Historicon 2017 Overview Report

      Another awesome Historicon has come and gone. It has been has been great fun, but I am tired out! I attended to post immediately all of the good, great, and fantastic when I got home to Fayetteville, NC, but the internet had other plans! These things happen! There is so much to share.
      Kalissa and I went up early on Wednesday. For a four hour trip, it stayed four hours of a drive. I expected at least something funky on the 95 corridor. We chose a different hotel this year to save some more money to pour into more miniatures. Why pay more for a place that you only sleep in?! And we found away to avoid the highway to get to the show that got us coming in next to Wegman's, which is like a convention grocery store itself. We ate there, and walk over to the convention center. Kalissa and I seem to do the same thing and talk up with the volunteers at the show and who ever else likes to be early birds. We discovered that we had a whole table for ourselves for the convention and decided to set up early instead of fighting all of the crowds on Thursday! This way everyone could look at our game work in advance.
     Like usual, the only bad part of the convention seems to be the registration line. It think it is a made tradition to make in bad for everyone to have a common topic. Being a GM for the convention, they always open up the line for us to get through faster, which usually involves a few hisses from the rest of the line like I was going to be attacked by a bunch of Xenomorphs in an Alien film. Honestly, I tend like it as I get to a meet  few more wargamers in line, so I look at the line debacle as a sort of "Meet and Greet" for other people and myself. Plus, I look forward to some friends of ours who tend to have the most colorful statements about the lines only to get through it and then, drink. The next morning of seeing them is well worth the treat! Priceless!

     Thursday, we got to the convention after raiding Wegmans, again. In my opinion, I have seen quite an upgrade for the games, since last year. I had told my wife, Kalissa, that I figured some of the last year's GM won awards might win them again. It is not that that is a bad thing, I just as long as it is justified for an awesome game. Instead, we came in seeing a lot of newer GM's with great fun looking tables, as well as, some of the other older veterans. I would like to think that my last year's game might have had an impact and inspiration to do so. Some people this year have told me that our last year's game did push them to improve, which is quite the compliment. Also, I noticed that the published event list had five photos in the guide from our last year's game. I will be sending a copy down to Florida to my dad, who will get a kick out of that. He rarely does anything online.
    Thursday is also the day they first open the vendor hall and Flea Market. Kalissa ran the first session of the Flea Market were she got to sell some of friends stuff as well as ours. We went into the vendor hall to meet up with some new friends and catch all of the potential deals. It did help that we came on a mission and stuck with a list. Otherwise, the vendor hall is much too dangerous. Our goal this year were 28 mm American Civil War for next year's convention game. Everything and anything else, would just be gravy! And we got to meet up with Richard from Fire and Fury who had just joined our group, The Cape Fear Miniature Wargamers. Really, a nice guy! We plan on gaming in the near future.

    Friday was an official game day for my game: Ambush at Grammichele. If you did not read previous blogs, the history behind the game is that the 1st Canadian Division was sent up the left flank between the American army and the British army during Operation Husky. They took the brunt of the mountain fighting in the Sicily Campaign. Needless to say, that the games still were fairly accurate with the casualties. On average, the points equaled less or equal results. By this time, I was feeling it. Out of luck, a player named Blake, bought two beers for me. This helped with my throat. At this point, it was the second time I ever drank during a game.

   Saturday, it was strictly a game day. By this point, it was a struggle between talking and not. My voice was going in and out. Game-wise, I pulled it off. The Grammichele games played out well. At this point, we had six to eight players on stand by for our games every night except on Wednesday, since there wasn't a game then. I felt bad for not being able to run more games. Even worse, my wife planned to play a game that she had to cancel that was an Ivor Evans game. If you get a chance to play a game of his, do it! He has beautiful games. In our case, we planned for a dinner with our friends, Walt and Michelle of Impudent Mortals.  They have supported a couple of our Bolt Action Tournaments in the past and are all round good people. They also sell great MDF terrain. Either way, after eating with them, we got back to the convention to win "Best Theme" game for the convention. It was  a little strange for me. I should had felt a little more emotion about like last year's awards. I think it was a combination of winning an award on the Thursday game before anyone rolled a die, the having a couple of tall beers at dinner, and being tired. At this point, I had about eight hours of sleep. That is not much between Wednesday and Saturday night. But it is all worth it!
      With Sunday, it was full of "good byes" until the next convention. The next year's Historicon is suppose to be back in Lancaster, PA at The Host, which sounds like a low budget horror film. And from what I have heard from various gamers, it might be. However, I am excited about this adventure. It will also give me the chance to hang out with some family on the way up!

 

 Overall review is that Historicon 2017 rocked. It felt better than the last two, even though there is a bias of knowing way more people and winning a higher award. Now, to gear up for the next convention, which might be Southern Front or definitely, Siege of Augusta.