On July 23-26 1998, I attended Historicon 1998 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with Andy Hurt and Scott Jackson. The three of us were not the only HMGS Mid-South members in attendance for Major Bill, Bob Moon and Rick O'Brien were also in attendance. The three of us had a greater task than just attending and spending money, for in a moment of great delirium, I volunteered to write up a review of the convention that Major Bill could put in the newsletter. I also, in another moment, told Andy and Scott that they could share my room reservation. Little did they know that besides paying for their shares of the room that I would be recruiting them to aid me in my write-up. I was already a seasoned veteran of three previous Historicons but Andy and Scott were at their first and so they looked to me when they had questions, like I had the answers.
I arrived Wednesday night after the fun 12-hour drive from Nashville to the Holiday Inn Lancaster Host Resort. Andy and Scott were waiting for me because they had flown in earlier in the day and the hotel wouldn't let them in the room without me. The hotel ran us about a $100 a night with a cot, while a little more expensive than some of the nearby motels I believe that it was worth it because of the shared cost and the nearness between my room and the gaming areas. Last year, gaming began on Wednesday and the advertisements for this year's Historicon mentioned that the convention would begin on July 22, also a Wednesday. This was not to be as for some still unknown reason the convention's start was pushed back to Thursday, giving it the same length as Cold Wars in the Spring. This was one of my two major disappointments; the other being the number of canceled games.
One result of this change was that if you possessed a copy of Risk. Shogun, History of the World, or some other board game, you could have charged serious money for admission to the game and even more money to kibbutz. The reason for this is that the lobby and bar of the hotel was full of gamers looking bored. the only saving grace was that the dealer area had no concept of security on either Wednesday night or Thursday, morning until almost an hour before the scheduled opening at noon.
My roommates and I, as well as many others, were free to wander the dealer area, comment on what was being offered, and even put down bids or otherwise purchase items. This year the locations of the dealer area and, the flea market/ ancients area were switched with the dealer area being delegated to the tennis barn and the flea market/. ancients area delegated to the big room at the hotel's entrance. I had a cover story prepared but didn't need it, I had to deliver some of Fat Cat's 20mm WWII figures, the old Combat line, to Bernie at Emperor's Headquarters.
Games started at noon on Thursday with sign-up that morning. You could only sign-up for one gamo a day, but you could always jump into other games if there was space and th ' at's what we did most of the weekend. A number of games were cancelled, including games specially sponsored by The Courier; this pissed me off and infuriated Scott. On Thursday, I signed up for a They Died for Glory, Franco-Prussian War game recreating the Battle of Gravelotte in 25mm with over 4000 figures, on the board, I volunteered to play on the French side and quickly realized two things: one, that Prussian Krupp artillery really sucks when you are French, and two, facing Prussian Guard Divisions with regular French troops also sucks.
The battle followed the historical outcome as the Prussians blew away the French artillery but were unable to push the French out of the town or off the high ground. There were some delicate moments as a Prussian commander ignored an opportunity to reoccupy a village victory condition on the edge of his command area to support his own attack and as a French Cuirassier charge cleared to open high ground between the town and village of Prussian Infantry. All in all, the French commanders were amazed to hold the field and the gaming group announced that the French won the scenario in play testing, despite having been ready as a group to resign in turn one.
On Thursday, Andy and Scott checked out a Fornovo 15mm game as well as the Age of Gunpowder Turkish Revengq game in 25mm. Both looked good but Andy and Scott made me aware of a major gripe for them, the battles weren't really balanced and the outcome was usually obvious beforehand. I never had this problem and I guess it depends on what games you are signing up for and who is running them. Having been to a few Historicons, I look to play games run by people I know like John Stanoch of the Blue Sky series of WWII flying rules and Mark Campbell of the Close Action rules for Age of Sail ship combat.
By Friday, I had picked a number of 25mm French Napoleonics and was looking for a game to try them out. I managed to squeeze into a Peninsula Skirmish game called A Small Town in Eastern Spain using the First in the Field rules and featuring a small French garrison trying to hold off hordes of Spanish guerillas.
To make matters worse. half of the French were in the cantina drinking when the Spanish attacked and had to fight their way back to the I ort, a converted ruined church. Naturally, I played the French and ended up being the Voltiguer Corporal drinking in the cantina. The French heroically overcame the odds and defeated the Spanish through their superior discipline and training as well as the faulty gunpowder and clumsiness of the guerillas. At the end of the battle, the French, ably led by their corporal, held the field although their lieutenant, among others, was wounded. The Spanish were tough warriors, if inept; on was shot by a French cannon and was only slightly wounded in the leg. In the end. the Spanish were either all dead or seriously wounded.
Friday was when Andy and Scott tried to play Duke Siefried's massive Aztec game run in the downstairs foyer on both Friday and Saturday. The problem was that everyone else wanted to play. Andy went off to play in a Spanish Colonial game featuring Philippine guerillas, but Scott stayed to watch Aztec. They both reiterated their earlier comments on balance.
Later that night was the massive Primosole Bridge scenario, set over three events and over two days to recreate the Falischirmiager and Red Devil jump on the same bridge in Sicily. The game was set up with multiple drop points and each player got a ten man squad but didn't know which nationality he was or what the squad landing next to him was, but he did have an individual mission to carry out. What resulted was some players organizing their squads and rushing off to objectives while others chased the next squad down to try and find who was who. I landed on the north side of the bridge with the mission of controlling the approaches to the bridge from the north.
One of my lads died during the drop and the nearest squad fled from me. I later discovered that I was a Red Devil and with other squads held off a Fallschirmjager platoon attack with engineers while the other squads held off another platoon attack with Italian support. By the end of battle one, the Red Devils held on in the North and had pinned some Falischirmiagers in crossfire on the bridge in the South. We used the BAPS rule and for a Beer and Pretzel set of rules, six pages seemed a lot.
Saturday was Andy and Scott's last game day as they were leaving the next morning and they played some Boxer Rebellion, Texan War of Independence and French Foreign Legion in North Africa. I played during the day one of Mark Campbell's Close Action Monster Games with nearly 30 players each in command of his own ship and unable to conspire with the commanders around him regarding moves. I really like this form of game because it recreates ship battles without some of the unreality that comes into wargames, for example when two players are fighting fleets against each other and every ship is always perfectly located. The scenario was the French against the English off India during the American Revolution and I am sad to say that my luck with the French did not hold out. The English held the oceans and Rule Britannia was heard across the waves.
Saturday night, I played in John Stanoch's new Taranto scenario and had a blast. We heard period music, had a mission briefing, had to take off from an aircraft carrier and had to attack at night with strobe lights leading the way. I managed to torpedo my target and slip out of the harbor, but my bad luck continued and my plane went down after colliding with another plane while trying to land. I managed to jump to safety on the other plane's tail but alas we went down as well.
Sunday was the opportunity for last purchases and last games, I bought a number of nice Foundry Romans and played a second Close Action Monster Game. This time the scenario was 1825 Americans against the British and I was an American Captain. For the Monster Games, we play on a large floor matte with hexes on it and with 1/1200-scale ships. When I had to leave at three, the Americans didn't appear to be able to overcome the British advantage in wood and numbers but gave them a sound drubbing nevertheless. I was unable to stay to the end because the twelve-hour drive back to Nashville was calling me.
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this year's Historicon. There were some disappointments but none of a level that ruined the convention for me. Both Andy and Scott were somewhat disappointed for they came expecting something that would dwarf Nashcon in both scale and majesty. While Historicon was certainly bigger than Nashcon, one has to realize that the majesty of the games is dictated solely by the effort the people running them put into them. Duke Siefried's Aztec game was majestic in scale but was unbalanced in set-up and playability was affected because both the Aztecs and Spain's Indian Allies appeared the sa me leading to confusion. Peter Panzeri's massive Little Big Horn scenario was great but was also at Nashcon. Andy and Scott came to the conclusion that Historicon was great if you were shopping for more dealers were there than anywhere else they had been and that is one of the reasons I go. But another reason is some of the games run by the guys who wrote the rules that I can't play elsewhere to the same level.
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