Historicon 2009 - a great time!

Historicon 2009 was a great time for me and my friends from ODMS!! This was the 25th anniversary, and was a well attended convention, apparently. This gargantua of wargaming cons will be moving to Baltimore next year (amid some disappointment from the fans who have been coming to Lancaster for two decades), but I will leave all that politics and grumbling aside for now. On to the report -

I ran two con games - RCW and TSATF. Both were excellent, and I got good feedback for the two scenario books I am working on.

Re-connected with lots of gaming friends.

Played 5 games of Hordes of the Things - my record was 1 and 4 (almost as good as I did in the DBA tournament).




Played Pillars of the Earth - very good with 4 players (we did not use the expansion, with more players and different cards). Players were Jon K, Odin B, Justin G, and myself. Odin came in first, and I got second. Very nice, and had a good feel from the book, although it was more than a little reminiscent to Stone Age.




Played Power Grid - another very good game. Played with the same players as Pillars (Jon, Odin, Justin and myself). Elliott helped by flipping cards and restocking the uranium. I won this one, but it was close throughout (an excellent game).




Purchased enough Wargames Factory Celts to do a decent sized WAB army.

Purchased a boxed Infantry battalion of Seven Years War Prussian Musketeers, by Crusader. Very nice miniatures, I can't wait to paint these.


I got some new rules

• Songs of Drums & Shakos


• Der Kriegskunst (from Chris)

Got some light infantry and some cavalry for my Romans. These are from Wargames Factory (like the Celts). These guys (Tony and the rest) are one of my favorite wargaming companies out there today, which probably isn't hindered by the fact that they do the periods that I really like (colonials, zulus, and soon - Vikings!).

Picked up some Litko bases for John Dent (I'll bring them on Thursday).

Got plenty of British figures to do Songs of Drums & Shakos. These are the Victrix plastics, which come in a box of 52, Flank Companies for the Peninsula Campaign was the set I got, which should give me some Light Infantry and some Grenadiers, as well as a few foot officers. With the rifleman figures that were given away (very nice Perry figures), I should be able to do a pretty decent British collection for a skirmish game.

Sold a 15mm ancient indian army - thanks Elliott, for showing it in the flea market.


Picked up a copy of BattleCry from Richard Borg. Almost bought "Ancients" from him, but I figured that would out for a while, while BattleCry is hard to find. Found out that a Napoleonic version of the system is due out next year from GMT.

I met Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) from the Sharpe's movies - very nice fellow.

I saw the "Charm City Cakes" cake that they baked for Historicon 25th anniversary.

I did not play in the WAB tournaments, but I went out with a great bunch of WAB guys for dinner to the Lancaster Brewery. 10 beers, a burger and some tira misu is a good consolation prize for not getting to play in the tournament. Cute waitress.

Tags: gaming, wargaming, miniatures, boardgames