Historicon Pix: The Other Games

 

Lee and his staff are looking at some of the other games at Historicon this year.
General Hood: "that's a great looking game over there on the right."
Longstreet: "come on Sam, would you stop it with all of the let's go around the right business!"
Lee: "Gentlemen, in the center we will find the best looking games. General Pickett, you must go and set up your game."
Pickett: "General Lee, I have no more games"

Part Two of my Historicon pictures focuses on games other than my Pickett's Charge game.

In most cases I do not know the name of the game judge, so I'm just posting the pictures for your viewing pleasure. There were a lot of nice looking games this year and I only wish that I had more time to go wandering through some of the other game areas.

A giant scratch built Circus Maximus for Roman chariot races.

Huge Medieval Korea game that is actually broken down into a series of smaller one on one
games. I believe that the game judge stated that he had nearly 80 players in his games over
the course of the convention. This has been a very popular game over the past three years.

Tournament style games were set up next to the Dealer Area

A nice looking WW2 Normandy game set up near my game table.

ACW game by Gettysburg Soldiers was set up in the dealer area as part
of their booth, to accommodate drop in players.

A number of role playing style games were set up in the hallways.

WW2 Pacific Theater navy game. I think that it was based on the old
"you sunk my battleship game."

Viking raid on Saxon England

Best Theme Game (in my opinion)

One of my favorite games was this What A Cowboy game featuring the Lardie rules. What makes this game special is that it was a game within a game. One part of the table was the Warner Brothers movie studio, complete with large sound stage buildings and a high water tower that had the Warner Bros. logo on it.

They had a director and camera crew roaming the western cowboy set on the Warner's studio back lot as they filmed their movie. Then they had the actual western cowboy game being played as a game with the What A Cowboy rules.

The Historicon convention "theme" for games was Hollywood At War so there were lots of games based on our favorite war movies such as Zulu, Ben Hur, The Longest Day, Apocalypse Now, etc. However, these guys got creative and literally set up their game as a Hollywood movie being filmed in progress, but played as a war game. Brilliant idea. This would get my vote for Best Theme Game, for sure.

The Warners' sound stages and studios

The movie set or is it the actual war game? You decide.

An overhead view of the entire layout.

Other Games 

Sharpe Practice game set in Napoleonc Spain, hosted by Lard America.

WW1 game

What A Tanker game set in North Africa WW2

What A Tanker Game

Best Terrain ( in my opinion)

Doug Fisher is a master when it comes to making war game terrain. His games always dazzle and this year I think that he outdid himself. The game was Toulon 1813 and the French navy is trying to escape their home harbour at Toulon in France. The British navy is attempting to stop them from escaping. The game won a PELA award and should be right up there in the running for either Best of Show or Best Terrain.

The Toulon harbor and coast line. Lots of miniature buildings and forts scattered
across this realistic looking terrain.

Close up view of Toulon. This model looks like a diorama that you might see in a museum.

One of many forts protecting the harbor.

Part of the harbor terrain. Nice work on the water effects.

The game was played on two tables. One table was largely the city and the harbor,
while the other table was the open sea where the action took place.

Vietnam Game

I watched this game being set up and my eyes immediately locked onto these superb building models. The river was also full of activity with lots of boats. This was a good looking game and probably it wa a lot of fun to play.

The Dealer Area

There

One of the four such aisles in the Dealer Area

The ever popular fill up a Chinese food container with as many MDF bases as you can fit into it.

Miniature Building Authority display at their booth.

I didn't catch the name of this dealer, but he was selling 3D printed terrain.

A view of various booths.

The ones that got away. I really really really really wanted to buy these.

A huge plastic container cargo vessel that is very impressive.

Miniature Building Authority Spanish buildings. I believe these are 3D
printed in a variety of scales and sizes.

Impressive looking pagoda

More buildings from Miniature Building Authority

These look like 3D printed models.

So there you have: Historicon 2024 was another success and the HMGS organization did a magnificent job of running the convention and doing a lot of behind the scenes work.