{"id":2971,"date":"2014-07-23T15:07:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T15:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=2971"},"modified":"2014-07-23T15:07:31","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T15:07:31","slug":"historicon-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bucksurdu.com\/blog\/?p=2971","title":{"rendered":"Historicon 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend was HMGS East’s flagship convention, HISTORICON. \u00a0For the third year in a row it was held at the Expo Center in Fredericksburg, VA. \u00a0I had planned to take both Thursday and Friday off work to attend. \u00a0Since I hand’t committed to running any Thursday games, at the last minute I determined to go to work on Thursday and drive down later. \u00a0I was supposed to leave work at 1700, but didn’t get out until 1830. \u00a0I met my wife at Ikia just north of DC to pick up my son. \u00a0He and I made excellent time, finding a rare gap in the normally heinous traffic on I-95 south out of DC. \u00a0When we arrived and began unloading all my stuff into the HAWKs room, gaming had been underway for hours.<\/p>\n

\"Dave<\/a>
Dave running his 10mm Napoleonic game using Fate of Battle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Don<\/a>
Don ran a series of linked WWII scenarios on this table<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Duncan<\/a>
Duncan running a War of 1813 game using Wellington Rules<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ants<\/a>
Ants chasing a jeep full of soldiers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My first game was a GASLIGHT game in which teams of soldiers venture into a colony of giant ants to rescue some lost kids. \u00a0Despite a valiant effort the ants ate all the soldiers, and only one of three lost kids survived to tell the tale — and spend lots of money on therapy.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Two soldiers skirmish with a radioactive ant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tank<\/a>
Tank running his Romans vs. Carthaginians game using Bear Yourselves Valiantly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dave<\/a>
Dave assisting with my Mincio River game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dave<\/a>
Dave assisting with Mincio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chris'<\/a>
Chris' Battle of Five Armies game using Bear Yourselves Valiantly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bill's<\/a>
Bill's G.A.M.E.R. event<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bill ran this 54mm WWII game using my under-development G.A.M.E.R. rules. \u00a0(The acronym stands for the attributes of each figure: \u00a0guts, accuracy, melee, endurance, and reaction). \u00a0While one of the players thought that hand-to-hand shouldn’t carry over for multiple turns, in general the rules were well received.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A view of Bill's 54mm Normandy game using G.A.M.E.R.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Chris'<\/a>
Chris' Hundred Years War game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

See details of Chris’ Battle of Barnett here: \u00a0http:\/\/onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/battle-of-barnet-14-april-1471-game-at.html<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>
One of my 10mm Napoleonic games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I ran two 10mm Napoleonic Wars games with Fate of Battle<\/em>: \u00a0Mincio River and Hanau. \u00a0Dave Wood ran another Napoleonic scenario, and he and Duncan ran the Battle of Vittoria on Saturday evening. \u00a0All seemed to go well, with the occasional rules lawyer or bad sport to dampen the event a little. \u00a0The rules seem to be slowly gaining some momentum; although, I did have one person sit through the rules briefing and then say he wasn’t interested and leave.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A good shot of the setup of Sam's kids game, which featured the Eureka toy soldiers assaulting a for made of blocks held by the Eureka teddy bears<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sam ran her first convention game. \u00a0It was a battle between the Eureka teddy bear figures and the Eureka toy soldier figures. \u00a0It was set up as a kids game. \u00a0She built all the terrain herself. \u00a0She went with a candy land theme. \u00a0She was quite nervous at the start, but once the game got going, she did a good job.<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/a>
Sammy running her kids game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like many of our kids table games, she used Milk and Cookies Rules<\/em> from Big Battles for Little Hands<\/em> for this game.<\/p>\n

\"Sam's<\/a>
Sam's game in progress<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The objective of the toy soldiers, who outnumbered the bears, was to capture the fort made of toy blocks. \u00a0While the toy soldiers killed most of the bears, they didn’t get to the fort, so it was a teddy bear victory.<\/p>\n

\"Ed's<\/a>
Ed's 20mm modern skirmish<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ed, who came down with Sam Fuson, ran his modern skirmish game set in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\"Sam's<\/a>
Sam's Sherlock Holmes GASLIGHT game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was quite successful. \u00a0The folks had a good time. \u00a0Sam ran a Sherlock Holmes inspired GASLIGHT game.<\/p>\n

\"Geoff<\/a>
Geoff running his Lego pirate game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As usual, the HAWKs set aside a table for kids games. \u00a0Geoff ran his plastic pirate barroom brawl game twice.<\/p>\n

\"Geoff<\/a>
Geoff making a point with the youngsters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m not sure what point Geoff was making, but it was hard to miss. \u00a0Geoff is really good as a GM for these kids games.<\/p>\n

\"Eric<\/a>
Eric running his Armies for Kids Napoleonic game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eric ran the Armies for Kids giveaway game this year. \u00a0See Chris’ blog post for more details: \u00a0http:\/\/onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/hawks-2014-historicon-armies-for-kids.html<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A view of some of the 28mm figures in the Armies for Kids giveaway game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is our fourth year of hosting a game for kids under 10, after which we pass out free, painted armies to the participants. \u00a0This is an outreach effort to try to grow the hobby. \u00a0There were two very nice threads about this on TMP. \u00a0The latter is from a dad. \u00a0His comments capture exactly why we do this every year.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/theminiaturespage.com\/boards\/msg.mv?id=353652<\/p>\n

http:\/\/theminiaturespage.com\/boards\/msg.mv?id=353643<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The winners in the Armies for Kids giveaway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was really fun watching the kids’ faces as we passed out armies, terrain, dice, and rules at the end of the game.<\/p>\n

This convention also marked the 20th anniversary of the HAWKs as a club. \u00a0To commemorate this, we cut a celebratory cake Saturday evening, which was shared with folks playing games in our room. \u00a0See Chris’ blog post for details: \u00a0http:\/\/onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/the-hawks-celebrate-their-20th.html<\/p>\n

\"Bill's<\/a>
Bill's large-scale Helm's Deep game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bill and his son William ran this Helm’s Deep game with very large figures on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer<\/a>
Jennifer Palmer running her Blood and Swash tavern game<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The start of my GASLIGHT dog sled race<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Friday night Don, Chris, and I ran a reprise of our HAWKs 1000 race game. \u00a0The original HAWKs 1000 game was organized by Todd Harland-White and had four races: \u00a0dog sleds, a desert car race, a zeppelin race, and an airboat race through the jungle. \u00a0Since Todd was unable to attend, we restructured the race with just three legs: \u00a0the dog sled and car races as well as a new hover skiffs on Mars game. \u00a0Each leg was an hour, after which the players rotated to the next table. \u00a0Each player raced in all three legs of the race, collecting points along the way to determine the overall winner. \u00a0See Chris’ post here: \u00a0http:\/\/onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com\/2014\/07\/hawks-1000-race-game-at-historicon.html<\/p>\n

\"Coming<\/a>
Coming around the first turn of my dogsled race<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My dog sled race was wild and woolly, as usual. \u00a0There were lots of flipped sleds and wounded dogs along the course.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The hover craft lined up at the start of the Mars leg of the HAWKs 1000 race<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The hover skiff race, a new addition, seemed to go very well. \u00a0The hover skiffs (shown above) were made from dispensers for rolls of chewing gum with some bits added. \u00a0The figures were a combination of manufacturers, from Blue Moon, scratch-built robots, Pulp Figures, Recreation Conflict, and others.<\/p>\n

I ran a final event Sunday morning, my fifth of the convention. \u00a0It was a G.A.M.E.R. event. \u00a0It was mainly about getting feedback on the rules with a simple scenario in which commandos and partisans are trying to steal an enigma machine from the Germans. \u00a0I don’t know if I was just tired by the end of the weekend, but the game wasn’t nearly as enjoyable to me as the other times I’ve run the game. \u00a0There were also one or two people in the game who kept fighting the unique mechanics, kept waiting for me to resolve things for them, or wanted to argue about things. \u00a0They can’t all be great, I guess.<\/p>\n

So, I ran five games, all of which filled, and most of which went well:<\/p>\n