Like the Knights of Camelot fleeing from the white rabbit in a Monty Python film, Kalissa and I fled north to Virginia for a wargaming convention! Of course, it was not a mear white rabbit of violence disguised as a cute, innocent bunny that we were fleeing. This year, we have been, like others in the state of North Carolina, dodging Hurricanes. It has only been under the grace of God that we have not met with disaster as a few other states have. Hopefully, everyone will recover to a normal life soon!
However, in reality, Kalissa and I were requested in advance to show up to this show. I am still not officially clear if it is the first one or the first in October. To me, it does not matter. Just twist my arm to another wargaming convention! Kalissa was asking to run the Bolt Action Tournament for this convention. Actually, she was asked to run two different conventions, but I thought it would be wiser for us to have a first success story. Either way, it was agreed to go to this year's Call To Arms. For us, it was just a four hour drive to the show similar to the drive for Historicon when it was at Fredericksburg, VA. And as a side plus, it is the weekend before our wedding anniversary! Some people buy diamonds, we buy miniature 28mm tanks! Our anniversary is the 16th of October, if you must know!
Anyway, we get to the convention with no problem! The event was held at the Williamsburg Clarion. Now, I am going to mention some negatives involving this hotel. I do not want to reflect badly against the Old Dominion Society who ran this show, because these would be unforeseen events and really, for me, it part of the adventure of events. So if you are reading this blog, do not link to the two as one. Hell, the comedy behind this makes it kind of awesome in a way! Kalissa and I have slept at a Clarion before at Fredericksburg for Historicon to save money. Honestly, it made sense, since we would spend a total of sleep hours in the room. However, that one had a review that said on a negative review that "the eggs at their breakfast tasted like fish." Maybe, it was my Plaque Psoriasis speaking with it's Chuck Norris immune system, but I decided to try them! That review was wrong! They tasted like Shrimp Scampi! However, the Williamsburg breakfast on the first day did not even give options. You got scrambled eggs, diced potatoes, and bacon, because that was what they had! No real choice! My step-mom did that as well! Before the first tournament, we had a cleaning lady come in to clean. This was done by spraying some super powerful smelling chemical on the carpet floor randomly. That was it! That was the cleaning option! And ignoring the dead roach on the floor! If this method works in our household, that Hispanic lady is a genius! My wife gets major headaches from chemicals like that. However, I guarded the door to prevent this the next day.
As for the show, itself, there were about six vendors for the show, which was fair for the size of the show predicted at 300-400. The numbers I counted were more around 175. Of course, this was a new convention time and there was Hurricane Michael that ran over the area on the Thursday. Friday, Williamsburg and the surrounding areas had lost some power. I got the impression that the organizers were a little worried we would not be interested in other events based on really things that were beyond their control. However, we were unaffected by the outcome. We understood that new events and disasters do not mix well with people. We did not get enough people for the doubles Bolt Action Tournament, but six for the singles one. From what we found was that the Old Dominion Society guys were very pleasant, fun, and respectable gentlemen. If anything, my advice would be to run Call At Arms next year. They had some good games out there and Kalissa and I had a lot of fun playing games and meeting new people who we would like to see as future friends.
Below are some the wonderful games they had going. Hopefully, this show will be back in action without any hurricane interruptions. Enjoy!
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