Historicon 2017

This past weekend I attended the Historicon miniature wargaming show in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The largest of the three conventions run by HMGS East (that's the Historical Miniature Gaming Society), this show was one of the highlights of my year in grade school, but have not been a regular attendee of late, so when I was asked to run some more playtests for the Skirmish Sanging Platoon Plus game for my friends at the Phalanx Consortium, I was happy to oblige.

The set up for the Afghan War playtest of Operation Platoon Plus that I ran on Friday night

Friday night's playtest went rather smoothly. The game resulted in a pretty serious defeat for the British players, owing partly to some of my misunderstanding of the rules (I only received the current draft from the author the week before the show and hadn't had a chance to play through it myself), terribly unlucky dice throughout for the ISAF forces, and some flaws in the rules which need some more attention. We reached a stopping point after about two hours of play and had a great debrief sessions during which the players provided a lot of constructive criticism and suggestions for future draft that are making their way into an AAR that will be off to the author in New Zealand later this week.

Unfortunately, Saturday's playtest was not nearly as successful. A few hours before the game's start time, I discovered that the show organizers had double booked the table for my game and I was going to have to find another. Fortunately, they were able to squeeze me into another space, but made no formal announcement or posting about the switch. As a result, only one of the six players scheduled to take part showed up. So we ran through some of the basic mechanics and called it a day.

My original plan was to attend the show from Friday through Sunday and had signed up for a big War of 1812 game for Saturday night, but I wound up having to work Sunday, so I wasn't able to make it. This combined with my game mastering schedule meant I was unable to play a proper participation game, but still had a great time.

The highlight of my weekend was getting to demo the new(ish) rules from Firelock Games called Blood and Plunder. This game, covering the historical actions (not the Hollywood ones) of the golden age of piracy in the seventeenth-century Caribbean, has been taking the wargaming community by storm the past few months. The kickstarter for the base game (featuring the Spanish, English, French, and unaligned crews) was wildly successful last year and their current Kickstarter, for an expansion featuring the Dutch, native peoples, and minor European powers, funded in the first four hours (I've backed it for some Dutch and European units). I had purchased the rules previously but had yet to play and so hung out in their booth in the vendor area for a while until I got a chance to try a demo turn.

The demo table featuring some English privateers squaring off against Spanish militia

A sampling of the ships offered in the game

A quick shot of the naval rule demo

Though I didn't play long, I was really impressed. It is a simple, yet elegant game that will provide a lot of fun (and I might even be able to get my fiancee to play, too). My excitement over this game even inspired two of my purchases this weekend - a collection of battlefield debris that will be great for a Caribbean village, some sugar cane fields, and a collection of "pirate village" buildings from Old Glory Miniatures, but more on those later.

Overall, what most impressed me this weekend was the high volume of really high quality tables. Wandering around the gaming areas I found myself constantly marveling at talent and creativity put into some of these games. Here's a selection of some that caught my eye:

Canadian troops advancing in Sicily

A game depicting the epic 1809 battle between the French and the Austrians at Aspern-Essling

A French & Indian War game using Sash & Saber Casting's stunning 40mm figures

A beautiful table for a Battle of Point Pleasant game using the Muskets & Tomahawks rules

Another shot of Point Pleasant

Some scenic ambiance at the Point Pleasant game 

Another pirate game...a popular theme at the show

A well-designed table for the fantasy game Frostgrave

A view of a soon-to-be-released modular warehouse designed by my friend Chris

A Punic Wars game with some 54mm figures

A game called "Ben Franklin's War" - a sort of sci-fi American War of Independence game

A more convention American Revolution game - in this case, the Second Battle of Trenton

On top of the purchases for Blood & Plunder, I also picked up some more trees (and cookies) from "The Tree Girl," a talented and eager 11-year-old gamer, a new American Revolution board game, some magnet sheets to help store the new trees, and a new figure case.

Even with the disappointments of the playtests, it was a great show overall. It's always nice to catch up with old friends and to see what's new in the hobby.