Historicon 2011

Corner Kick!, a photo by The Gonk on Flickr.

Historicon 2011 was a lot of fun. The drive was very long, ten hours, but the facilities were nicer than the usual Lancaster Host (usual for me-- I missed last year, so this is my first HMGS East con away from the Host in ten years). I played in several great Piquet games, which have been spotlighted on Blunders on the Danube, as well as a game of Fireball Forward, which I'm looking forward to seeing published. I also finally made time to sit down for Bob Wiltrout's soccer game Corner Kick!. Ed: AND former local Brian met me for a midnight Blood Bowl 1-1 mauling of my Skaven by his Ogres, leaving 3 of my 4 Gutter Runners missing the next game-- one of which had to be retired-- and killing one of my players! All the games were really fun, and here you see my Number One Son (wearing his Germany jersey) back at home stomping my Argentinians in a game of Corner Kick! with his Subbuteo figures. I had two definite vendor purchases in mind-- D-Day bunkers from Armaments in Miniature and more Primaeval Designs prehistorics from Acheson Creations. Neither was there!! Naturally, I didn't let that stop me from blowing the budget in the vendor hall...

Number One Son at the time was in Germany. My brother-in-law broke out his cowboy figures and played our old copy of The Rules With No Name with Number One Son and his cousin, and Number One Son was pretty excited about it. So, when I saw the nice published version of TRWNN at like 20% at Casemate, I snapped that puppy up.

I picked up the Flames of War North Africa and Dogs and Devils books for my eventual US Airborne vs. Italians, and then grabbed a box of P-47 Thunderbolts since our last game without actual figures caused some confusion. I also grabbed a T28E1/M15 CGMC, which had been difficult for me to find, although on the drive home I realized I actually needed two.

What would Historicon be without a new, previously unplanned period? I had been considering Crusader gladiators for a while, and went ahead and pulled the trigger here, buying an Old Glory Army membership to get their Build a Robot pack. I also picked up some Cowboy Wars figures to paint with the kids. I always liked how they had mounted and unmounted versions of the figures.

I found the last 15mm Landmark Building I needed, the church, and grabbed that. I also got some very nice Mark IV Miniatures/Musket Miniatures buildings.

The best part though was really just hanging around with other gamers and drinking beer and talking shop.