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.

Bolt Action Demo Day at the Mighty Meeple, Concord, NC

 

 These are pictures of a previous Saturday, Sept. 11th for a Bolt Action Day. The owners of the Mighty Meeple wanted to expand their footprint in Historical Games like Bolt Action for sales and just for miniatures games in general. They asked my wife and I to come visit for suggestions and to demo the game last time. Since then, there was not that much advertising on their end about Bolt Action, though Kalissa chose a time to run demos for a Saturday. We know the response to the area, because of what we post in facebook groups. There are a lot of people who want to play, but do not have connections. In other words, there are too many groups online who do not know about each other in the same area. We were not sure want to expect, since we only heard of three people interested right before we took our three hour trek to Concord.

    Kalissa and I drove up with forces for three game and three tables worth to play on. When we got there, we had tables reserved for us to set up. I thought that was nice of them. That does not always happen for other places. So, no cutthroat table grabs! A few people we knew strolled in along with two people who were there for our demo. As the hours past, more and more people showed up. Sixteen people came directly for the demo day! We had several others stop by to watch. We had three other games running from people who just came to play their own Bolt Action games. And we ran four full games, ourselves. More importantly, we had kids playing and having fun! I always will pass on hobbies to younger generations. I swear that the young girl playing against her brother was like a clone of my wife playing. The owners were really happy with the turn out, especially seeing that locals who play there weekly also play historical games. There were talks about Black Powder and Hail Caesar. 

    Overall, it was a great trip with great success. My father use to always state after a project was done, "And yet, another success story!" We will plan for another day in the future with them.  Below are some more pictures. Enjoy!