I had dinner with Steve Phenow, editor of Strategikon -- a magazine about the pre-gunpowder era, but concentrating on ancients. Steve, in addition to running the Armati tournament, is a heckuva interesting fellow to talk to. The magazine has four issues out, but has been on hiatus as Steve attends to a variety of projects. The next issue will be exclusively on Peltasts--Steve's decided to do issues centering around a single topic and see how that works.

Pat Condray (foreground), editor of Armchair General, and Steve Phenow (background), editor of Strategikon, peer intently at miniatures at the Rampant Lion booth.

What was funny is that last year, we found an Italian restaurant away from the show by accident. Another Italian restaurant I enjoyed had closed, and helpful folks gave us directions...and we promptly got lost amid cornfields. Well, we eventually found *an* Italian restaurant--nothing fancy, but rather good food and altogether serviceable, if a bit far away. The key memory was that when we ordered, the kitchen caught fire! It was put out quickly, but I remember us looking at the smoke and looking towards the exits.

Anyway, Steve and I decided to track that place down. I remembered part of the way, but we eventually came to a "T" intersection and that was about the end of my knowledge. He looked across the street and saw a sign for Conestoga River--and said, "I remember passing that--we though the name was odd. Turn left." Sure enough, we came to the restaurant. The owner didn't exactly remember us, but when we mentioned his mishap, he remembered that. I took the entire MagWeb team back there Saturday night as well.

Phil Viverito offered four huge setups. When I stopped by, I watched the assault of Tyre for a bit. I was tired by that time, so I didn't stay long, but the walls were breached and troops were storming in. It looked bad for the Tyreans. He won a fourth place trophy for his "theme" games as well as a certificate of appreciation from HMGS.

Vince of the London War Room won best of show for his Walls of Constantinople work. He does truly impressive work and always with a flair for wit and humor.

Terry Gore of Saga and Sabretache magazines, and a growing variety of rules sets, was in his own room. I was tempted to play one of his games Saturday night, but had promised myself elsewhere. I think he ran 22 games at the show, plus tournaments.

Larry Bond, editor of Naval SitRep from Clash of Arms and author of Harpoon and many other naval warfare rules sets from WWI to modern era, stopped by the booth. With a gleam in his eye, he grabbed the battleax and prepared to smite the computer for not showing his magazine. Quickly, I pulled up the latest issue on the monitor to show him that yes, indeed, Naval SitRep was up and running on MagWeb.com. Assured, he replaced the ax and walked away with a smile.

Tales of Tolkien

Duke Siegfried was the featured fellow up in the lobby with four, count 'em four, Lord of the Rings games, each about 10 feet long by 5-6' wide. One had a working volcano (Mt. Doom) that had the hotel staff nervous. The hotel remains intact, by the way. Let's see, Mt. Doom was one, Minas Tirith another, Helm's Deep a third, and, and, and...hmmm...forgot the fourth.

That's not exactly Renaissance or Ottomans. I did hear some grumbling along the lines of: "what's a fantasy game doing in a historical convention?" It got louder when the local paper ran a big story about the convention and most of the article dealt with Duke and LOTR--as if historicals were not present at all. Incidently, the TV News (channel 8) piece that aired Saturday night did a better job at portraying the convention in historical light, but the timing of a Saturday night airing is not ideal--better a Friday night airing, but you get what you can.

So it comes back to the fantasy vs. historicals battle. I saw other fantasy games -- another Helm's Deep, a Teddy Bears Save the World, and the increasingly popular G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Victorian era steam-punk games. I admit I am guilty of playing a sci-fi/fantasy game or two at Historicons past.

The other Helm's Deep, located in the theater. It won a certificate for excellence.

As long as historicals dominate, and by dominate I mean 95% or more, I have no problems at all with putting some non-Games Workshop "other type" games as a way of placating kids (especially gray-haired kids), and especially if someone of Duke's history--who has done enough historical based extravaganzas in past years--wants to put on a few LOTR games. Heck, he had Frank Chadwick as an umpire. Judging by flea market sales, and some of the dealer displays, sci-fi/fantasy has a following within HMGS membership.

Fernandes to the Rescue

John Fernandes, who wrote the GHQ WWII Microarmor rules and has a modern version coming out later this year, gets a prize for action. I heard this story later at night when he sat down to kibbitz for a bit. He ran several games on his large custom-made terrain table outside the ballroom, and next to the food stand. A, ahem, thoughtless fellow plunked down his keister on a chair and put a container holding a dripping chili-dog on top of his terrain. John watched in slow motion horror as said fellow started to raise the chili-dog out of the container and over the nice rolling terrain. John quickly moved and, ahem, moved container, dog, and thoughtless fellow away from his table. The fellow bellowed, "Whatcha do that for?" at which point John pointed out that hundreds of hours went into building that terrain, not to mention the cost, and he'd be damned if he would let someone drip chili dog goo onto it.

We all know how crowded it can get, and you've seen enough accidents started by an inopportune bump. Perhaps it's good to remember that when at a convention, especially around food, to pay just a little extra attention to situation and circumstance. Now, I only heard John's side to this story, and I didn't see it, and I certainly would not want to have chili goo dripped on my hand-crafted terrain, but I also would offer one point -- I don't recall seeing anywhere to sit at the food stand. You make your purchase, and...well, that's it. Adding tables would create even more of a traffic jam. Maybe there needs to be one less gaming table, and have it an eating table?

Still, think twice about sitting at a gaming table with dripping-type food.

John is also the guy who awarded a couple of pre-teen kids some T-shirt prizes because they were not only patient enough to sit and play, but they were polite, too. He led a round of applause from the table. He said the kids got red-faced from the attention, but it's good to re-inforce good behaviour.

One more John story...

He's in one of the bathrooms when he hears a crash behind him in one of the stalls. "It sounded like someone dropped a safe down 20 stories," he recalled. So John said, "Hey, bro. You all right in there?"

"Yeah, I got my foot caught in the wastepaper basket," came the reply.

"Why is there wastepaper basket in the bathroom stall?" John asked.

"I meant my foot's in the toilet bowl."

"How the hell did your foot end up in the bowl?"

"I was trying to flush the toilet with my foot and slipped."

Back to less dramatic fare....

I saw Mark Campbell for a moment. He was running another Close Action spectacular. I recall seeing a book of scenarios available from Clash of Arms recently, although I'm not suere when exactly it came out...this year, I believe.

I sat in the bar for a bit with Jean and Leona Lochet and Marc Raiff -- EE&L dynamic trio. Jean was giving yet another of his fabulous lectures about the Napoleonic period. I have a box full of his old lectures from conventions past. They have to be scanned, but they'll find their way into a new issue of EE&L and thus unto MagWeb.com. Jean and Leona are looking quite well, hitting the gym and losing a little weight. Marc was losing his voice.

Perry Gray stopped by the booth. I remember his roving reports in Saga from years ago when he was stationed in the Mediterranean. He's doing a good job with Sabretache and I told him I enjoyed his travel articles. More are coming, he assured me, in future issues of Sabretache.

Rudy Scott Nelson handed me the latest issues of Time Portal Passages magazine. He packs a heckuva lot of research into each one, often on very obscure subjects. It's not fancy, but it certainly carries more than its weight in information.

Steve Rawlings, publisher of Against the Odds magazine, now has his fourth issue with a game out, with two more just about done and ready to go. I look forward to each issue.

Duncan McFarlane came from the UK to cover the show. He stopped by the booth and we chatted a bit. I learned he had produced another magazine called Wargames World (don't quote me on that title, my memory can be faulty) way back when. I believe he said it lasted 5 issues. Quite different the other time around, eh?

Dick Bryant and the Courier had its usual plethora of gaming--56 games was the number as I recall. I wandered through a couple of times and there seemed to be quite the crowd. A new issue, 88, arrived in time for the show.

The fickle finger of fate points to Courier publisher and editor Dick Bryant and says, "You da man!"

Mark, MagWeb.com member #1, stopped by to say hello and tell me an interesting little tale of how miniatures helped him at work. It seems he's in charge of a huge project and it came down to selecting color combinations inside the facility. Well, the folks were having a bit of trouble figuring out complimentary colors, when he stepped in and suggested particular combinations that seemed to work. Why? Because as a painter of figures for many years, he's figured out which combinations work well and which do not.

Allen, MagWeb.com member #2, also stopped by the booth to chat. The best part about the convention is meeting up with friends from far away and meeting new folks as well. Other members also came by the booth, but I am afraid I don't remember their numbers.

A fellow stopped by our booth and asked in a UK accent, "why do you have a Welsh flag?" That took me a bit by surprise as most folks asked about the weapons, or "cutlery" as I took to calling the three medieval weapons. In any case, I answered, "Because...it looks good," which is exactly why I used the flag as a backdrop. Evidently the dragon on a field of green and white is associated with Wales. We then spoke about Wales a bit, for I had visited the southern area back in 1997, and wanted to head up north the next time I was in the area.

Marc Raiff of EE&L and MWANer Dave Mills stopped by to chat. Dave is always after me to write something about the informal group that meets once a month at his house to wargame. There, never let it be said that I didn't write something about it. I won't reveal the secret handshake we have to use to enter the Fortress of Dave, but I will tell you a secret: we don't attend Dave-games to study history or socialize or even just to throw dice. We attend to see who can make Dave laugh and/or curse the most. Just don't tell Dave.

Dave (left) and Mark (right) strike a pose guaranteed to drive away friendly and evil spirits.

There's a photo I took of Dave and Marc that makes them look as fierce as rabid hamsters. The real reason why they have such big smiles on their faces is because Dave was trying to figure out how to look cool with the sword. He tried a half dozen poses, constantly telling me not to shoot just yet until he got it just right.

Note: No convention goers were injured in the making of this picture from Sir Dave's dexterity.

More Historicon 2003

Introduction
Dealer Area
The Vince Show: Apache Longbow Pilot Back from Iraq
Flea Market
Hanging Around and A Sample of Conversations
Renaissance Fair and Flair
Painting Competition (monstrously slow: 736K)
Conclusion

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