I think Historicon was the best HMGS East event I have attended. There has been a lot of whining on the Internet about various issues, but my measures of success for the con are these: lots of dealers with good breadth and depth lots of games with good breadth and depth lots of players many sexy games that give us all something to shoot for minimum administrative crap to distract from the others All other issues are either beyond the organizer's control or ancilary to the convention. For instance, there is no way the organizers can control the quality of the "deals" in the flea market area. I suspsect that this is mostly related to what you are looking for. Dave Wood only found $850 worth of 25mm Napoloenics at $0.50 each, so no bargains there. The HMGS election bruhaha is again ancilary to the success of the con. Personally, I have enough to give me an ulcer looking at the news and how the government no longer represents the people without worrying about penny-ante, chicken-@#$%@$%, club politics. As for the dealer area, how could you actually complain that it wasn't as good as past years?! I think there is a need for a little perspective here. Think of the way things were even five years ago and take a chill pill. Yes there were typos in the PEL. Yes some GM's didn't show up. So @#$%@#$5 what?! JT and the crew over the past few conventions has managed to get more than four lumens into the Distlefink room, get the air conditioner punched up a bit, and support "club rooms." Is there room for improvement? When there's no room for improvement, crawl under a rock and die. Now, off the soap box and on with the AAR. After a 26-hour road trip, the Aggie Expeditionary Force (AEF), including one HAWK in exile (me) arrived Wednesday night at the Host. This gave us time to sleep off the effects of the drive and be ready for serious sleep deprivation beginning on Thursday. (On Thursday we were joined by another Texan, Jeff, who shared the room with us.) I started by shopping off a long list I had brought Thursday when the dealer area openend at noon. Then I set up and ran Molino del Rey (25mm Mexican American War) Thursday afternoon. The game went well, with a pretty convincing U.S. victory. The game had filled in pre-reg, and all the gamers showed up. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and many said they were headed down to the dealer area to get the rules. I had prearranged with Eric Burgess to play in a Piquet WWI (Barrage) game Thursday night. It was a Russian Civil War game. We had a great time, and I am pretty sure that I will buy these rules when they are released, even though I am not a Piquet zealot. It worked well, and Eric has done nice work in writing the WWI supplement. By the way, I was on the losing side, but had fun anyway. Friday morning, I set up (with Eric Schlegel's help) the FIW version of Schlegel's Ferry. The HAWKS militia, defending the stockade and the tavern did a great job of fighting off the Indians as British Regulars and militia marched to their aid. Since the British seemed in no real hurry to rescue the defenders (really dismal movement rolls), the HAWKS were wiped out to a man. When the British did arrive, they got involved in a fire fight with the French reglars, with poor Efrum Schlegel standing between them. At one point the Indians sought cover in the church. Then the provisionals burned the church around them, doing the Indians' work for them, hoping to drive them back out into the open. In the end, the French and Indians won a resounding victory, but all the playes had a good time. (I think we sold a bunch of rules for H.G. Walls.) I spend the afternoon wandering around the dealer area, looking at all the really beautiful games, and just relaxing. The HAWKS were supposed to provide some input into the best-of-show awards, so this made me actually look at everything that was going on. Amazing stuff! Things that stick out in my mind were: A British colonial game (using Colonial Glory rules) which was really nice. Bob Moon's (typically) beautiful American Revoulition game was wonderful. I regret not having a chance to try out the rules he has written. A four-deck, 49-inch long paddle boat that came apart for a Cowboy shoot-em-up. Bob Marshall's Hurray for Captain Spalding, Darkest Africa game. I watch Captain Spalding get gored by a white rhino, captured by slavers, and sold into bondage in about a half an hour. Chris Hughes' AWI game. This was really amazing terrain, done by a pro. The series of pirate games run by John Lundberg. Wow! He had several ships and extensive terrain. And the big winner in my book: The Arnhem game using Rapid Fire rules. The table was about 8 feet by 6 feet, and the Arnhem bridge was at least five feet long. The terrain details included a toilet and toilet paper on a roll visible in one of the rubbled buildings and some really clever signs on the businesses. Friday evening I ran my Moro game. This was the only game I ran all convention that didn't fill, but we had a good time anyway. Unlike in the play test, the Moros lost. This was largely due to amazingly dismal die rolling by the Moros, who were defeated by the peasants defending their village. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and four of the players bought copies of the rules. Friday night I played in Jamie Davis' pod race game and had a ball. Despite one kid who wanted to run my pod for me, everyone had fun, caught on to the rules quickly, and went for blood! I was doing well until someone tossed a wrench into my engines, causing a flame out. By the time the engines started, I was in last place. I tried to catch up by jumping a ramp over a cliff, but only managed to create a fiery wreck across the landscape. The way Jamie uses the combination of grav generator points, pilot skill, and speed to control turn rate is positivley brilliant, and all the other details (including very nice terrain) just added to the experience. Saturday morning I wandered around a bit then set up the final running of Molino del Rey. I have to admit that I was not looking forward to running my fourth game of the con. The group of gamers was a good bunch, and the game was very fun to run and watch. Some incidents of note: at one point the Mexican cavalry was charging into the flank of three U.S. columns from about 20 inches away. They got to roll five dice plus 10 inches, and they rolled 1, 1, 1, 1, and 2, pulling up short, where they were deicmated by musketry and cannon fire. By the end of the game, the Mexicans were advancing out of the Molino. A U.S. 8-lb. battery fired cannister into the face of Mexican infantry charge, rolling two ones (low on ammo, complete misses) and another roll that netted one straggler and one casualty -- amazing results for grape shot. Everyone had a good time, and spirits were high. Saturday evening Brian (one of the AEF folks) and I played the Cardinals Guard in an aesthetically pleasing 54mm Three Musketeers game. It was humiliating. Brian and I were the lord adiral high priests of cold dice. Even when I was shoving a sword into the back of a half drunk, prone, stunned Porthos, I didn't inflict a single wound -- but I was apparently a good target. Brian manage to inflict one wound one someone (an unarmed, blind, cripled woman, I think) before he was best by three musketeers and force to surrender. Fun game, with a good GM, but we got smucked and wandered around that night looking at other games. Sunday morning, I ran a quick Blood and Swash game for eight players, mostly HAWKS. It was a good time, as four people made mad dashes to carry the treasure chest out the tavern. There were thrown mugs, pulled rugs (with five pirates standing on it!), rolled barrels, musketry, and sword play a plenty. Chris Palmer has made a couple of suggestions that will help the rules some. In addition, on our long car ride back we had time to talk about lots of stuff, and we came up with simplifications to Blood and Swash as well as Beer and Pretzels Ironclads. One of my definitions of success of a convention are sexy games that inspire. Jamie Davis ran a wonderful France 44 hedgerow game that got me all pumped up. Jamie and I are talking about combining our stuff to make BAPS Extravaganza 6 for Historicon 2001 (St. Nazaire will be 5 in 2000). I bought some of the things I will need to make the game happen, and I am going to get started on it this weekend, building my own hedgerows, etc. Jon Lundberg's pirate games also got me excited, as did Bob Marshall's darkest Africa game. Personally, the convention was a chance to get back together with old friends, including Nick Cirocco, whom I had not seen in five or six years, Sam Fuson, who had PCS'd from Ft. Knox and disappeard from the radar screen, Dave Wood, all the HAWKS, Al Slisinger, Bob Moon, and others. As far as the rest of the AEF is concenred, Brian Cantwell ran a WWI aircraft game with Hostile Aircraft invovling six Sopwith Camels trying to bomb the Trondheim Zeppelin sheds. He also ran a really interesting WWII Spearhead game with his heavily modified (for the better) rules. Mike Miller ran a Beer and Pretzels Ironclads game that looked like a lot of fun. In fact several people asked for copies of the rules afterward. Mike also ran a Saturday morning WWI BAPS Western Front game that had only a few players. Still, the people he had looked like they had a great time. Historicon was a resounding success in my book, and we are talking about an AEF for Cold Wars 2000. Since I don't do much direct sale of rules any more (SAR and BAPS were available at a number of dealers' booths), I don't know if I attending the con helped sell rules or not. All in all it was a great time. On the way back, we stopped to see my parents in West Virginia and glom a dinner out of them before continuing the long trek back to Texas. Historicon is like Wisconsin, you get in, you get out, no big deal. No tickets, no injuries, lots of new toys. Success. Back to Dispatch Aug. 99 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com