Well they were four hot and humid days in Lancaster, Pennsylvania this past July 24-27, as another Historicon came to pass. Historicon, one of the (if not the) largest historical miniatures gaming conventions in the world took place at the Holiday Inn (formerly Lancaster Host), where they managed to consume the entire hotel building and an additional facility referred to as the "tennis barn".

Historicon included 340+ wargaming events, not counting all the WRG, DBA, DBM and Armati tournaments, in which participated over 3,000 wargaming fanatics. If that wasn't enough, there was more than 100 vendors selling their wares to fill your time and empty your wallet. Aah, the smell of lead in the morning - the smell of victory in miniatures.

So there I am in the middle of it all - games to the left of me, vendors to the right - but where to start? OK, my love of collecting got the best of me, so off to the vendors it was. The vendors were located both in the main hotel area and in the tennis barn, because their space requirements have outgrown the main vendor space. There was everything you could imagine, painted and unpainted terrain and figures, books, rules, and anything you could possibly want to advance your wargaming hobby! It was a buyers dream of paradise, and like many I fell prey to that overwhelming, sinking feeling, that ended with me removing cash, credit cards and checks from my pockets in exchange for all sorts of hobby stuff.

The vendors were professional and more than willing to talk to you about the latest and greatest rules sets, the newest figure ranges and remind you that you'll be the envy of all your wargaming buddies if you buy these products. OK, maybe it wasn't that bad, but I must say that at times it was like a feeding frenzy at some of the vendor booths! It's safe to say that well over $100,000 of hobby product exchanged hands.

In the case of "hot items" to buy this year, I visited with many of my vendor contacts to hear what they had to say about popular products. It would seem that the two top selling items were W.W.II 15mm vehicles/figures and 25mm American War Independence. The 15mm W.W.II has been going pretty well for the past year, so this was as expected, but the 25mm AWI was definite news to me. In conjunction with the 15mm W.W.II there were three new rules sets introduced at Historicon: Crossfire (Arty Conliffe), Battlegrounds WWII (Easy Eight Enterprises) and Clash of Armor // (Clash of Arms Games). W.W.II is definitely at an all time high right now!

On the rumors front, key people from two large miniatures manufacturers were seen meeting to discuss some future strategies. They were Bryan Ansel (formerly of Games Workshop fame) of The Foundry (Wargames & Guernsey Foundries) and Russ Dunaway of Old Glory Miniatures. Apparently their idea is that these organizations are going to have a bunch of their figures painted up by professional painters and begin having grudge matches. Foundry versus Old Glory is the concept. The idea being that the "best" figures will win and that these are the only two companies you should need to buy figures from. How's that for a marketing scheme?

On the gaming front, I must say that I was somewhat disappointed. Historicon had quantity, I'll give you that. As a matter of fact, everywhere you turned there was game of some sorts going on. It was the quality that I found somewhat discouraging. We here in the Northwest (West for that matter) put on a much higher quality of visual display in our games. Using ENFILADE '97 as an example, I would say that about 50% of the games run were of higher than average visual appeal and quality, whereas of the games at Historicon, only about 20% would reach that level, in my opinion. This truly amazed me. I used to live back East and I went to conventions and played in a number of games, and the focus always seemed more on playing the game than on putting on a good display.

Apparently this attitude toward gaming is still rampant in the East. I had thought that after 10 to 20 years of felt and chalk, and with the now more readily available quality terrain and figures, a change would have occurred in this mentality. I would have to say that I read this one wrong, and that I'm glad that I hang my wargame shingle in the West where putting on a visually appealing game is the standard not the exception.

Now for those of you from the East (or anyone else) I might be offending, please just understand that I'm giving my opinion on this. Besides, I will concede to the East that they do run the largest conventions, and that not nearly as many injuries or "deaths" occur from the WRG and DMA tournaments as it seemed they did in the past. Over-all, my hat's off to Historicon and the all the people involved in running and making it happen. I would definitely attend again!