John Marron Report

Convention Report

By John Marron

This year's HURRICON turned out to be a very enjoyable experience despite fears that the actual hurricane was going to wash us all out to sea. Registration on Friday ran smoothly (as usual) thanks to the Zizo ladies. Attendance, while seemingly down from RECON and last year's HURRICON, was better than I had expected. I had a fairly full slate of games to run, so didn't get to play in many other people's games. I did play a fast and enjoyable Civil War ironclads game on Saturday (using very nicely painted Thoroughbred ships, I believe), a very short but very fun Crossfire Spanish Civil War scenario (in which I had probably my best string of die rolls in years!), and many rounds of the humorous new card game of the French Revolution, "Guillotine" while hanging out at the Editions Brokaw booth.

I had mixed success with the games I ran. On Friday night I ran an 1859 Italian Unification game using modified "They Died for Glory" rules. I thought all the players played well, and the scenario is an interesting fight over numerous streams with rice fields in between them, posing some nice tactical problems. Unfortunately, the game room shut down at midnight, so we had to call the game early. This early closing of the gaming area was one of the very few negatives about this year's con. On Saturday my 1866 Austro-Prussian war scenario was lightly attended, and was probably too large a game to run at a con (c. 500 figs). My Sunday morning Crossfire game was also a lot of fun. The players took a while to get the hang of these very different WWII rules, but once they did, they showed lots of tactical sense, something these rules reward. The scenario played out well, and the players seemed to enjoy it (two went out and bought the rules afterwards).

The dealers present all had a decent selection of books, figures, paints, etc., although I noticed a few folks (Modeler's Mart, Wulf's HQ) didn't make the con, probably due to hurricane fears. I missed playing Duke Siegfried's Sudan game, but, like most folks probably were, I was impressed with the layout and sheer numbers of 25mm figures. Looked like the folks playing had fun, and the rules seemed simple enough to run such a massive multi-player game.

About the only other negative comment I have about the con was the fact that the air-conditioning was out in the main area (but thankfully not in the gaming room!) Overall, though, it was another well organized and run HMGS-South con, something I hope our chapter is developing a reputation for.

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