By Joseph Forster
Enfilade! Part of the Blood & Pigment team went up to the NHGS Enfilade! convention in Tacoma WA, over Memorial Day weekend and there were some great Blood & Plunder games!
Enfilade! Gaming Convention
Historical wargaming is less widespread on the West Coast, but this is one of the best events this side of the Mississippi. The event is very casual, encouraging walk up participation and a badge is very affordable. The event runs Friday-Sunday over Memorial Day weekend, May 22-24 this year.
Held at the Tacoma La Quinta Inn & Suites, most of the gaming is focused in one large central hall, with smaller rooms available for tournaments, special events and (in)famous “Bring and Buy” gaming flea market.
Vendors are mostly regional companies, set up in the hallways around the central room.
Typical attendance to Enfilade! is around 300-400, drawing from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Canada.
Blood & Plunder at Enfilade!
Blood & Plunder has been well represented at Enfilade! for the past several years with multiple events held over the weekend. This year there were two large games, one Fleet Battle hosted by Adam & Brad Horton, and one large semi-historical land game, featuring a large assault on Castillo San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida.
Fleet Battle Game
Sometimes you just need a good “veteran’s game.” This game session was “bring your own boat” game where players brought their own 250pt sea force, divided into two teams and had a great time shooting it out on a large sea table.
This was a deepwater game featuring some of the larger ships in the game. We had 4 players with two galleons present. We divided up into the Bourbon alliance of my Spanish Galleon and Brad’s French Light Frigate against Adam’s Pirate Fluyt and Riley’s English Galleon.
It was a great game with both Galleons angling for shots with their strong cannon firepower while the Frigate and Fluyt sailed iinto the center of the board and started some intense boarding action.
The big ships on the table caught a lot of eyes and we had many conversations with people passing by (which slowed down the game but that’s the way it goes).
With brother against brother, things got pretty INTENSE!
French Buccaneers vs a LOAD of Pirates makes for a bloody scrum and not a lot of these guys lived to tell the tale! There was boarding, counterboarding, units dissolving, jammed decks, and all the while the Galleons circled, blasting any deck that didn’t have a melee on it!
The game ended with Riley and Adam having the upper hand after the pirate swarm outlasted the French Buccaneers.
Adam hosted a great session, with signage, giveaways, and great printed materials!
A great game an represented Blood & Plunder well on Friday evening!
There is a standard expectation at this convention that EVERYTHING is provided for every game session at Enfilade!. We had several additional players registered for this event, but they didn’t read the event very carefully and showed up ready to play but didn’t bring their forces! BYOB! We had done fleet scenarios with loaners before, but it tends to bog down and take too long if there’s multiple players who don’t know the rules at sea. So we pivoted to a “veteran fleet battle” format this and it worked well. But it did make us sad to have people not play because they didn’t notice that requirement.
Assault on Castillo San Marcos
Saturday afternoon we ran a big 8 player land game featuring a huge model of Castillo San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida.
The centerpiece of this scenario is the Vauban fort I purchased from the now-defunct German Company, “More Terrain.” It’s a beautifully done model, made out of foam. I purchased two sets of the inner walls to make the fort bigger, and it’s almost too big now! But it made for a great large multiplayer game.
Scenario Rules
We’ve run various “assault the fort” scenarios, be that The Great Swamp Fight, small Palisade Forts, or the Stone Tower Fort ambush. Typically the Attackers have a hard time and the Defenders have a great time shooting everything down. The trick is always giving the Attackers the tools to make the assault, and making sure everyone knows the details on all the relevant rules: cover, elevation, dedicated actions, climbing, climb-charges, moving quickly across open ground, coordinating movement so the assault isn’t piecemeal. There’s a lot that has to be done well to attack, meanwhile the Defender Shoot-Reload-Reload, REPEAT!
The scenario was basically broken up into four 1v1 games, each centered at one bastion. This is obviously not the proper way to attack a fort, but it works well for a convention game. The Attackers were lead by James Moore, leading two force of British Militia and 2 forces of British Raiders. Attacking forces were about 160pts with Moore’s points boosting his force to 180.
The Defenders were led by Jose de Zuniga Y La Cerda, with 4 forces of Reformed Spanish Militia. These forces ranged from 150-172pts, counting 40 points paid for each quadrant of the fort. The bastions on Castillo San Marcos are named after Catholic Saints Paul, Peter, Augustine and Charles. I mistakenly remembered them as named as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But it was very handy for game management. “Matthew, you all done with the activation? How is John doing? We’re waiting on Luke to finish up.”
To represent the poor quality cannons and cannon crew, we gave the Spanish cannons two additional conditions:
- When firing, each gun received 1 additional Reload for each 1 rolled in the attack
- For each 1 rolled in an attack, roll a d10. If any of these results are a 1, the cannon blows up. Resolve a Grenadoe attack against units occupying the bastion and destroy the gun.
The Heavy Cannons on the Bastions were very deadly when firing grapeshot, but this slowed them down a bit and did result in many tense moments and one exploded gun!
Riley and I helped facilitate the game. We had a full table of 8 players, including some veterans, some newer players and some of the convention organizers!
Each Attacking player chose a slightly different tactic. Brad, playing overall commander James Moore, immediately rushed Zuniga’s San Pedro bastion and started utilizing the Climbing Gear to get into the fort. It resulted in a deadly meat grinder that ended with nearly every unit dead on that side of the board. Zuniga had to Cheat Death!
Over at the San Augustin bastion, the British Raiders set their Native allies up in cover and rained both arrows and musket balls on the Defenders while the English units rushed to climb into the fort. This was very effective and ultimately successful.
At the San Carlos bastion, the British Raiders made a coordinated attack, but it was back and forth several times with the Spanish counterattacking and knocking the attackers off the wall severa times.
The British at the San Pablo had a field gun to help soften up their targets, but this encouraged them to wait a few turns, performing some larger scale redeployment of the rest of their troops that ultimately spent valuable time, and making their attack very late.
Game Results
The game played out very close, with a slight edge to the Spanish by the end of 6 turns. One bastion was taken by the English with the Spanish units in retreat, one was secure with the attackers totally neutralized, and 2 bastions were still slightly contested at the end. Evaluating units on the board and attackers’ progress we declared a minor victory for the Defenders, but it was a very close game!
A big thanks to Riley for helping run the scenario and keeping everyone on track! Thanks to Adam and Brad for their help and expertise on opposite sides of the board. And thanks to Don who helped provide much of the urban terrain for the outskirts of St. Augustine, and Spanish minis for some of the Spanish forces. We had a good 200 minis on the board!
The scenario was a success and got lots of folks interested. So many people asked about the fort model. As far as I can tell, this fort is not in production anymore, but you can find a video review here and a blog review here.
We were honored with the “Best of Period” (the convention is organized around three 4-hour “periods” during the day) award!
More Games from the Convention
Well, that’s it for Blood & Plunder. Proceed at your own risk. I took these pics so I want to share them!
We scheduled ourselves pretty light this year after over scheduling hosted games in years past. So we had a chance to walk around and check out some of the other games being played.
There was a wide variety of games and tables out there!
People’s State
This was a hot table! Pushing wargaming into interesting territory, this game featured crowds protesting in the streets over the closure of their favorite gaming store. Against them were the police and riot squads. I didn’t get to play, but it looked very interesting!
The table was AMAZING. Production and execution were top notch.
This game was being run pretty much every period!
WWII Pacific Theater Dogfight
I’m a sucker for WWII aircraft so this one caught my eye. Obviously altitude is an important factor in air force combat and these guys had it well represented.
The organizer said “good luck” when I tried to get some pics and I took that as a challenge!
It looked very “charty.”
02 Hundred Hours
Another WWII game that was beautifully set up.
This guy ran several, each set up so well!
So much terrain!
He printed an entire submarine just for a terrain piece!
Battle of Troy
I have to say the advent of 3d printed terrain has increased the quality of wargaming tables. This was another impressive table that raun several times during the con.
I don’t know what ruleset they were using, but it looked good!
Urban Ukraine
Each year the convention has a theme that people can work their games around. This year it was “Streets of Fire: War in Urban Settings.” I believe this scenario was set in the current conflict in Ukraine.
Another elaborate table!
Misc Games
There was the usual spread of Civil War, Napoleonics, Ancients, and Westerns.
While the convention is primarily historical focused, there was some Star Wars and “Hammer Wars” here are there.
Bring and Buy
The flea market always makes me part ways with the money in my wallet! I grabbed some Star Wars Legion for my son, and picked up a whole set of nicely painted Elizabethan pirates for a great price. Couldn’t believe someone was parting with a copy of SCURVY DICE!
Painting Contest
They ran a low key painting contest with a simple drop off table and peoples’ choice voting system.
Maybe next year I’ll throw a ship in there.
Vendors
In spite of cramped quarters, there were a significant number of vendors offering a wide variety of gaming products. I picked up some easy to use roads and threw them down for our St. Augustine scenario.
Geeks & Games, my local store in Oregon City, brought up a great spread of games, including a good stock of Blood & Plunder products which was amazing!
Final Thoughts
Enfilade! is a fine little convention that I’ve grown to appreciate better over the past several years. Its not an extravagant experience like Adepticon, but that’s OK. You get to enjoy some great games with old and new friends, see peoples’ hard work and talent on the table, and get some great games of Blood & Plunder in.
The hotel is iffy, the food is overpriced (we brought sandwiches and salami), the schedule is rigid, the rulesets are simple, and the buttons are counted. But it’s a good time.
If you live in the Pacific Northwest, consider heading to Enfilade! 2027 for some Blood & Plunder next year. We had a couple requests for a tournament next year. And if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, come on down to Oregon City for our Summer of Plunder Land Tournament on July 18th!
The organizers work hard for these events. We need to keep going to them to keep the hobby alive!
