Southern Front Wargaming Convention

 

 

  Southern Front 2021 has come and past! This is one of the smaller conventions that Kalissa and I try to attend. As silly as it sounds, this convention tends to be one of the harder conventions to get to, despite being only and hour and a half drive. Yes, this is held in Raleigh, NC, which in pretty close to us. However, the amount of events that interrupt this convention of the years was amazing. Most of them were hurricanes, so this one is the third on we have been to after knowing about it for ten years. We were have to be there!

    I like to think of Southern Front as the spiked punch bowl of historical wargaming. It is small with around about 60 to 80 people, but it is blessed with some grand historical gaming. It was about 90% historical games with some (I think) heavy hitters of the hobby in eastern U.S. There were a lot these guys I see running games at other major conventions, own miniature companies or write rules. I find it really cool to ask rules question to the writers themselves. Though, we only showed up for the Saturday part of the show. I was told I missed out of some awesome games on Friday. It was pretty full for a Friday. Saturday had a lot going on. I only shot a few photos and forgot most of the evenings games. I regret that, since there were some interesting medieval games going on. Anyway, here was what I took.

ARR: Muskets & Tomahawks: Woods Ninjas Raid Again!

        In our local gaming community, Kalissa and I have discovered different places and times to play games where the most people are. Even if it is not a New Year's Resolution for us, we wanted to spread as much gaming options as possible for our fellow gamers. This does not always seem to have that much of an effect. Between the Warhammer crowd and the X-wing ones, they seem rather stuck in and entrenched to the same game systems. No new stuff ever! Well, there might be a point to that, since it is easier to play games if you have people to play those games. The supernatural gaming squirrel is as hard to keep up with as well as keeping up with the Joneses. And we realize that most people are not made of money. However, I digress!
      On Thursday nights, our local Hobbytown, U.S.A. has a long gaming night. Somehow, we did not hear of this sooner. Of course, we decided to show up with Muskets & Tomahawks. I am not sure why we do not play this game more often. We have a lot of French and Indian War figures and now, we know of a new line of figures from Sash & Saber Miniatures. I will most likely get some Highlanders from their line. And the only reason I have not done a convention game with these rules means that I would be rivaling another gamer who runs those rules at nearly every convention I go to. And I am not sure why I care?  Needless to say, we decided to share these rules at Hobbytown where we did get some people to ask about the game. This is an encouraging thought!
     In our game, I decided to play as the Indians aka "Woods Ninjas". If you have seen previous posts, you would know that my wife writes mean lists in games when she sits down to understand them. I was using her list against her, which is similar to having them being led by Chuck Norris, Shaun Claude Van Damn, and Stephen Seagal. Round house kicks for everyone! They were given Elite stats with Native, French & Indian War Veterans,and Scouts. The French did not have a chance! By the way, Kalissa was running the French. We can just say that this was payback for picking a French Soldier Model as my award at Historicon for my ACW Game.
    The battle played out like it should have with the Indians. They would pesky and sneak through the woods and snipe at the French who would be bewildered to do anything about it. Well, the French killed the first person with ease. The next step was for the Natives to engage the enemy in melee combat. I thought it was going to go better for me until I lost the unit. I was able to knock the French Regulars down to three men. Since I realized that Kalissa and I were equals in melee combat, I took the rest of the game sniping her troops out of existence. The game ended on turn four. My thoughts of this game are that we have way more troops to paint. We have at least two more boxes of Indians, two boxes of French Regulars, and one box of British Regulars. I think I should try to paint these......

This is the face of "I am innocent; you would not roll against little harmless me!"

Commission Mission: Battle of Eutaw Springs, SC

   This was just some recent photos of a project that I had going. While I am writing this, I still have a day's work ahead to finish it off. The commission was to make a board for the Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina during the American Revolutionary War. I cannot say I was too happy with myself for this project. I felt kind of stupid for never hearing of this battle. More embarrassing, I lived in South Carolina for several years. Plus, I have friends for Eutawville, SC. But the great thing about projects I receive are that I get to learn new things. And now, I know to stop by this battlefield park when I drive by on road trips.

    Anyway, the pictures below are a combination of my commission with my trees and some commission trees for my client. I am not sure why I do this to myself, because displaying these things only leave me with more ideas. It is kind of like the fact my wife, Kalissa mentioned Jurassic Park Games right after seeing this board. The wheels started turning in my head for a future game with terrain. Despite this, I leave you all with what I had accomplished so far. I added my Muskets and Tomahawks figures for show or in case, I can con Kalissa into playing on the board. Either way, enjoy!

Rivers are usually the scariest parts of my commissions. 

Just some French and Indians for show.

Some British as well.

I was also commissioned to make a large thicket. I think it looks close to what I have seen. The base overlaps another, so you can lift it for troop movement.

I also made some more trees with woods bases.