winterbadger | game convention and other news

gr_c17 and I went up to Historicon today. It was fun!

I haven't been to a big gaming convention since I went to Origins 1990 in Baltimore (and actually got work to pay for it... ;-) This was way bigger than that, and a barrel of fun.

I was rather late getting to Bryan's, as I slept late and then got caught in a horrific backup from the Beltway to I-95. Eventually arrived at his place (and a nice apartment he has--quirky, comfy, in a nice neighborhood), and we set out for Lancaster. We chatted along the way, and I managed to get sunburn all down one arm. :-( We arrived, parked in the overflow-overflow parking area (a field, just like at reenactments :-), and trundled inside to pay our registration fee, get our pink tags, and wander.

There was a huge game in the lobby, a big sand table with all sorts of 19th British and French and Egyptian and Sudanese and Arab troops wandering about through ruins, forts, temples, and so forth, punctuated with a surprising number of elephants. I gather it was a rather pulp-fiction sort of treasure hunt, but whatever was happening was happening very slowly, so after greeting a friend (Bob McD., who was there to run a game in a different room), we went looking for more excitement.

We found the NASAMW room, a huge area filled with (mostly very handsome) ancient and mediaeval armies of all sorts busily engaged in battle (serious competition gaming, tournament-style) which we gawped at for a bit. There was also a huge flea market, which closed shortly after we arrived so all the dealers could get lunch. We swore to come back later.

In the meantime, we looked over the other game rooms: one large ballroom and several smaller conference rooms filled with all sorts of miniature wargames. The weekend's theme was Africa's Wars of Independence, and there were several games on that theme visible, from European colonial wars to pulp-fiction games involving Nazis, elephants, and goodness knows what else, plus a big "Black Hawk Down" battle of Mogadishu game.

But an awful lot of games had nothing to do with the theme. There was a magnificent Cowpens game, a huge World War I trench warfare game, an award-winning layout that featured a canoe chase through the Canadian Wilderness of the French and Indian War, and many contests of Napoleonic, American Civil War, and various World War II armies.

There wasa big painting area, with some amazing pieces of work on display and people busily working on more. Outside that there was a small reenacting unit of French zouaves, talking to the public about he French Army in Africa in the 19th century (and sweltering in their uniforms...)

Then... the dealers' room. And room really doesn't do it justice. This shot and this one from past years will give you some idea. A HUGE barnlike space FILLED with tables selling every sort of game, figure, terrain piece, book, modelling supply, artwork, or VHS/DVD/CD related to military history that you can possible imagine (and probably many you can't). We saw Bob C., who was there to sell his Victorian science fiction miniatures and game which we had played the weekend before. We saw many, many, many things that would have been tempting to buy, but restricted ourselves somewhat (after all, we could have maxed out our credit cards, but we still had to fit everything in Bryan's car to go home ;-).

Bryan bought Age of Eagles (AOE), a Napoleonic game I've been pimping to him and

john_arundel; he also picked up a fair number of Russian infantry, cavalry, and artillery with which to build an army for AOE. He also got an Early Imperial Roman army for DBA in 15mm (that's not going way overboard--DBA armies usually have less than 50 figures!) He refrained from adding a copy of "Ilse, She-Wolf of the SS" to his video collection...

I bought some buildings (from the wonderfully named Miniature Building Authority) and hills to go with my desert terrain mat, for fighting over with my Eighth Army and Italian WWII troops. I bought a few packs of 15mm landesknechts from Old Glory Miniatures. And I got a book on the armies of the Irish rebelions of the Napoleonic period, a subject I've been working on gaming for a few years. I was good and did not buy a whole raft of 25mm French Revolutionary figures, though I was very tempted. Really, I was very tempted by a TON of stuff; but I'm supposed to be cutting *down*, right? Well, mayeb I'll get a table at the flea market next convention (the same crew runs Fall In in the autumn and Cold Wars in the spring).

Speaking of the flea market, we never did get back to it. :-( So much for the $10 steal on a cool Napoleonic book I had spotted. We did hook up with

john_arundel, who had arrived to help Bob C. run a Martian game tonight. He wandered around with us and tried to help one stallholder (from Eureka Miniatures, all the way from Australia!) persuade Bryan to buy a pith helmet, to no avail. :-) We left him and Bob to their preparations, I stopped to see one friend who was running a Ga Pa game, and then we went back to MD, had dinner, and went to our respective homes. A lot of fun, and we've agreed to go to the next one, Fall In! in November.

The only other news is that I got a very quick email from

redactrice, saying that she and

shy_kat had had a lovely time in the Engadine Valley and were headed maybe fro Kandersteg next. It's a hard life! :-) (Actually, I'm just glad to hear that our forced march the weekend before they left didn't debilitate them for the real thing!)

Meanwhile, it's quiet here, and rainy. I think I'm going to go look at my new toys, pet the cats, have a nightcap, and go to bed.