields and forest with only two small buildings.
Each army was 2 x 600 points as follows:

Germany:

Infantry with Sdkfz 222 in Forest:

1 x Regular HQ (2nd Lt, with 2 men)
3 x Heer Regulars (9 Men: LMG, SMG, 7 Rifles, 1 x PzFaust)
1 x Regular MMG Team
1 x Regular Sniper team
1 x Sdkfz 222
Total Pts: 609, 7 Order Dice

Forces coming on turn 1 - fields side

 Panzer IV H and Volks Grenadiers (in fields)

1 x Regular HQ (1st Lt with 1 man)
3 x Volks Grenadiers (8 men: 5 x Assault Rifles, 3 x Rifle, 1 x PxFaust)
1 x Pz IV H (No side skirts)
Total Pts: 602,  5 Order Dice

Russians:

Infantry in Forest

1 x Regular HQ (2nd LT with 2 men)
3 x Regular LMG Squads (10 Men, SMG, LMG, 8 Rifles)
1 x Regular Medic
1 x Inexperienced Free Rifle Squad (6 men, rifles + AT grenades)
1 x Regular Med Mortar
1 x Veteran Tank Hunter Squad (4 men, SMGs, AT Grenades)
Total Pts: 603, 8 Order Dice

Turn one with the Germans advancing in force

T34 and Infantry in fields

1 x Regular HQ (2nd Lt with 1 man)
2 x Regular LMG squad (SMG, LMG, 8 rifles)
1 x Inexperienced SMG Squad (6 SMG)
1 x Inexperienced Free Rifle Squad (6 men, rifles + AT grenades)

1 x T34/85 Tank

Total Pts: 601, 6 Order Dice

And the Russians moving to meet them

This was quite a lot of men to go into the fight. We had two objectives, the T intersection near the houses and the bridge in the forest.
The game worked out to be an excellent introductory game for our friend.  He had never played any wargame before, the closest similar thing would have been Risk or computer games. As we have experienced so often he had the basics worked out by the end of turn one and by turn 3 was making excellent decisions based on his options available.  By turn 6 he was seeing so many choices he could make and plans being decided on and then trashed as the situation changed with almost every order dice being pulled.
Our forest area has lots of hills and gullies, uncrossable rivers and rough ground bridges with lots of sight and cover challenges.
(As a side note it was interesting that the bridge was one we built about 10 years ago for another 28mm gaming system. This just shows you how our investment of time and effort into scenery can provide benefits for may years to come.)

Laser pointers are cool.

We use two key tools when determining line of sight and cover questions.
The first is a periscope (instructions are here)
The other is a new tool, the Army Painter - Targetlock Laser Line which was available shortly from War and Peace games but it sold out very quickly.  New stock should be arriving in about 4 weeks. This laser pointer meets Australian laser power guidelines and you hold it above the board and point down, giving yo a lovely line on the board.

By turn 2 the Russians are getting control of the T intersection

Like many games, the first couple of turns are manoeuvring with not too much firing, then suddenly the troops are close enough for much more dangerous activities.  The hard part is keeping some forces out of the thick of the fighting so they can take - and hold - the objective in turn 6.
In this game we had two very equal tanks - the German Panzer IV and the Russian T34/85. Turn one had the German player coming on first, which meant the Russian could then on come on and fire at him.  Rolled to hit and succeeded.  Then needed a 3+ to do any damage, but rolled a 1.  Tink! Just a pin.

Both houses occupied, Russians ready to charge.

Turn 2 both tanks missed each other. Turn 3 the T34 hit and once more only scored a 1 to cause damage.  Another Tink! In Turn 4, the Panzer IV had enough of this playing around and moved across to the house and decided to affect the objective.
The T34 raced across, hit and once more caused no damage. But in turn 6 - the critical turn - the Panzer IV failed morale and had to reverse away from the objective and go down.
This left the Russians in control and not enough Germans able to force the issue.
The Russians won the fields.

Charge!!

We win.  Move back over the hill.

Charge!! Capture the bridge.

The Germans outmanoeuvred the Russians and decided to force the issue with some frontal assaults over the hill.  Less than 6" away meant they were able to fight with no incoming fire and won the first combat, removing the Russian LMG squad.  Close Combats are great!
The next attempt was a charge against the Russians holding the bridge. Poor rolls meant the attacking Germans, even though hitting first in the Russian flank, still killed less than the Russians and were defeated.  Now there were not enough Germans left to wrest the bridge from the defending Russians.
Bah.  Charges are stupid. Until next time.

At the end of the game we all stood around and smiled at the results.

The German HQ is the only German unit contesting the objective.

But the Russian HQ has solved that problem.

"Let's do it again," my sons said and the friend agreed.  It was pretty impressive how well the new player did in the second game.  In that game the result was a draw, one flag each, and the friend lost the battle, he agreed that he had actually won.  He enjoyed the game and played Bolt Action, which is a win regardless of the score.
Now we will play more games and get him involved in some modelling and painting.
"But I've never painted before and I can't paint," he protested.
"Not a good enough excuse," we replied, "You'll learn that you can model and paint good enough for the table top.  Don't worry about how Peter paints. He has been doing it for longer and has a gift. Just remember, it just had to look good enough from about 3 foot away  tabletop standard - and that is not a difficult task."
And so it begins.

Our Building Clarifications

Now that's a city fight

Over the last few years we have collected a lot of buildings.  After all, there are so many wonderful buildings now available which make a board so much more worth fighting over.
Buildings not only enhance the attractiveness of the board, they also add another dimension to the game with height considerations, cover, firing positions, additional observation issues and more. The Bolt Action rules for buildings are pretty reasonable but they assume a boring small building with no interior details. However, many of the MDF buildings have lots of interior details like rooms, stairs and interior walls which make a whole new area in which to fight.
In our demo games we almost always have some or many buildings.  After all, how can we resist?
As such we have developed a series of clarifications which allow us to use the buildings and take into account the full details of the inner and outer features.

Click to download the PDF

Our PDF lists all the building rules from the Bolt Action Rulebook and FAQ and our clarifications we use when running demo games.
These have been play tested over a great many games and seem to work out pretty well for us. We figured it would be good to share it with the Bolt Action community as a matter of interest.
These would be classified as "House Rules" and would not be used in tournaments, but for a board with lots of detailed buildings they make a lot of sense and enhance the building based gameplay.

We have also created a video overview of our building collection. Even we were surprised at how many buildings we have!  After all, the collection has grown by a few here and a few there and before you know it we have a busy little town for our men to fight over.

Cancon 2015 - A great success

Day 1 - Click for a closer look

We have completed our very successful Cancon 2015 Bolt Action Boot Camp.
At the end of every game as the last dice rolls came to a stop and the result was finally known there was a collective sigh from all players and our Demo Gamer Sergeants as we gazed across the board contemplating the adventure we had all just been through. A short quiet descended on us all, grins emerged and then conversation resumed with comments such as, "If that bazooka only..." and "That combat was so close!" and "How did that happen?"
We always claim that Bolt Action is very cinematic and the various dice rolls allow for a wide variety of results.  Our first instinct is often to think, "That wouldn't have happened," but then we remember the reports on those soldiers which have won a Victoria Cross or other medals for bravery. The tales of one man assaulting multiple machine gun nests, or charging tanks in desperation show that it isn't impossible - just unlikely.  And that is why our highlights are the exceptional occurrences.
You wouldn't plan for one man to defeat a unit of 9 men, or a Chi Ha light tank to survive multiple hits by a much more powerful Sherman tank.  But it can happen.  Or as players remind each other, "Bolt Action Happens".

Day 2 - Click for a closer look

Every game of the St Mere Elise board was full for 8 games over the three days and our extra Far East board was played on over 7 games.
We play tested for quite a while to get the St Mere Elise board balanced and the results proved it was time well spent: 8 games with 3 German wins, 3 American wins and 2 draws.
A total of 64 people played with us over the 3 days and although tired, we are very pleased with the results. Rough age groupings are 25 Young (17 and below), 19 Young Adult (18 to 29) and 20 Adults.
Our aim at The Demo Gamers is to bring the enjoyment of Historical Wargaming to as many people as possible, especially younger people. Much as I caught the wargaming bug when I was 12, we are seeing the same excited look in the eyes of new players that have joined us at our various demo games. We have included a few highlights of our weekend's games here, but the weekend was more than just these highlights.
Every game had the same last turn excitement and end of game "coulda-woulda-shoulda" review.

Day 3 - Click for a closer look

We had planned and prepared for months leading up to the convention. Running an event as large as Cancon takes a lot of planning and co-ordination. With many hundreds of players participating in tournaments, trade stalls, food, security, promotion and so on it is not too surprising that some sections get missed.
Unfortunately in the planning for the event, the Cancon organisers missed our Boot Camp from all official advertising for Cancon, promotional posters weren't printed and we ended up at the back corner next to the traders, away from the front doors.
But this did not affect the success of our Boot Camp.  Our board was very impressive and being so busy all passers-by were attracted by the excitement and noise of the players.  My son and I were always looking for anyone that expressed the remotest sign of interest and we drew them in. One player was a very experienced player of board games who had never played a miniature game and had been coming to Cancon for about three years. He had never realised these games were open to anyone wanting to play.  He had a great game one on one with one of my sons and even though he "lost" the battle, he loved the game. As we say, playing the game is a win in itself.

Our Far East Board - Japanese vs Australians and US Marines.

All of us were dressed in similar T-shirts and groovy vests with Demo Game name badges. Anyone watching knew we were a professional outfit.
Also, I suspect our enthusiasm is what attracted the local news network during their visit to the convention. We were interviewed and appeared on the local 6pm news as representatives of what can be done on Australia Day.  We were very happy to be representatives of the wargaming hobby.

Thank you to all of those that joined us for this year's Boot Camp.  We had great fun and look forward to meeting you again next time.

Another battle of St Mere Eglise over.