Historicon was this past weekend!

This was my first historics convention.  Although I’d originally planned on making it down for the bulk of the event but ended up only making it down for the Saturday.  In retrospect, that’s a bit of a shame, because I had an amazing time.  I’ll definitely be going back next year, likely for more than the one day, and am eyeballing both Fall In! and Cold Wars.

I got there early, despite traffic on 95 being unusually 95-like for the early hour.  I kicked around the exhibition hall, checking out the club tables being set up.  When it opened, I cruised through the vendor hall, which was pretty cool, and dropped off my painting competition entries.

I did have to dash off mid-conversation, though, because I’d signed up for a 10AM game (“Stow on the Wold” a 28mm English Civil War game).  Since that’s a period I’ve really wanted to get into, I expected it to be the highlight of the day.  Unfortunately, 20 minutes after the event was intended to start, I found out that it’d been cancelled; the organizer had had a death in the family and was (totally understandably) dealing with that.  So, I can’t complain… but somehow it hadn’t gotten onto the list of cancelled events (which I’d made a point of checking a couple of times that morning), which meant that not only did I miss out on the event I’d been looking forward too, I wasn’t able to sign up for another event in its place. That was vexing.

On the bright side, it did open up my morning to touch base and spend most of the day with friends Ashley, Casey, and JC.

I got to sit in on a Bolt Action demo game (technically, I played it, but I was content to roll dice the once and spend the rest of the time letting a kid play the game while I grokked what was going on mechanically) that was surprisingly a lot of fun.

Also, there is a special joy to be found when looking at the face of someone who clearly has renounced Games Workshop and all its works as they explain a rule and you go, “Oh, so exactly like 40k!”  Because really: Bolt Action is soooo much like 40K.

Then, after lunch, I was off to the other event I’d signed up for (“Black Death at Leningrad” a Bolt Action game, conveniently enough).  This was a lot of fun: Soviets defending a railyard against Germans; 3 people per team; I was on Team USSR.  We got lucky early on and seized sente, and Team Bad Guys were never able to overcome that.

On reflection, I really should have taken some pictures of the game.

Although I’ve long maintained a discomfort about playing certain periods (of which WWII is second only to ACW), I really enjoyed the way the game plays; enough so to really overcome that.  So, I ended up picking up the rulebook, the Armies of the USA book, and a US Army Starter.  No clue what I’m going to do with them: the family I know the most about served in the Pacific (in the USN and USMC), but I’ll come up with something.

I might have to reread some Alan Furst books (oh, darn!) and see if I can’t come up with something rad out of one of those; I dunno.  (Likely not using anything from the USA box, though, given that all of his stuff is well before US involvement.)

On that subject, I also successfully talked myself into picking up Saga (which has the worst webpage I’ve ever seen).  I grabbed the rulebook, a box of Saxon Thegns, and splitting a box of Dark Ages Warriors (a kajillion decent-to-good minis in each box); no dice, though: all of the Saxon dice were sold out.  I’ve heard a lot of great stuff about this game, and I’m looking forward to playing it: not a lot of minis involved, and everything should paint up relatively quickly if I can get a free moment.  Heck, I’m about halfway through assembling them.

When I dropped by to collect my entries to the painting competition, I was more than pleasantly surprised: of my four entries (which I literally expected nothing of: I only brought them to help contribute to the competition being successful), one was a finalist and two took second place!

That was a delightful surprise!

(And, so I can remember what the entries were six months from now: they were the Deathwing Techmarine, Dark Angels Dreanought (2nd Place), Skaven Warlock Engineer w/ Warlock-Engineered Weapon and Ruby Ring of Ruin (Finalist), and Skaven Warlord on War-Litter (2nd Place).)

Anyway, I had an excellent time at Historicon, and I’m absolutely down for more.

(I suppose this means I’ll finally have to trek up to Huzzah Hobbies.)