Miniature Wargaming with Spudnick: Historicon 2016 Rocked! Part 1

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Historicon 2016 Rocked! Part 1

As I mentioned before, one of the great highlights of the year is going to Historicon. And as usual, it did not disappoint. We went to the convention relatively well with goodies that both, Kalissa and I wanted without breaking the bank. We played the games we wanted to and enjoyed them. And I got to run my rather large convention game for two days with great success.
So we got plenty of goodies. The list is fairly simple:

We got old Warlord metal figures still in the box of Indians, British Regulars, and French Marines, so we can play Muskets and Tomahawks and Buckskins and Rangers.
I did find Aliens vs. Predator. It already saw action as it was thrown at me when Kalissa found a book!
Kalissa gained another M-10 Achilles, and I got two armored cars and a half-track from Warlord.
Kalissa found a book of Warhammer Historical: Kampfgruppe Normandy unopened!
We got the Iron Cross rules.
We got Muskets and Tomahawks with cards cheap.
We gained a copy of the Battle Group Rules, with Overlord.
Kalissa got some 28mm gangsters for free from a friend of ours after she won in a game of Chicago Way.
Bought five Spanish resin buildings that can be used for multiple game types.
I bought a well for terrain that I lost earlier this year.
Kalissa got the Charlie Fox Trot Normandy Cafe and a pig pen.
Kalissa got Empires in Flames and German Strikes books for Bolt Action dirt cheap!

So we did pretty well.

Other than the shopping, we really come to war gaming conventions for the games. A friend of ours told us to not join a tournament for your first time at a convention. I must say I agree! We now go as an excuse to try out new and old game systems we have not played before. Kalissa ended up in a game of Great Escape Games' Chicago Way on the Thursday ran by Ivor Evans with great terrain!

Who would not want to play on this?

Around the same time Kalissa was playing as some Gangsters, I joined up with the largest game, Charge of the Light Brigade on Oct. 25th, 1854. The table, itself, was about 30' long, so it was hard to ignore. This game was a history information game. You still play the game, but they had the valley labelled by times from 11:10 A.M. to 11: 20 A.M. I had already set a goal when I was having a dog chase after my troops. If I could only get to 11:14 A.M! I did, and no dogs were hurt during this game. It also had Terry Brighton, a famous British historian and writer of Hell Riders: the Truth about the Charge of the Light Brigade. come overseas to talk about this battle! It was pretty awesome, though we did want to see the outcome of the second line hitting the guns.

The Light Brigade takes off after orders.

Early on, they start to take casualties.

Lots more death in the charge!

The Russians have their own cavalry in wait.

Russian guns wait at the end of the valley.

For the next two days, I was involved in running games as one of Historicon's Game Masters. I had two games on the Friday and two more, following up on that Saturday. But this did not stop me from running around on a photo spree for games of inspiration. Below are the awesome games that were run. I will share more on the next post.

20mm WW2 for Operation Goodwood.

28mm WW2 desert warfare

28mm French and Indian War.

WW1 Air Dogfight. A Zeppelin exploded into flames!

I am not sure what the game was, but I thought I saw dinosaurs involved.

From the H.A.W. K.S. (Harford Area Weekly Kreigspielers), this was first for a WW2 tank game that was run alot like World of Tanks. You can get newer and better tanks as the game progresses. I asked if I could build and throw in a Panzer I to see if it would survive a round.