WWPD4Vets 2014!

This past weekend was the second annual WWPD4Vets charity gaming event. It's a great time for a good cause. Organised by Dirty Jon over at WWPD.net, there are groups contributing to their local Veterans associations worldwide.

I can't believe its been a  year since our last WWPD4Vets event! I was a bit behind the ball last year with organizing it all for the Auckland division, but this year I was lucky to be able to team up with Dan Linder and his league of esteemed gentlemen at T.C.O.W.  (That Club Out West). We also got some terrific support from Battlefront and David Grieg over at MightyApe.co.nz, who runs the business' hobby division (he's got a great hobby blog found here...). Thanks to this support we were able to assemble a silent auction with the proceeds going to the RSA.


In the end we had nearly 20 people coming and going, with lots of games being played all day long. We managed to raise $620 in the end, which I thought was an amazing effort for our little slice of down under! I really enjoyed myself and am already looking forward to next year's event.

So, without any further delay, here comes the photo dump!

The silent auction table

Greg and Ryan play a Midwar FOW game of German vs. German (both having Tigers)

Kill'n some zombies

Andrew and I played a Desperate Measures game, 1560pts, Soviet Hero Motostrelkovy vs. PzAusbildungs 500

KTs have my number!

Andrew did a great job on his white-wash

Dead to rights, hit, failed save.... rolled a 1 for FP!

So the infantry had to get the job done! (the FT team is actually a panzerfaust)

It took all three to kill this damned king tiger!

Dust!

Greg and Ryan continue to beat up on each other ...

David & Pat play some Dust

Greg's Tiger pushes boldly into Ryan's grenadiers.

STAR WARS CCG! Greg contemplates playing Obi-wan while Monkey remains confident that he'll kick Greg's ass.

X-Wing on a fantastic nebula gaming mat.

David and Greg rock some Kings Of War (need to try this one day)

More Kings of War

Imperial Aces!

Pew! Pew!

I got to close the night out with Linder, Monkey, and Andrew in a game of Castle Panic. We got down to one tower, and were certainly panicking!

I managed to score Expedition: Northwest Passage at the silent auction. It's such a nerdy story why I was so keen on getting this game. When I was 10(ish), I got a book from the library about the ill-fated Franklin Expedition to find the NW Passage over the top of Canada. The mission's two ships became ice-locked and the crews tried to escape on foot, dying off one by one. It was a great mystery in the 1840s, and several expeditions were launched to find them or complete the doomed mission's survey. It's the sort of macabre story that I like to read about to this day. In fact, about 8 years ago I went on Amazon and found that same book and bought a copy, which I've still got on my shelves.

Fast forward to a few days ago when David posted up this game as a part of Mighty Ape's donation to the auction. I thought that the title seemed interesting, so I googled it and checked out Boardgame Geek. Much to my surprise it was a game about the Franklin expedition and all of my childhood memories came flooding back. Furthermore, it's got reasonable reviews and looks like it's got some fun mechanics for an exploring game (I really love these sorts of games!). Realizing I must now own this game I put a bid in on it at the auction and won it. Hopefully I can get a review up soon!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!
-M