Little Wars - Day 2

 

Today's post will consist of a little short commentary about Little Wars 2023 and the rest will be the pictures that I took of other people's games. I will talk more about my Khartoum game in the third post.

So pull down the movie screen, dim the lights and enjoy the show.

The first game in the lineup is a 54mm La Haye Sainte skirmish level game hosted by Tod Kershner. In recent years Tod has gravitated to hosting games with 54mm plastic figures and I have to say that I've drawn a little bit of inspiration from him. I am hooked on gaming with 54mm figures. Large figures look good, they are inexpensive to buy if you go with plastic figures, and they seem easier to paint for me. Tod also ran a 54mm Three Musketeers game that looked very nifty. See the fourth picture below.

La Haye Sainte

French attempting to break down the gate of La Haye Sainte. The orange
things on the roof of one building indicate that the roof is on fire, or soon will be
after a certain number of hits or turns.

Close up shot of some 54mm British grenadiers at Waterloo.

Kershner's 54mm Three Musketeers game.

Next up is a huge Circus Maximus chariot race game. The scratch-built arena is superb beyond any words that I could use to describe it. The detail in the structure is amazing. Click on the pictures to see it close up.

The next category is WW2 and there were a fair number of games in this era. This is not surprising since WW2 is the most popular wargaming period, by a long shot, than any other historical period. This is based on the annual survey that one of the British hobby magazines does every year. There were three games that stood out in my mind, and I'm kicking myself for neglecting to take any pictures of the Guadalcanal war game. This game was running next to mine and I kept thinking that I could take some pictures at anytime, but I forgot. The terrain for the islands was very realistic beyond belief. There were two other games that I liked: one was a landing on a Japanese-held island in the Pacific theater of war. I think that the figures were 20mm. Again, some terrific and realistic terrain in this game. The other game that caught my eye took place in Normandy in 1944. Apparently the Germans had flooded a number of areas to impede the Allied advance. This was a very creative game.

WW2 Pacific island invasion. I really like this terrain.

WW2 in Normandy

WW1 Airplane Dogfight game, always a convention favorite.

I think that this was Trafalgar. I liked the larger size of these tall ships.

More Trafalgar from a different angle. I couldn't get very close to the table
to take a good close up of the ships, but trust me, the ships were very nice models.

The Extremely Wild West.

Nice looking Western Cowboy game. The buildings appear to be paper buildings (?) that were eye-catching. At least I thought it was a Western, but when I stopped by the game later, there were zombies or space aliens (I forget which one) roaming around the streets of Laredo. It looked like the players were having a lot of fun in this game.

Border Reivers

Scottish border reivers going on a cattle raid. The Scottish tower house is what grabbed my attention. It was apparently scratch-built.

Border Reivers game looked like fun.

I wish that I had a building like this. Alas, it was scratch built rather than
a commercial resin model. So it is not available in the market.

Rorke's Drift

I thought that this version of Rorke's Drift was one of the better looking games at the show. The game judge dressed up in the tunic of the 24th Regiment with foreign service helmet. Nice touch. His modeling skills were up to snuff too as he did a good job on the buildings and the Teddy Bear fur table mat.

The game judge looks the part.

Nice use of Teddy Bear fur ground cover.

Good looking terrain.

Nicely painted 28mm Zulus.

Other odds and ends:

I'm not sure what this game was, but I liked the desert game mat and the bits of terrain (palm trees and ruins).

I think that this might have been a Steampunk aeroneff game. I'm not sure why they used
a canopy to cover the table. It made the table a bit dark and hard to see. Maybe the canopy 
helped to reduce the noise of the convention hall.

And now for a teaser from one of my three Khartoum games. A full report on my games will be done in the third and final part of my Little Wars report.

Dervish prepare to scale the walls of Khartoum.

The Mahdi's army assembles for the attack.

ccc